And of course my dress sense has every thing to do with students not perceiving my age…

Today, we talked about slang words, dialects, and registers in our communications workshops. I gave my students some time to recall the expressions and word uses that have already seeped into common everyday vocabulary in a specific group, setting, or context.

I was immediately “uncool” for not “being with it” with their lingo. I may be a good decade older than almost all my students but my (Asian?) face seems to say otherwise. (“What the heck, Crystal, you’re like, legit ten years older than us? That’s like, super old man. Did you like, skip highschool or something?”) That, or I have some serious growing up to do…

So of course both my 1300hrs and 1500hrs classes decided to give me an education in – and I quote – “white girl trash talk”.  (PS: this Wednesday, April the 30th, is the tenth anniversary of Mean Girls. My Wednesday 1000hrs class has dared me to show up in pink… if not, I can’t sit with them… I don’t own any pink clothes… send help…)

Apparently, one no longer becomes “drunk”. You become “hammered” (going from sober to drunk very quickly), “sloushed” (drunk and awkward drunk dancing), “blind” (if you’re passed out), “wankered” (I couldn’t bear to ask about this one), “maggotted” (when you can’t walk properly), or “messy” (when you throw up, eww).

Our international students also established that a “bogan” = “trailer trash” = “redneck” = “chev” = “ahbeng”. A few heated exchanges among the sportsmen in our classes also broke out as each tried to define (more like defend, sheesh!) “slicing the ball”, “catching the crab”, and “sledging”.

Also, may the universe help us with Cockney slang.

It seems I have a lot of catching up to do, youse guys.