'Strayan

At work's happy hour on Friday I got to meet the lovely family of the partner here who got me the job. His wife is very nice and we spent a long time talking. She asked me how my Australian ('Strayan') is coming, and I told her pretty good! In light of that, some anecdotes:

At book group on Thursday, in addition to mispronouncing the bookstore name, I also was trying to spell Carlos Ruiz Zafon's second name to Meg. She kept spelling it "Louis," partly because she couldn't hear me very well and partly, it turned out when another girl "translated" for us, because I kept saying the last letter as "zee" instead of "zed." When they say "zee," I can suddenly hear how it sounds funny - mostly because they giggle as they say it!

Vocabulary lesson

"Chase up" (as opposed to chase down - must be the whole south-of-the-equator thing - also means "follow up on") Ex. I'd like you to chase up an answer to this question.

"Bogan" - white trash. Also Bevin (though that has more of a car-obsession element, I'm told) - this also made the recent election of Kevin Rudd intensely amusing to some, due to the rhyming factor.

Unrelatedly, I have also been asked my opinion on all the election hoopla, often by people I barely know just because they know I'm American, and have given more crash courses in US election procedure than I care to count. Dan the Hungarian asked me why we were having an election now and one in November; that was a fun one. I have found it confuses people to no end that, even if I had a ballot, it wouldn't matter if I voted because of the Democratic response to Michigan's primary. It is a very interesting time to be here - having been here for the Australian election and getting a crash couse in their system, and now having the tables turned.

The house is in a bit of an uproar right now - we roasted Bunya nuts (Alex brought home an entire "cone" and it was quite a project - I took some photos which will be up as soon as my battery charges...) and people kept dropping in: Mark, Chris (who lives here and from whom Dan is subletting, so we're not quite sure how that'll shake out), Joe and his cousin, Ray's girlfriend Greta, and we're all making plans for our camping trip over 'Straya Day (Jan 26). I'm going to go rejoin the "bogan/bevin" discussion I sparked and eat some more Bunya nuts!