I lucked out this term and had all my finals and papers due the first week of exam season. It didn’t feel particularly lucky at the time, but it was really good afterwards to have two weeks’ holiday before my co-op term starts. I begin my position as a customer service representative tomorrow and am a mix of nervous and excited for that. I think I’m mostly nervous about the differences between Hong Kong and Vancouver work culture — there are differences, but I don’t even know what yet or where to expect them to pop up. Kind of like an adventure!
The song “Just Around the Riverbend” from Pocahontas just passed through my head.
The last couple of weeks have been spent doing important things like watching the clouds go by, baking chocolate chip cookies and having dinner with friends before they leave, as well as the more mundane, but somewhat necessary, tasks of getting my learner’s licence to drive, renewing my passport and collecting new glasses. Oh, and I’ve begun Italian classes with UBC Continuing Ed. My teacher, Claudia, is absolutely wonderful and speaks in Italian almost all the time so we are left guessing what she means. This isn’t so hard, thanks to having learned French before! Of course, this is only the beginning…
Did You Know?
Ciao, which is used to indicate either “hello” or “goodbye”, derives from the Venetian dialect for schiavo, which literally means “slave” or “I am your servant”.
— Taken from one of my worksheets.
I think the phrase “I am your servant” is used in the loosest sense, similar to older forms of English when someone was being particularly obliging. Oh, for a resurrection of such etiquette! 🙁
