Adventures of an enunciator

Disability services at uni has given me a copy of a program called Dragon that transcribes what I say into the computer. I spent a good deal of last night "training" it to my voice. There's been a few mistakes, mostly of the innocuous variety (say instead of see) but one in particular has stuck out in my memory (fellate instead of select). I have to keep training it to my voice so that it can accurately transcribe a dictated essay when assessment time roles around. This way, I can "write" my essays and assessments without actually writing (and, in turn, not wear myself out too much). It's very exciting. The thing I need to learn is to enunciate a bit better. This is not speaking slowly necessarily, just accurately. The program isn't stupid, it just doesn't come equipped with mumble-decryption technology.

In other news, I have now successfully completed my first week of tertiary study. Yay me.

This morning I (technically) woke at 6:15. I didn't gain full consciousness until about 6:25. I got up at 6:30, dressed, and was out the door by 6:40. It was still dark while all of this transpired. I was on the train, before I knew it, by 6:55. I caught the train at this ungodly hour so I could get to uni this morning to get there in time for my 9am sociology lecture. I actually arrived on campus at around 8:30 and made a bee-line to one of the many union coffee outlets for a shot of caffeine. Five minutes after ordering, my coffee was ready. The woman said "next one is on the house because it took so long", so I wonder if she'll remember me when I front up bleary-eyed on Tuesday morning next week and demand a free cuppa. More importantly, I wonder if I'll remember.

Both my lecturers are great, the subjects are really interesting, the textbooks are really heavy (though thankfully not required to be toted around to all corners of Sydney with me), the theatres are comfortable, the coffee from the above mentioned union store is amazing (if a little tardy), the people are friendly, the boys are (for the most part) hot, the trees are green, God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.

My public transport experiences today were interesting. The people you meet on buses trains are really amazing. On the bus on the way to uni I made my way to the four seats at the front of the bus that face each other (the ones with a little sign on the window saying "Please vacate this seat for elderly or less mobile passengers") and attempted to sit down next to a guy in his early-to-mid twenties who was sitting sideways across two seats with his bum on the aisle seat and his massive backpack on the other. I sat on the window seat, in the foot of space left over after his backpack was taken into account, and wriggled to get him to move over. The rude bugger didn't move. It was only the early time of morning that prevented me from saying something.

On the train on the way home this afternoon, I was sitting down, minding my own business, reading one of the Howard-hating university publications that seem to be standard issue around campus when a guy walked down the aisle looking for a seat. I had a double seat to myself, with a photocopied article occupying the aisle seat, so I picked up the article so he could sit. "Thanks man," he said, "what you reading?"--"It's just an article for uni," I said.--"What are you studying?"--"Linguistics."--"What's that?"--"It's the study of how language works."

He was in his early twenties, smelt of cigarettes and whisky and had two mates in tow. It was around midday. We got talking about how he'd finished school at year 10 after getting Ds and Es (up until this point I didn't know that there was such a grade as E in Australia), how he is now an apprentice chef and how he loves rap and R&B (which, incidentally, I hate). He showed me an ipod shuffle that he'd bought that day and asked how easy it was to get music from CDs to the ipod. A station down the line he saw a girl on the station that he recognised. She was, as he practically shouted to the entire carriage, hot. She joined us and halfway through the trip cottoned on to the fact that we had just met and couldn't believe we were chatting so comfortably after just having met.

Throughout all this, an elderly gentleman (read: old fart), with the biggest nose I've ever seen on another human being, kept turning around in his seat and shooting disapproving looks at us. I don't know why, because with the possible exception of the rather graphic description of the hot girl and my new friend talking about a recent HIV test, we didn't really say or do anything offensive.

So all in all, it's been an interesting week.