Viva Italia!

The new "visiting scientist" in our lab is a vet from Italy. I feel bad because he's basically taking over my role of lab coolie and I have to show him how to do things even though he's a 29-year-old veterinarian who's worked extensively with wildlife and I'm an idiot barely out of uni. (Clinical skills != lab research skills) Anyway, we've had a couple of interesting conversations due to language barriers.

On Monday as I was leaving work:

me: So, we'll be going to catch the squirrels on Thursday. Bye!
Nicola: Er...Shi-Hsia, what day is Thursday?
me: [wtf is he asking me a stupid question like that? oh. days of week named different in Italian.]
me: It's the 13th. Thursday is the fourth day of the week. In English the days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Nicola: Ah, thank you.
me: What are the days in Italian?
Nicola: Lunedì, Martedì, Mercoledì, Giovedì, Venerdì, Sabato, Domenica.
me: Okay, so Giovedi we're going to catch squirrels.

Jupiter day? Oh well. In charge of thunder too. Suppose that fits.

Yesterday in the office:

Nicola: Shi-Hsia, do you have a rubber?
me: I don't have a rubber, but you can use this one on the pencil. [hands him a new pencil with eraser] Oh, and something you should know - in America, it's called an eraser. Don't call it a rubber. Because in America, rubber means a condom.
Nicola: Oh. Thank you.

Good thing he asked me instead of someone else...

Squirrel-hunting was quite successful - thanks to Mike from the UW's Carey Lab who kindly drove us out to the golf course and showed us how to catch them. I'll write up and post the story when Nicola sends me the pictures.