Chuntering Around
Well, yesterday’s work frustration resulted in a resolution that is a compromise at best, but a compromise that everyone can live with, which is the best kind of compromise of all.
Of course, I missed a meeting this morning about it– why do people always schedule meetings for when I’m out of the office? I left at 1 yesterday to participate in a history careers panel at UCSC. Which was… interesting, to say the least. Two extroverts on the panel and another one moderating– it was a recipe for waaay too much chatter.
I stopped to get gas this morning, only to discover that I had left my ATM/debit card somewhere. Tracing back, I think it was at the sushi restaurant on Tuesday night. I hope so. After filling up, I drove back over to the bank and cancelled the old card and ordered a new one. If I find the card tonight, I can call and come in, show my ID, and have it re-activated. That would be way more convenient than waiting 2 weeks, but eh. I can live.
Anyway, I got in a little late this morning to find the tech writers all in a room holding a meeting without me [the tech writers never hold meetings-- we're forbidden to do so formally]. And then they made all sorts of jokes (as one does to the person last in to the meeting) about how they’d assigned me to do everything. I pointed out that my sense of humor was nonexistent this morning, and they more or less dropped it, thank goodness.
The word of the day on my Forgotten English calendar is “chunter,” which means to growl, to grumble. As in: “Yesterday, I chuntered around over these stupid fucking part numbers all day long.”
John is deciding which language he wants to learn. My proposal is that we should both learn a language, even if we never do end up travelling. He is considering Japanese. Now, I have something of a mental block about Japanese because of Sean (uh….. a boyfriend when I was 15 who was very into Japanese culture who dumped me for a Japanese girl after he’d gone to Japan with her family for a month). Yes, this has made me rather anti-Japanese culture (though not people– Sean wasn’t Japanese, he was just a dick), for the last 13 years.
Well, no more. I’ve decided to “get over it” and, if John wants to learn Japanese, then I will wholeheartedly embrace it. There are a lot of good things to come out of Japan– like Aikido and sushi and even anime (even though I don’t watch much of it). And though my primary criteria for learning another language is “What would be fun to learn?”, John’s criteria is much more “what would be useful in business?” because John is a workaholic who can’t ever stop working ever.
If would be so kind as to tell me exactly what “oyachumi” means, then I’ll laready have one word added to my Japanese vocabulary. After all, I already know “kappa maki” and “arigato.”
sarah_mascara wrote:
I had a crush on a guy for several months before I got up the nerve to talk to him. We became friends pretty quickly, and I grew to absolutely adore him. After a few months, out of the blue, he turned to me and said, “You know, you’d be perfect and I’d totally go for you.. if you were asian.”
Stupid boys and their asian girl fetishes. It’s racism on a sexual level.
Posted on 27-Feb-03 at 4:46 am | Permalink
mortaine wrote:
My favorite was the “I want a Japanese girl who’s a natural redhead.”
Yeah. That’ll happen. And if you find her, I’m sure she’ll go for a 400-lb. greasy american slob.
Boys are stupid.
Posted on 27-Feb-03 at 4:57 am | Permalink
chaoticgoodnik wrote:
I’m not , but there are two possibilities. “yachumi” means “all night”, and adding “o” would make it polite. But it’s possible that “yachumi” has a sexual connotation. My slang knowledge isn’t good enough.
“Oyasumi” is a vacation or day off, or a formal phrase that’s the equivalent of saying “good night” when leaving a social gathering. (The full phrase is actually “oyasumi nasai”, just “oyasumi” would only be used casually.) In this case the ch instead of s would signify a young and/or feminine speaker.
Posted on 27-Feb-03 at 5:31 am | Permalink
mortaine wrote:
Well, “oyachumi” is what Tenshi says to me when I leave IRC to go to bed at night. She’s a young and/or feminine speaker, so that’s probably exactly the context she’s using it in. I doubt she means it in a flirty sense, though that would be very sweet and not unappreciated.
Posted on 27-Feb-03 at 5:41 am | Permalink
tenshisama wrote:
heehee
well, here’s the story of the oyachumi
Oyasumi nasai is a ritualized expression meaning “good night”. It is less formal when the nasai is dropped, so friends would use it, parents to their children, etc.
When leaving the chat room of the anime translating group i’m associated with, i would say “oyasumi”. Now… as everyone knows I’m addicted to all things Pika, my friend told me “no, no, that just doesn’t sound right coming from you. let’s change it to oyachumi.” because all words deserve a chu.
So, oyachumi and oyasumi have the same meaning except oyachumi is pikafied.
In addition, little kids in Japan often have trouble with their s’s when they are young. Many things get mispronounced as ch rather than s. in that cause, oyachumi would be associated with young pre-k sorta speak. think of it as little kid talk.
It probably wouldn’t do to go around saying oyachumi to general Japanese people… unless you are me and they already know i’m wierd and Pika’d.
As for the “chu” thing, some of my other friends studying Japanese have taken this on as well and we joke about it. the verb eat “taberu” gets pronounced “tabechu” ikimashou (let’s go!) gets turned into “ikimachou!” or sometimes when we are lazy it’s just “chou!!”
here are some other REAL Japanese words you can add to your collection:
hirune = nap
kyou = today
ashita = tomorrow
kinou = yesterday
nihongo = Japanese (as studied by foreigners. when they study the language in Japan, it’s referred to as kokugo which means “national language”)
pikachu = Pikachu
denwa = phone
Posted on 27-Feb-03 at 10:43 am | Permalink
mortaine wrote:
pikachu = Pikachu
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
This made my day yesterday, which was rather hard to do!
–S
Posted on 28-Feb-03 at 2:07 am | Permalink