Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Now I'm Spung!

Its common knowledge in my lab that I am giving my GRE in September. I use most of my spare time expanding my vocabulary with the popular GRE word lists. I also have TOEFL coming up. I don't particularly know how to prepare for that one. For now, I am forced to settle with just day-to-day English speaking (which I do anyways :-/)

Honors Year Project hasn't made life any easier; neither for my GRE prep nor TOEFL! The biggest blessing has been my new mentor. She's not a bad person (as many people here seem to believe). She is quite resourceful. There are some down sides to having her as a mentor though. One of them being mood swings. Once she almost broke the door of the lab refrigerator because it wouldn't open properly! There was another object blocking it and she knew that. She was just so mad that someone left it there in front of the door and kept banging the door against the object as if that would frighten the object and scare it away! Fortunately for the fridge door, one of my labmates moved the object to a safer location :P Actually, my mentor last year was also prone to mood swings. The difference is, he used to take it out on me and make it too damn personal. My current mentor doesn't hold a personal grudge :)

The other downside to having her as a mentor is... well... her English. She's from mainland China and studied in Chinese medium insititutions till her undergrad or grad degree! She is more familiar with the chinese version of the amino acids list... including the chinese short forms for them! :O Her English is not bad but its not too good either. The good thing is, she doesn't mind me correcting her when she goes wrong :) Quite rare to come across such people these days! The bad thing is, my English skills are being destroyed... slowly and steadily.... Not good for my TOEFL exam!! Don't be surprised if you hear me say something like....

I cling up the bench wif sevanty puhcen efanol ah? (Should I clean up the bench with 70% ethanol?)

I sping the toobs in the centifooge leh! (I'll spin the tubes in the centrifuge)

I spung the toobs oredi! (I already spun the tubes!)

Gel muss destain what (The gel needs to destain)

I go get for you ah (I'll go and get it for you)

Air con no wuhkin (Air conditioning is down)

I chrow? (Shall I throw it?) Can osso! (Yes you can throw it)

So tie-yard!!!!! Canno wuk oredi! (I am so tired. I cannot work anymore)

Die-die lah, no proting waaaaah!!! (No protein)

Doewaaaan Singlish leh!!!!!! Its TOEFL, not TOSFL!!!! :O :O

P.S. After I published this post, clueless went through it once and found several grammatical errors (more than usual :P)!!!! I truly have forgotten how to speak (or write) correct English!!! Waaaaaah! Doewaaaan!!!! :O

5 comments:

Anusha said...

Hee! I'm glad you posted about this, because now I can come back and look at it whenever I need a good laugh. Your mentor definitely is one of a kind - her English is enough to make me forget mine! :D

The bad thing is ... 4 years in Singapore have made me so immune to the Singlish phenomenon that I don't even bat an eyelid at incorrect grammar nowadays. I even talk like that without realizing it! Thankfully, it only pops up whenever I'm talking to others speaking in Singlish - God forbid it ever slip out during a conversation with a non-Singaporean! ;)

Shweta said...

wow, make your mentor prepare for toefl, it'll do both of you some good!
and i've always liked the 'die-die' expression :P

Anonymous said...

Quoting Kamal in Dasavatharam: "He can speak 14 different languages in Telugu!" You learn a lot about so many different cultures when you deal with so many different people. Just wait until you have to deal with american blacks, or should I say African Americans, the politically correct term. This ain't nothin compared to that.

Such! said...

My sympathies, and my english deteriorating(did i spell that right?) too, for no lingually diversified reasons whatsoever.

Luck for toefl & gre!

ps:the word verification right now sounds like something your mentor would say :)

soleil said...

I burst out laughing when I read the first quote!! hahahaha! I think you may have a knack for non-standard English, which is good for communicating with others in everyday life but baaaaaad for TOEFL :/