Lost in Translation + Side Notes

As I was procrastinating my time away on facebook today, I came across this one note from my good friend, Jane. The content was how Hong Kong people translated their Cantonese slang into English. I shall share a few which I thought was hilarious except I think only Jane and Bonnie would understand why it's so funny. Note: it only sounds legit (thanks American friends for making me Americanized) if you say it out loud with a fobby accent.

你教我以後點出黎行?
You teach me how to come out and walk in the future?

你係咪路啊？
Are you road?

你係乜水啊？
What the water are you?

班馬劈友。
Zebra chops people.

美中不足。
American chinese not enough.

笑死我。
Laugh die me.

八婆，你好o野!
Eight woman,you are good!


And then, I thought of one of my own.
老豆
Old bean.

Since coming on exchange, I've had quite a few lost in translation situations also. For instance, one time my housemates and I were talking about going shopping and I declared that I needed to buy a new pair of thongs. My American housemate, Corrine, goggled at me for a good 10 seconds and then said: "You? Thongs??" It took me another 10 seconds to register what was going on and then I realised, you Americans use the term flip flops while we Australians use the term thongs. What you guys call thongs, we call G-strings.

Then there was another time when I was sitting with Jezli. The wind was picking up so another friend, Kelly, offered her jacket. I told Jezli that she can have the jacket since I've already go a jumper on. Except this time I didn't even realise she had no clue what I was talking about so I kept repeating the word jumper for another minute or so before I registered her O.o look. Bahaha, so I got told that Americans use the term sweater. Okay, next time.

I also had no idea that arvo was an Australian term so I used that a good few times with some Americans and got wide-eyed looks from all of them. But they came up with a good question, where does the 'v' come from?

Corrine also got tripped out when Fifi kept using the term petrol station instead of gas station during their LA trip.

But it is a mutual relationship when it comes to lost in translation. For example, someone asked me whether I've had boba before. Having no clue what boba was, I of course answered no, I haven't had boba before. Shocked, they took me to the boba place only for me to find out that what they call boba, we call pearl milk tea!

~~~

Tonight our permanent guest, Mr. William Creagh, decided to cook us dinner because he felt guilty for staying at our place all the time without paying rent. Fair enough. He made us some pasta topped with deep-fried fish. It was sooooo nice. Do you know why? Because the pasta was made from all-Australian wheat. ;)

It's funny seeing what all the Australians here get sent from home. My roommate, Indako, already has had olives, Tim Tams, (For my two American friends following, you have to try them! They are sooo good! And this is coming from someone who dislikes chocolate. I heard that they're available in Ralph's.) vegemite, and even Meegoran! (Again, for my two American friends following, Meegoran is THE best study food out there. You don't know what you're missing out.)

Anyways, the whole point of all this food talk is to point out the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, cook anything. If I ever get married, my husband will need to know how to cook or we'll both starve to death or be utterly broke because we'd be eating out all the time.



P.S. Have you ever gotten annoyed at someone but you can't tell them because 1) it would cause more trouble or 2) because it's not even worth telling them? I'm feeling like that right now.

Quarter Life Crisis Continues

Is it just me or do you find classes that you're not taking more interesting than the classes you do take?

So during dinner tonight, somehow everyone ended up in my apartment and somehow we ended up discussing what we're going to do with our lives. It's kind of surprising to see how many people don't have a set path they want to take, but at the same time, I expected that result. Honestly speaking, how many people would actually know exactly what they want to do with the rest of their life before they're 30? It's not like school teaches us anything useful to help identify what we want either. Schooling is, for the most part, so useless.

Anyhow, I think I've settled on a vague plan about what I'm going to do with myself in the near future. Hopefully it goes according to plan but I am a firm believer in "don't make plans because nothing ever goes according to plan".

Now I would like to bore you with my obscure observations. I have noticed that my coathanger (technically it's Indako's since she was the one who bought them) in the bathroom has undergone creep due to the constant load that is Indako's beach towel on it over an extended period of time. I find that quite fascinating just because. And only the engineers would know what I'm rambling on about.

It is now time for me to go to bed since it's already 1:30am. More than 3 hours past my bedtime!

Blog 3.0

So instead of studying for my French quiz, I decided to get a new email and while I'm at it, get a new blog too. I know, very constructive of me. But hey, I am studying, sort of. The French book is right in front of me and I noticed that the word iPod is on there. I've also noticed that they've declared the word a masculine word. I have yet to form an opinion on that choice.

As my title suggests, this is my third blog in my not-young-but-can't-be-classified-as-old lifetime. I don't know whether this is considered a lot or not. I think the three blogs can be sorted into a different part of my life. First blog is for the most part a highlight of my high school life. I suggest you don't read it. Or maybe I just shouldn't revisit because there may be cringe-worthy entries in there. Second blog was when I hopefully transitioned into a more mature adult. Actually, I'm not so sure about that. Now to part three. Well, I can't tell the future so I'm not going to say anything in case I have to eat my words for the n-th time.

Will you look at that, it's time for me to go to class. This shall be continued when I get back because if there's one thing I can tell about the future, it's that I will be procrastinating.

Guess who's back, back again? Shady's back, tell a friend.

Eh, let's clarify that I'm not a Eminem fan but we sang this song at karaoke last week for Corrine's birthday and it's still stuck in my head.

French quiz was a disaster but absolutely deserved to be one since I didn't study. Mon Dieu! Francais est tres dificile!

I have a dilemma: should I change majors? Wait, before you go :O at me, I should let you know that it's nothing too drastic. I am contemplating about changing from Chem & Bio Engineering to Chem & Materials Engineering. The only complication with that is that I will need to take 5 courses for the next two semesters if I still wanted to finish in 4 years. It's a complication becasue 3rd year, 2nd semester for chemical engineering is meant to be the hardest.

Baaaah~ I think all this mind-changing and blog-moving reflects my personality very well.
Like a flower bending in the breeze, bend with me, sway with ease.

I feel like quoting lyrics today.

I also feel like speaking French today. Il y a du brouillard beaucoup! Je veux la sieste. C'est barbant! I anticipate grammatical corrections.

My academic advisor just emailed me back: "Yes, I think that Chem/Bio would have a higher requirement for postgrad study and overseas employment/experience. Chem/Mater holds more promise for local 'bread and butter' engineering work (although may involve site work etc...)". Thoughts?