walk like an egyptian or talk like an australian

well well well. i think i am going to run you through a few of the MANY differences between australian english and american english. a lot of these differences are not just a result of the accent because i am convinced that either we say the word completely wrong or they do...but both of us are not right and thats a fact.

i have previously enlightened you on the wonderful world of alu-minimum and sayings such as "good on ya" or "how ya goin" and "its aright". however, what i am getting ready to let you in on is some top notch stuff. so, according to the aussies, there is no "L" in australia. the country is not pronounced austraL-eeee-a, rather austra-ya. where the "y" came from, i have no idea but thats the name of their country...and don't you try and convince them different. i'm sure all of you know the Melbourne is not prounounced Mel- Bourne but rather Mel-bin. there is no "r" there is no "orn"...just a random "bin" at the end.

recently when any of my professors say anything remotely different i have been jotting it down in my notebook so i don't forget the pronunciation. so here are a few of those darling words that are honestly...phonetically ...completely incorrect. kristen actually brought this word to my attention but it wasn't until i heard my genetics professor say it that i fully gained the appreciation of what she was talking about. so my genetics professor (who i really like, by the way) was talking about "phages" is class the other day except she didn't pronounce it as we would...ph-aaaaa-ge. but rather, she made me hungry because she prounounced the word equivalent to our word "fudge". where do you get fudge out of "phage" i have no idea. amusing, nonetheless. the other day in genetics (not to pick on my professor), she was talking about skeletal muscles. except, the word she said was not skeletal. it was "ske-leeee-tal". um, yea. and "liver" (yes, the part of your body) is "liiiiiiiiiiiiver". i think that word, however, is more so how they emphasize their "i". that i believe is part of their accent...so i'll give her that one.

alright, so the next one is not an accent thing but rather just a different word. so, we have "questions"...but they have "queeries". interesting, huh? another thing that is not a word thing, but it really throws me off...is the whole interchanging of a "z" for an "s". for example, the word globaliZation is globalisation. that is a completely different word that doesn't even sound the same when you say it. aussies are right about most things...but that is one thing they should re-think.

so i will continually update with my little vocabulary lessons but let me get onto my week. after that amazing day on sunday, it was just back to the wonderful world of classes on monday. monday & tuesday were pretty blah. alycia and kristen came over and monica came up and we had a little "memory card" party. yea, how cute. i mean, i randomly really wanted to go out to the turf club (let i mind you is NEXT DOOR) but we ended up staying in which was fine. i mean, you can't always get what ya want...haha.

tuesday was pretty lame. so yea. thats that. yesterday was a little more interesting. classes were long but then i went to dracula's with the wonderful hartigan family. dracula's is australia's version of a "Jekyll and Hyde" restaurant. It resembles a horror/cabaret/restaurant type place that really wasn't scary after the "ghost ride" rather just funny and entertaining. i had never been to a cabaret dinner show thing so it was a really interesting and new experience. although im not into that whole death, demons, hell stuff (completely opposite, as you already know), i still enjoyed myself because of the people who I was with! aww, sappy. i know. the humor was very very very very very crude but you'll have that.

after we got back from dinner, i was determined to make my way to PA's after not going out on monday. it ended up being fun once we got in but we had to wait outside for 20 minutes (i've never REALLY waited at P.A's before). i was really excited because kristen had never came to PA's with us before than and im pretty sure she had a really good time so that was awesome. all the boys were there when we got there so it was obviously a lot of fun to just be hanging and dancing all crazy with them. i did feel bad though because siobhan had beer spilled on her which ruined her night (it would've ruined anyones) so she ended up leaving early and going back to the hotel with her mom & sis for the night. so that was sad.

today was today. thursdays are pretty nice because its pretty much the start of the weekend. classes occur sparingly and i think everyone is going to puggs tonight which should be a good time. its been a couple weeks since puggs. i'm not quite sure yet what the rest of the weekend has in hand but i will be updating frequently so don't you get too sad on me! so its been a pretty solid week and i am very excited about the weekend except for the part that entails me doing copious amounts of work. eeeek.

oh, and one more interesting observation about australia is that they are the most environmentally conscious country ever. i say this because when people going shopping at the grocery store here, you don't see people often walking out with plastic or paper bags rather you see everyone with their re-usable green Coles/Woolworth bags or any cloth bag they own. cloth bags are the way of life to go shopping here as all of the stores sell them for $1.00 and most clothing stores give you your clothes in them for free. even when you go to queen vic market, everyone has their cloth bags. its an awesome thing that i think the US needs to work on adopting into the country...its one of those small things that is definitely going along way. way to go australia. way to go.

so thats it for now but until next time...cheers mate!!