Student lingo......

In working with college students, there is a whole world of language that they have. Being around them all the time, my vocabulary is also affected. I realized this when I was in the car with a friend who had just picked me up from the airport. I was telling a story about something and my friend laughed at me and pointed out the fact that I said 'dude.' In talking with me it is apparent that I am in daily interaction with college students.

Still there are times that I don't totally understand them. A few examples:

-A couple of weeks ago a student was commenting on a picture of me. It was just a normal picture of me in my office in South Africa. My hair was a bit lighter and it was curly that day. The student's comment.... "you hair is epic." Now I know this is a compliment of some form, but weeks later I am still trying to figure out exactly what it means to have 'epic hair.'

-Last night I was cooking dinner. This semester I have not cooked much because Chi Alpha feeds us all the time. Either I'm eating with students at meetings or we eat dinner together four nights a week as a house. And a few of my lunches are also encompassed by Chi Alpha, or I eat leftovers. However this week all normal events have stopped and so I was cooking myself a nice dinner last night. One of our female student housemates walked through the kitchen and asked if I was cooking for fun. I responded that I was cooking because I needed to eat. Her response..... "you're gonna be a ballin' wife one day." Again I know this is a compliment, but what exactly does that mean? I asked her what it meant and she said it meant I would be great or awesome or something to that affect. It made me laugh at the word choice.

I love the variety and interesting use of vocabulary that college students use. I do sometimes wish to carry on a conversation without the use of dude, sweet, epic, cool, like, etc. But hey it definitely makes for interesting conversation and days of interpretation. Until then......