Words

OK so some background before I explain a silly text: Chinese doesn't have designated "name" words. I.e., in English, "John" or "Susan" can only be person's name. In Chinese, a person's name can be any word--but there aren't special "name words". (Shiyuan explains it more here: http://torrentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/did-you-say-shy-yan-shu-yen-can-i-just-call-you-sheila/

So, my language partnter's name is "White". I asked her why, and she said it was her favorite color. She then asked me why native english speakers always asked why she had that name. She sort of understands that there's something wierd/funny about it, but she didn't seem to totally understnd my attempt at explaining why it's strange. Anyway, I forgot about last week's language lesson. Tonight, I recieved this text from a strange number:

"Hi Holly! Don't forget language lesson tomorrow. I am White."

This morning, Amy (fellow ETA) found out that she had a facebook virus that posted on friend's walls about some product that was supposed to clean your colon. We're friends with a lot of our ESL students, and some of them were very, very confused.

Teaching English makes you really aware of the language that you are using. The other day, my apartment-mate and fellow ETA Amy, called the music I was listening to "rapster" music. This set off giggling with me and Emily. So Emily and Amy got into an argument about whether or not it was a word. So they looked it up on urban dictionary, and there it was. They submitted an additional entry, which was accepted this evening. This is the email that Emily then sent to Amy, who has already gone to sleep:

"Good morning, sunshine.

I have a feeling that you are going to have a good day. And not only because of the toxins that you cleaned out of your colon yesterday. Check this out:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rapster

That's right baby. We're #1!!!

Sincerely yours,
Future Amy"