camwyn | "My stooooo-peed seees-ter is een de laaaab again..."

Mandarin class last night began with a review of numbers. Yi, er, san, si, wu, etc. Bigger numbers too - Huang Laoshi asked us for our house numbers (yi bai yi = 110, I got off light, one guy was something like si bai san shi wu and it took him forever to hash it out). We did phone numbers as well, which is a stumbling ground for most of the people in my class, at least partly because people keep forgetting to start from the area code. But after we got done with the numbers, we went on to the next chapter, which is words in family relationships as well as the first number-classifier word for people, ge. This is where I broke down giggling... see, there are different words for older and younger siblings. Older brother is gege, which is not a problem. It's the word for younger brother that gets me... it's didi. You'd think that wasn't a problem, right?

Ever seen Dexter's Lab? The proper pronunciation of didi is EXACTLY the same as the way Dexter speaks of his older sister. Tone and all. "DEE-dee!"

And Huang Laoshi, god help me, sounds just like the Dexter voice actor when she says didi. . . I spent a chunk of class with my hand over my mouth trying not to giggle. I explained it to her; I'm not sure she understood, as she's never seen the cartoon, but Lord it's hard not to laugh myself silly hearing an entire classroom full of Dexters in training.

Today's pulp survival tip is #9. If you're headed for your goal and encounter a room where the floor is alive with snakes, bugs, or any other kind of crawling creature, give real consideration to finding an alternative route. You might still have to cross the bugs - but you'll probably have to make a fast escape and you'll be much happier if you don't need to worry about running away from bugs as well as people and/or the Supernatural Menace.