h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Zucchini

I've transferred our conversation to your researcher page as you suggested. So no need to talk about oranges any more, unless you have a burning desire to. Great nickname, by the way - unfortunately I'm not one of the select few to get what it means.

I'm taking German studies at Leeds. It's a four year course, as you are required to spend your third year in a German-speaking country - hence I am now studying at a German University.

I was also in a quiet block in my first year at Lupton Flats. I was a bit peaved at first because I hadn't asked to be put in one, but it was actually rather a blessing in disguise. Our block wasn't exactly quiet, but compared to the non-quiet blocks it was like a Cistercian monostary. If I hadn't been in a quiet block, I don't think I'd have got any sleep all year! I was in a quiet block in St Mark's Flats too, but as hardly any first years lived here it was a lot quieter anyway. Thanks for sharing your University memories. My boyfriend's housemates last year allowed their kitchen worktop to degenerate in a similar fashion - once you're able to start peeling off the mold in lumps, you know it's time to clean up!

I think you must be a saint to work in a customer service call center and deal with all those whinging customers. I had to do some of that when I worked in the General Office of a supermarket whilst I was in secondary school - I didn't enjoy it much.

I read on your personal space that you're obsessed with Japan - cool. Have you been there? I haven't yet, but hope to one day. I'd actually like to spend some time living there, probably teaching English. Like everybody, I'd like to be there when the cherry blossom is in bloom. I'd especially like to go to Kyoto and see the ancient city and hopefully meet a geisha. I also think manga is cool, though I'm most interested in how it's drawn. One day I'm going to buy myself a book of how to draw manga and learn how to draw it properly. I've had a few goes on my own and although I'm quite good at art, my efforts have been a bit lame, I'm afraid.

One final outburst: oranges, oranges, ORANGES!!!

Get in touch again soon!
Lizzy

Hiya! :>
Actually my brother is at Leeds uni at the moment doing 'Mechatronics' (whatever that is... building ejection mechanisms for video players I think) and is currently doing resits (He's as rubbish as studying as I was :> )
Visiting Japan will happen as soon as I have enough money (oh when will that be?)
I'm currently scanning in a lot of my artwork, a lot of it manga inspired. I'll let you know when it's up and running :>
Oranges.
Customer services is a wierd job for me... On one hand I'm amazingly polite, services-oriented and I can't be offended (so the customers can vent steam on me :&gt, on the other hand I'm shy, have a few speech problems, have no DIY knowledge and most people bug me Oranges.

German, eh? Dipped into it briefly at pre-GCSE level but all the different pronouns confused me. My father was fairly fluent. I'll stick with trying to learn Japanese at the moment :>

Hello!

What sort of a call centre is it? I'm always desperately polite to people in call centres as I figure that the people on the other end of the phone might need to talk to someone relatively cheery.

I've always been terrible at languages - too worried about making mistakes! And never enough practice. I can get by in Thai, but that's it!



Anna

If you can get by in Thai then you can't be terrible at languages. Is it a tonal language? Does it have an alphabet or characters? Don't worry about making mistakes in another language either - if you notice it, then you'll remember not to make the same mistake next time. If a someone else notices it and makes you feel embaressed, that's their problem - at least you're trying. Gaining the confidence to just have a go and speak the language is half the battle.

ttyl, Liz

Yes, German grammar is fairly complicated. On the other hand it's quite logical (for a language). Nevertheless, I still manage to come a cropper on it fairly often. It might be a good language for you to have another go at learning, as I think there's going to be a big future in customer services in Germany. It's something from what I gather that's being discussed a lot in German business circles and they're putting quite a lot of investment into it, the reason being that in Germany customer service doesn't exist. At all. I doubt they even have a word for it (that they haven't borrowed from another language). The Germans have an international reputation for having no sense of humor; I think that's something the Germans have conspired to ensure that we overlook the fact that they have no customer service.

Anyway, the upshot of all that is that when it comes to global business, it doesn't pay to have no concept of customer service in this day and age of the service industry and and so consequently Germany is starting to lose out. Hence it's making a big effort to go against the grain and introduce it. So there's a lot of money out there for foreigners working in customer services, since they're having to bring in people from abroad to show them what the concept actually means and how to implement it.

What made you decide to opt for a career in customer services and/or call centers, by the way?

Anyway, that aside, I think it's really cool that you're trying to learn Japanese. If I go to Japan to teach English, I'll have a go at learning it myself. Do you find it a difficult language to learn? (I know the writing is hard, that's taken as a
given). Where would you like to visit in Japan?

Looking forward to seeing your artwork on the web.

Oh, and oranges. <-- closest thing I could find to an orange in the Smiley index!

Take care,
Liz

Hiya!
I ended up in a call center because upon finishing university, I discovered there were no jobs in Doncaster relating to computer science. So I bummed around for a few years, then did an illustration course on the 'New Deal' jobseekers thingy. Upon discovering that there were no jobs in Doncaster relating to computer science, I just grabbed whatever the job center pushed at me, which happened to be telesales at the BT callcenter. After getting sick of trying to sell mobile phones to people who didn't want mobile phones, I moved on to the regional callcenter for (Am I allowed to mention company names? Let's just say it's a DIY warehouse), which required no selling skills, only to be nice and helpful.
You may be asking why I just didn't move away from Doncaster. Well, the girl that I love lived here :> Except that she's moved to Lincoln now.. D'oh!
Japanese is fun. After learning two sets of phonetic alphabet (one traditional, the other for romanised words, each with 40-odd characters) you then have to learn individual kanji for different words. The grammar, fortunately, is quite elegant, with different markers denoting objects, subjects, verbs and so on. I'm concentrating on reading scrpit, rather than speaking or writing. Of the people I know who went to Japan to teach english, none of them knew how to speak Japanese - they just turn up to the school, speak English all day to the kiddies, then go home with a big paycheck!

Just in case Derek reads this, I should also point out that I wanted to stay in Doncaster for the sake of The Jan Doyle Band (which is our.. um... musical band. Imagine So Solid Crew, but more sort of industrial electronic goth, if you can). Getting the itch to record some more music.. maybe after Xmas, eh?

I'll also point out the interesting fact that as a call center we are targetted on things like calls-per-hour, wrap up time, etc... see A293302, for which a call center advisor is bonused on.
Except that because we are customer services rather than sales, we don't see any bonus at all. But we still have to meet 'targets' :<
It's a funny old game. Oranges.

Hi Zucchini

Yes, most people who teach English as a foreign language can't speak a word of the native language when they arrive in the country where they're going to teach. However, there's usually the opportunity to learn the language once you get there, which is probably what I would do if I went to Japan. Contrary to most English-speakers' belief, once you go to a country where it is not the official language, you really need to learn whatever the official language is. Otherwise you can find yourself very limited and dependent on the natives who can speak English. You can also end up living a very 'colonial' life and never get under the 'skin' of the country. Getting under the 'skin' of a country is kind of the whole reason why I want to travel by teaching English as a foreign language rather than by saving up lots of money and then going to different countries as a tourist - so I'll have to learn the language. I tend to be quite enthusiastic about learning a language when I'm in the country where it's spoken anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem. Big paycheck, eh? Now that sounds good!

Do you think you'll move to Lincoln to be with your girlfriend? I've promised my boyfriend that once I've done this year in Germany I'm never going to deliberately spend so much time away from him again - easier said than done, I know, esp if I decide to do TEFL (though to be honest, I probably wouldn't do it if he couldn't come with me). Modern life seems to rate relationships pretty low on the agenda, which is a crying shame.

What are you doing for Christmas? I'm flying back to the UK this Saturday to spend Christmas with my parents. After Christmas I'm going to spend the New Year with my boyfriend. He's already up to his eyes in revision for his exams in Jan though, so I'm not sure how much time he's going to have for me.

Merry Christmas!
Take care, Liz

Oh yes. Oranges.

Before you say anything, who's to say it's not a toffee orange? (And yes, the orange has been peeled under the toffee!).
Liz

Dear Lizzy,

Yes, Thai is a tonal language, which makes it tricky. Even if I have a vague idea what I want to say, what comes out of my mouth might not make any sense at all!

If you want to do TEFL why don't you take him with you on the adventure?

Dear Zucchini,

If you did an illustration course, had you thought about becoming a Community Artist? A829415



Anna

Hi Anna

I guess by 'him' you mean my boyfriend. I'm hoping that if I do TEFL my boyfriend will come with me - as he wants to travel the world too, I think I may be in with a chance of persuading him. The only problem would be getting jobs in the same place, though I'm sure we could work something out.

I learnt a few words of Vietnamese while I was in Vietnam. However, since it's also a tonal language, I think I'd only have a fair chance of learning it properly if I took a language course at a Vietnamese University because hopefully they would give me 'tonal drilling'. I think that's what it's called. My room-mate in my first year at Uni was studying Chinese from scratch and she had a tonal drilling class once or twice a week, where everyone sat there chanting, 'ma, ma, ma, ma, ba, ba, ba, ba' etc in the four different tones.

What are you doing for Christmas? I guess it's going to be extra-special this year, as it's Dominic's first Christmas.

Take care,
Lizzy

Although I've been invited down to my Mum's house for Xmas (she moved down to Devon somewhere) I'll be spending the Solstice week with Janine in Lincoln :>
We figured that the relationship would last a lot longer if we _didn't_ live in the same house though, especially as I live in an epitome of chaos and untidyness and she is quite neat.
If you've seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, my house looks like the hotel room did after a few days... (well maybe not that bad..:> )

I'll certainly contribute to the community artistry...

Oh good!

I'm going to be in my very own house for the first time ever this Christmas. I've always managed to blag a meal somewhere up until now I'm having to cook, though I'm not that fussed about turkey so we're having duck instead.

It's Dom's second Christmas, but I don't think he remembered much about the last one! It's his nursery party on Friday - woohoo!



Anna

Hi Zucchini

Hmmm, I know what you mean. I more at less lived at my boyfriend's last year, which meant that most of the time we were sharing one room. I'm not hugely messy, but I do have a habit of living in 'organized mess' in that I pile things up on the floor and just about every available space. It drove him mad. In the end, if I so much as put a *pencil* on his desk (rather than back in my pencil case and then the pencil case back over in my alloted little space), he screamed, 'don't put that there! Where does it go?!' From then on I decided that if we ever get a place together, we'll have to have seperate bedrooms.

This is probably what we'll be doing next year in Leeds in any case, as we'll be moving into a shared student house with some friends.

Happy Christmas!
Liz

Woops, yes, read the date of Dominic's arrival wrong on your Personal Space. He must be walking about by now, then - sorry, I mean *running* about (since when did little boys under five ever walk?). Can he say any words yet? I've volunteered at a creche for under fives on and off for the past two years or so now, but I'm still not quite sure when a kid starts crawling/walking/talking etc. I guess that's because each child develops at a different rate. Have fun at the nursery party this Friday. I've always wanted to go to the Christmas party at the creche, but I've never finished Uni in time to do so. It must be so magical, though, esp when Father Christmas turns up!

I hope your Christmas dinner goes well. Duck is delicious.We tend to eat it at New Year. One thing about having turkey at Christmas though is that I get to eat it with my Dad's home-made cranberry sauce - an unbeatable combination.

Merry Christmas!
Lizzy

Mmmm yummy

Yep, Dom is running about, or stomping, if he's wearing shoes! He can say up, down, hello, bye bye, eye, nose, no, yes, ears... um I should make a list!

Happy Christmas to you top!



Anna

hi Lizzy and Anna!
As this is my last day at work for a while, just want to wish you
a good Solstice and a bonzer Xmas!
Ta ra for now - Zucchini.

Hi Zucchini

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Talk to you later in 2003.

Cheerio, Lizzy