There’s a hole in my finger, bad Julie, bad Julie
There’s a hole in my finger, bad Julie, a hole.

{geekishStatus} My hat is *red* with rage {/geekishStatus}

In our flat we have 3 kinds. There is ‘normal food’. Most stuff is granted the honour of being ‘normal food’. This covers the whole range of student-imaginations from a year and a half ago until about a month ago. Then there’s mush. Mush got invented about a month ago. Mush is what we call normal food when we’re bored and don’t have time to cook it properly. Then it all just gets chucked in one big pan and stirred until its carbon (unless I can stop Jules in time ) And now we have a new addition to our culinary skills: kedgery. Kedgery is like mush except that its just a bit more posh. Some of the food gets more careful preparation before being chucked in the big pan along with everything else. Added to this, kedgery must also conform to the completely ridiculous specification, that it “has to be a bit like ‘real’ kedgery”.

Tonight we had cous-cous with bacon in. Apparently that’s kedgery. Well, it looked like kedgery except that it had pink bits in instead of white bits. It had vitamins in too: there was a tangerine, a tomato and lots of cabbage so all was good!

Oh, and it was yummy… that counts too, surely!?

Ps: Flapjack does not come into the category of food. It is, to use its own words, “above such things”. Currently the most honourable title we have come up with so far is “flappy”. (Personally, I’m not too keen on the respectable-ness suggested by such a title, but Jules has her reasons, I’m sure!)

Well, it all started ‘cos I was procrastinating. You see, I have this great big team project report to write that I really need to be working on… and therefore I thought it would be very productive to check who was online.

Not that I don’t do that every 10 minutes (at least) anyway, but to continue. One of my friends, James to be precise, was online. I haven’t spoken to him in ages… and my attention was drawn the other day to the fact that he’s not online much these days. So now, when I saw him online, I thought I should take the chance while I could…

On asking how everyone was, he said:
(20:26:05) James: those here are fine
(20:26:09) James: and that includes Mr Watkins

Considering I hadn’t heard from the W’s in ages, this was a welcome surprise. I proceeded to follow this thread of conversation. It transpired Omorandia was actually “standing next to” James. To be perfectly honest, I did not realise “standing next to” meant “reading over my shoulder”. In retrospect its perfectly obvious that thats what he meant, but for some reason I was being extremely thick and the situation described just plain did not register with me. So, I kindof complimented Omorandia in a manner and tone I most certainly would not have done if I’d realised he was reading everything I typed…

Anyways, the result of my asking a message to be passed on (just a well-wishing message) was that Omorandia himself sat down at the keyboard. So I chatted to Omorandia And that really made my day! He corrected my ekegussi, and gave me one or two more phrases. Above all, the phrase that will no doubt be my favourite phrase for the coming weeks, and months too, no doubt, dv: tokumia = don’t worry.

My friend has not quite learned the etiquette of a msn conversation (yet) but I can forgive him that. And I do gladly forgive him, considering everything he has done for me. (Including a quite legitimate claim to saving my life, or at least going very far above the normal call of duty to ensure my safety as far as possible in a far-from-desireable situation, and more than one great favour besides.)

On a side-note, I do find it awkward speaking to anyone non net-literate online. It is difficult to guage the social expectations of someone who is not yet familiar with netiquette. I want to speak to them in a manner consistent with the normal respect I would show them offline, while keeping the appropriate level of formality prescribed (and associated with) the type of medium. In short, the informalism that I think is appropriate for a msn conversation is not really the level of formalism that is expected by my contacts in anything other than a private, face-to-face exchange. Therefore, I sometimes feel people are not at-ease talking to me. Conversely, their unease could be nothing more than uncomfortableness with an unfamiliar medium, and aware of their own lack of netiquette, especially when speaking to a supposed ‘expert’ in this particular field. But my further philosophies on this matter can keep to another day…