Canadian/Australian miscommunication and other tidbits

After almost four years, you would think I'd have gotten the hang of this whole communication thing.  (Let's forget about the fact that my job title is "speech language pathologist' since that makes the whole thing even worse!)

Last week, I spent a day giving a training course to some teacher aides about how to administer a screening speech and language assessment.  In the morning, before we had started, one of them asked me "Will we still follow the regular schedule of the day?" (ie have lunch at the normal time, etc)  I said yes, and she said "Ok, good, because after lunch I have Judy" and motioned in the direction of a teacher named Judy, who happened to be standing there.  I must have looked very confused, because I was fairly certain that the teacher aides were booked in all day with me, so why would she be with Judy???  Then it dawned on me...she was not saying "Judy" she was saying "duty" and pointing outside (and Judy just happened to be standing there).  Australians, in some circumstances, pronounce a 'd' sound as a 'j' (for example, they said 'jew' instead of 'dew', but they say 'do' the same as us...but then if something is 'due' they say 'jew') and I KNEW that...it just threw me off because Judy was there.  Anyway, we had a bit of a laugh about my confusion and went about our business.

What else?  Well, pretty big news - tomorrow Jeremy has his LAST EXAM OF MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!  The OSCE - Objective Structured Clinical Examination - is the final hurdle in this four years of craziness.  Wikipedia can help me explain exactly what it is: An OSCE usually comprises a circuit of short (the usual is 5–10 minutes although some use up to 15 minute) stations, in which each candidate is examined on a one-to-one basis with one or two impartial examiner(s) and either real or simulated patients (actors). Each station has a different examiner, as opposed to the traditional method of clinical examinations where a candidate would be assigned to an examiner for the entire examination. Candidates rotate through the stations, completing all the stations on their circuit. In this way, all candidates take the same stations. It is considered to be an improvement over traditional examination methods because the stations can be standardised enabling fairer peer comparison and complex procedures can be assessed without endangering patients health.

I am very glad that it is Jeremy and not myself who will be undertaking this tomorrow (to make things even more awesome, it's on a Saturday morning....woooooo!!!)  He has been meeting with people every day to go over scenarios.  It's just so surreal that he will be finished medical school after this exam!  To celebrate, we're having people over for dinner Saturday night (although not everyone, because a lot of our med friends have their exam on the Sunday....ewwwwwwwwww!!)

In other news, the Nichols arrived in Australia almost two weeks ago and they have been so busy that we've barely seen them!  We had a delicious and hilarious dinner with them at Wendy and Jim's the evening they arrived and then they went zooming off to Sydney!  Next on their list is Adelaide, to see where we'll be living for the next year...Jeremy is going to meet them there and try to find a place for us to live, and they all come back here at the end of next week - finally, to OUR house...hehe...and after two nights here will be off again, to Stradbroke Island for a week!!  So exciting!!

Anywho, better eat breakfast and get ready for work and all those things...3 WEEKS LEFT OF SCHOOL!!!!  (and four weeks until my contract is over...eeek!)