Thursday, June 29

Not a sausage

I've been teaching my office mate Vince (from Guam) some Australianisms. Mostly because they're things that I say in passing and then have to explain. You realise how weird some of them are when you have to try and explain what they mean and how to use them. For example: not half or pear shaped or my favorite not a sausage (Vince always mucks it up and says 'no sausages' which just doesn't have the same effect). I haven't even tried to explain 'fair suck of the sav'!! I wouldn't know where to start...

Work is flat out at the moment. We've just started to hit a whole range of grant deadlines and we've also had a major shift in the upper echelon politics (for the better) which means everyone has pulled their finger out and is getting stuck into it. I'm working on some great stuff at the moment, and exploring a range of new bioinformatics tool for building and making sense of networks between lists of genes. Neat.

But yay for 5:30 on a payday :) I'm off to the supermarket to get some stuff for bolognase. I have a craving ^_^

But before I go... Happy Birthday Rinnie! Have a lovely day and I'll be thinking of you! As for the rest of you, keep in touch, it's lonely here *insert the sound of tiny fiddles*

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's amazing how our understanding of language can differ from culture to culture. Chris had a hard time understanding what "tickets on yourself" meant. Hmmm. Now that I look at that, it doesn't really make sense anyway :P

We're seriously thinking about trying to get over to the USA in late 06/early 07. Esty and Annette have already made all sorts of plans for us (Disney, snow fun etc). Hopefully we'll be able to do more holiday stuff this time. It's likely that we'll be flying straight to Florida (Oh glorious warm weather! My fingers are nearly frozen as I type today) but we're hoping we can make a detour to Texas either on the way or the way back. At the moment, we're thinking January 2007 for about three weeks. Our neighbours left for Maine yesterday (second trip this year - lucky!) so I'm getting really itchy to travel again.

Hope work keeps on being challenging and exciting for you. Speaking of work, I've got a deadline to meet so I better get back to the grindstone. Sending big hugs, B & C xxx

PS> We're up to Season Seven in BTVS - nearly done!

Jac said...

I didn't even realise there were seven seasons!

You guys are welcome anytime :)

Goodluck with the deadline. I'm watching the simpsons then heading to bed.

Anonymous said...

Try him with "Don't come the raw prawn with me, mate". And when you have, you can explain to >me< what the derivation is!

It's good to be able to be public about Jo's thesis. What a clever girl!

And I've had my hearing aids fitted. I seem to be living in a large pipe at the moment, but I have a "tuning" appointment tomorrow.

My deadlines involve next semester's lab manuals. Pretty dull.

Jac said...

Hey BigA, I did get to use the raw prawn today (thanks for reminding me!) but I forget now what we were talking about at the time! There's a good discussion of the derivation and usage here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/20/messages/809.html

I like the falconry terms too! Never would have picked chaperone.

I hope the tuning goes well. Must take a bit of getting used to, but I hope they work out well when all the adjustment is done. I wonder if a babel fish would work as a hearing aid, because they take the sound in and give you brainwaves, yeah? I forget. There's a good genetic engineeering prac for the students :)