Bisdak Babbles

Difficult situations often make a person learn something new and stick it to his mind.  This is usually the case, well, at least for me. 

The Japanese word “ochita”, is the past tense and colloquial form of the word “ochiru”.

ochiru (落ちる) means:
(1) to fall down; to drop; (2) to fail (e.g. exam); (3) to crash; to degenerate; to degrade; (4) to fade; to come out (e.g. a stain);

One time, I felt like I was a walking zombie on my way home.  I was holding my train ticket as I got out of the train but a Japanese lady was so impatient that she dashed into the train and bumped into me.  Being half-awake as I was, I was shocked when my train ticket fell into the train tracks through that narrow gap between the platform and the train.  The lady stared at me and then rushed inside the train without even apologizing, while I felt other pair of eyes looking at me.  I felt so stupid.  I actually thought of just leaving my ticket there but I still have to explain what happened.  So I approached a train station personnel.  I forgot the Japanese word for “fall” so I just used my broken Japanese and sign language.  Fortunately, the personnel understood me and confirmed it by asking “ochita?“  I nodded and she rushed down the platform and had a colleague pick up my ticket using that very long clipper.