[new university] why doesn’t anyone tell me anything
Think I’ll have a little chat to the PM about his English learning whilst this speech is going on [my Min told me he was learning it] and then realize I – er – only know a few words in his language. I use all of them. His English is about the same level but we manage in Russian and he seems a nice enough chap.
I give my little speech and start with the stats I posted earlier today and then realize I can’t actually crack the joke I was going to about the PM so I have to rearrange the thoughts, which confuses the simultaneous translator and I start carrying on about manifest destiny and how it’s about time they opened this university after all, referring to the Rektor and MforE&S but completely forgetting to mention the PM. Just great.
The PM gives his speech but then goes to the front of the stage and starts chatting to all the young ladies. Now that had been running through my mind as well, as there’s this blond who’s been staring at me throughout the whole thing, so naturally I now think it might be time to have a few words but then the whole show ends just as suddenly as it began and as we come down from the stage, those three are whisked away and I’m set upon by four women, two who start kissing me and calling me their boy. Uh-huh.
‘This a tradition whenever they open a new university?’ I enquire.
Next thing it appears to be tea and tort for eight in the Dekanat and I’m supposed to give a toast in Russian. ‘To the ladies’ is the safest toast I know. Suddenly I’m decanted onto the roadside and hit the peak hour Friday traffic crawling home, horns blaring, people swearing at everyone else and next thing here I am, writing to you, with remarkably little damage to the near side fender hit by the maniac trying to create a fifth lane on the three lane carriageway. And I missed those two hooligans standing in the middle of the road too, by at least 10 cm.
I’m a little dazed. How was your Friday?
[The university, by the way, is linguistic, for gifted students. I wonder if they were all gifted, those 400 young ladies and 5 young gentlemen in the auditorium? I’ll never know.]
I give my little speech and start with the stats I posted earlier today and then realize I can’t actually crack the joke I was going to about the PM so I have to rearrange the thoughts, which confuses the simultaneous translator and I start carrying on about manifest destiny and how it’s about time they opened this university after all, referring to the Rektor and MforE&S but completely forgetting to mention the PM. Just great.
The PM gives his speech but then goes to the front of the stage and starts chatting to all the young ladies. Now that had been running through my mind as well, as there’s this blond who’s been staring at me throughout the whole thing, so naturally I now think it might be time to have a few words but then the whole show ends just as suddenly as it began and as we come down from the stage, those three are whisked away and I’m set upon by four women, two who start kissing me and calling me their boy. Uh-huh.
‘This a tradition whenever they open a new university?’ I enquire.
Next thing it appears to be tea and tort for eight in the Dekanat and I’m supposed to give a toast in Russian. ‘To the ladies’ is the safest toast I know. Suddenly I’m decanted onto the roadside and hit the peak hour Friday traffic crawling home, horns blaring, people swearing at everyone else and next thing here I am, writing to you, with remarkably little damage to the near side fender hit by the maniac trying to create a fifth lane on the three lane carriageway. And I missed those two hooligans standing in the middle of the road too, by at least 10 cm.
I’m a little dazed. How was your Friday?
[The university, by the way, is linguistic, for gifted students. I wonder if they were all gifted, those 400 young ladies and 5 young gentlemen in the auditorium? I’ll never know.]
posted by James Higham @ 15:03
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