Say What? Nevermind!

I feel like Dorothy out of the Wizard of Oz. This fantastic whirly-wind tornado thingy-mi-jiggy swept me up in its aerodynamic force and dumped me in the middle of something that I'm kind of grasping, but not quite. Perhaps it's the Panadol Extra Cold & Flu is doing its thang.

But flu-y or not, I am pretty certain I've not been here before. Yep, that's right, I've never worked in a country where English is not the first language. And for the life of me I never thought I would be working for the Taiwanese version of Pixar. My head is now stuffed full of, viscous mucus and new lingo in both English and Mandarin.

What a "cut" refers to in live-action, is referred to as a "scene" in animation. But rememeber we are speaking in Mandarin so it's actually referred to as a "ka", the bad English pronounciation of the word "cut" where the ending is carelessly dropped as is the tendency of Asian speakers with poor English abilities. It took me a whole day to work out that they weren't talking about a "card", which was what I thought they were calling a "frame", or "shot", or "panel" of a storyboard. Almost too much for me what in the first week of work and struck down with a really nasty head cold.

They must've thought I had rather weak and nervous bowels those first few days, for I kept running to the toilet. It really wasn't what they thought. I had to keep going back for tissues to blow my nose. That was all. Plus I didn't want to blow the house down with the effort I was putting into draining my blocked nasal passages. Nor wake the dead.

But somehow the first week had passed and nothing more can be done. Nothing more needed to be done.

I was glad I met some colleagues from my old work for dinner and drinks the Friday night. I was really glad to see them and catch up on all the old office gossip. It felt natural and nice, and all night I was speaking in Mandarin! I felt great, possibly floated by something alcohol related. Or perhaps it was the Panadol Extra Cold & Flu doing its thang.

It is Sunday night and another surreal week is about to start, so, I'd better go get a good night's rest, take another Panadol and let it do its good thang.