“I need some water”, I say.

“Repeat after me,” says my friend. “Wah-tuh”.

“Wah-der”.

“Wah-tuh”.

“Wah-der”.

“Wah-TUH!”.

“Wah-DER!”.

“Listen,” he says, “Tuh, tuh, tuh.”

“Der, der, der,” I go.

Living in university residence and on the college mailing list, you tend to be privy to quite a few interesting e-mails. E-mails written out of anger, however, tend to be divided into two categories: laundry rage (when someone steals your slot) and kitchen/food rage (when someone leaves mess or steals your food or kitchenware).

These e-mails also provide an interesting idea of cultural differences. Here’s two. The rambling, passive aggressive one is written by a British doctoral student regarding stolen kitchenware. The short, concise one is written by an American Marshall scholar from Los Angeles.

Enjoy.

From: The British Scholar
To: Everybody
Date: Sometime in June
Subject: Beware of Vanishing Objects

My 8 inch Wusthof-Trident Chef’s Knife, which I’ve owned since my restaurant days, seems to have disappeared from my carry-all in the North Wing Ground floor kitchen during the last week. Aside from the obvious sentimental value, its loss would be bearable had not my 10 inch Chef’s knife disappeared from the Martin Ground floor kitchen 3 days ago. Now we seem to be left with flimsy serrated knives which, if utilised to cut anything substantial, like say a butternut squash, will most likely snap and take out someone’s eye (and, of course, chopping anything is now out of the question).

I should also note that my toaster disappeared from our kitchen 2 weeks ago, and my industrial food processor sometime in Michaelmas–not to mention the loss of roughly 10 roasting pans in the last 2 years.

(1) If any of you have said items could you please return them

and,

(2) Is anyone else experiencing the same type of kitchen related separation anxiety?

Balliol MCR……effortlessly superior, or merely dirtbags?

It’s up to you.

- [The Brit]

From: The American Scholar
To: Everybody
Date: Sometime in June
Subject: Ice cream theft

To whoever helped themselves to my entire carton of ice cream in the Dellal ground floor kitchen — I hope you enjoyed it immensely. Because when I find you, I am going to remove your face.

- [The American]

You know what I learned this afternoon?

I learned about the word, “um-friend”, which, according to the Urban Dictionary (a legitimate source indeed), is a noun used to describe a partner in a sexual relationship with ambiguous social standing.

For example, “Hi Mom, this is Alfonso, my um…friend.”

Of course, hipsters have taken to reducing this to simply um-friend or even, umfriend.

My God, how cool is that.

Anyways, this just shows you how exciting things are at the math department, today.

What people seem to misunderstand is that an RSVP on an invitation, or a répondez s’il-vous-plait — literally French for ‘please respond’, doesn’t mean only those who wish to attend are expected to reply, but everybody.

It’s just simple courtesy.

And on that note, before leaving the office for my week-long Christmas break this past Friday, I snapped this picture from the door of a faculty member.

James Burnett, perhaps the blogosphere’s most eminent authority and critique on etiquette decided to address a growing concern among his female readers,

So go read his post. You know you want to. James manages to come up with an acceptable compromise for both the ladies and the gentlemen, akin to a rule-of-thumb you might have picked up in elementary school.