Thursday, June 01, 2006
Only in Oz
Due to sins in a past life I get to teach a group of 20 teachers from Hong Kong when they arrive in Aus next month for heavy sessions of pragmatics and discourse analysis. Yawning already? Yeah, me too. They attend the lectures and then my job is to explain anything they can't grasp. Of course, this requires me to stay awake during the lectures or to at least be pretty swift with b.s. but it's winter and the dosh will keep the wolf from the door, so never mind.
Anyway, I digress. Today was the first big meeting of all interested parties. Ten minutes into the meeting there was a crash as D.'s shopping bag fell from the chair to the floor. "***!" She exclaimed. "It's my joey."
"Er, what? For a moment there, I thought you said, 'Joey'" I murmured.
Yup, at that point a baby kangaroo hopped out of the bag and batted its eyelashes at us. For the rest of the meeting it jumped around and kept us well entertained. I've had to avoid treading on toes at meetings before now but this is the first time I've had a 'roo sit on my toes as I tried to make a point.
Only in Australia.
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Due to sins in a past life I get to teach a group of 20 teachers from Hong Kong when they arrive in Aus next month for heavy sessions of pragmatics and discourse analysis. Yawning already? Yeah, me too. They attend the lectures and then my job is to explain anything they can't grasp. Of course, this requires me to stay awake during the lectures or to at least be pretty swift with b.s. but it's winter and the dosh will keep the wolf from the door, so never mind.
Anyway, I digress. Today was the first big meeting of all interested parties. Ten minutes into the meeting there was a crash as D.'s shopping bag fell from the chair to the floor. "***!" She exclaimed. "It's my joey."
"Er, what? For a moment there, I thought you said, 'Joey'" I murmured.
Yup, at that point a baby kangaroo hopped out of the bag and batted its eyelashes at us. For the rest of the meeting it jumped around and kept us well entertained. I've had to avoid treading on toes at meetings before now but this is the first time I've had a 'roo sit on my toes as I tried to make a point.
Only in Australia.
