Tuesday 25 September 2012
Passion and Language
Passion really changes things. To do something mediocre or ordinary and do it with passion will make people forget that it was ordinary in the first place.
Today we had a guest lecturer from Cambridge come speak at my sociolinguistics class on some aspects of language change. It was a warm day, and I had just been doing a cross-country in my uni (I must've walked from one end to the other and then some), yes I am ashamed to say I lost my way again after having been at uni for almost 3 years now, and had to rely on the GPS to get to my destination. Next time, I won't try to be smart and use shortcuts to unfamiliar places. Anyway, as I was saying, it was a warm day and I was nodding off in class during her lecture, but when it got to the Q&A part, well, let's just say I found it really interesting because she was just so passionate about the topics she does. That's what I like about some professors here, they might teach you boring stuff, but ask them about something related to their research and they immediately become very animated about their work.
Passion really plays a big deal, because her passion in the subject of language death and revitalisation got me interested in it as well. Which got me thinking about my own language: Bahasa Malaysia. I remember those times in school where we would complain about learning all our subjects in BM, because "it's a useless language, we won't be using it in the 'real world'". But in all honesty, I have to say that more than once, I was thankful that our education system forced me to learn BM for 11 years. Especially here in New Zealand, where a lot of people only speak one language: English. I think, coming from Malaysia where it's so multiracial, we take being bilingual, or even trilingual and so on, for granted because it's fairly common. Most people I know speak at least two different languages. Even a 'banana' like me is able to understand a bit of mandarin, and canto, and hokkien. And it helps so much in the Linguistics field to know another language to compare and understand your language better. Also, I just only found out that I HAD to take a foreign language paper to major in Linguistics. But since my academic advisor knows I know BM, I am exempted from it. Although, had I known about that earlier, I would've chosen to do like, German or French.
So, in today's class, we had a scenario of a native Maori Speaker who when doing Maori in school (they have to take Maori as a second language in schools here), didn't get high marks because his dialect of Maori was not the same as the standard Maori they teach in schools. Which got me thinking, no one actually uses the BM we learn at school, except for schoolkids who have to pass their exams, and politicians. Right? I mean, native BM speakers usually have their own dialect or use short forms while speaking it. Of course, the main structure of the language remains the same, but let's be honest here... the BM that we learnt at school is so rigid and weird to use in normal day-to-day conversation. At the moment, I'm learning a bit of Kelantanese malay because we're performing a dikir barat for our Malam Malaysia. And, it's tough enough for me to memorise something in BM, let alone in BM that doesn't even sound half like the one I'm used to. Like I still haven't figured out what "atah jula moktey" means. Does anyone know?
Anyway, just a little bit of a geeky post here. People ask me what I do in Linguistics, well, here's a little bit of what I do.
Today we had a guest lecturer from Cambridge come speak at my sociolinguistics class on some aspects of language change. It was a warm day, and I had just been doing a cross-country in my uni (I must've walked from one end to the other and then some), yes I am ashamed to say I lost my way again after having been at uni for almost 3 years now, and had to rely on the GPS to get to my destination. Next time, I won't try to be smart and use shortcuts to unfamiliar places. Anyway, as I was saying, it was a warm day and I was nodding off in class during her lecture, but when it got to the Q&A part, well, let's just say I found it really interesting because she was just so passionate about the topics she does. That's what I like about some professors here, they might teach you boring stuff, but ask them about something related to their research and they immediately become very animated about their work.
Passion really plays a big deal, because her passion in the subject of language death and revitalisation got me interested in it as well. Which got me thinking about my own language: Bahasa Malaysia. I remember those times in school where we would complain about learning all our subjects in BM, because "it's a useless language, we won't be using it in the 'real world'". But in all honesty, I have to say that more than once, I was thankful that our education system forced me to learn BM for 11 years. Especially here in New Zealand, where a lot of people only speak one language: English. I think, coming from Malaysia where it's so multiracial, we take being bilingual, or even trilingual and so on, for granted because it's fairly common. Most people I know speak at least two different languages. Even a 'banana' like me is able to understand a bit of mandarin, and canto, and hokkien. And it helps so much in the Linguistics field to know another language to compare and understand your language better. Also, I just only found out that I HAD to take a foreign language paper to major in Linguistics. But since my academic advisor knows I know BM, I am exempted from it. Although, had I known about that earlier, I would've chosen to do like, German or French.
So, in today's class, we had a scenario of a native Maori Speaker who when doing Maori in school (they have to take Maori as a second language in schools here), didn't get high marks because his dialect of Maori was not the same as the standard Maori they teach in schools. Which got me thinking, no one actually uses the BM we learn at school, except for schoolkids who have to pass their exams, and politicians. Right? I mean, native BM speakers usually have their own dialect or use short forms while speaking it. Of course, the main structure of the language remains the same, but let's be honest here... the BM that we learnt at school is so rigid and weird to use in normal day-to-day conversation. At the moment, I'm learning a bit of Kelantanese malay because we're performing a dikir barat for our Malam Malaysia. And, it's tough enough for me to memorise something in BM, let alone in BM that doesn't even sound half like the one I'm used to. Like I still haven't figured out what "atah jula moktey" means. Does anyone know?
Anyway, just a little bit of a geeky post here. People ask me what I do in Linguistics, well, here's a little bit of what I do.
Thursday 20 September 2012
should there be a ribbon cutting ceremony?
Hey everyone who still follows me,
Firstly, kudos for being this loyal: for browsing through my old blog (more about that later) eventhough I haven't been blogging in a very VERY long time. I hope you were a little bit disappointed to find no new posts each time you came to check. Well... anyway, a girl can always hope right? Loyalty is hard to come by these days, people just stick with you until they find something newer and better.
Ok, at the risk of starting my new blog with a sad, pseudo-angry, rant about the dysfunctionality (i think i just made the word up because spellcheck is giving me an angry red line to tell me I spelled it wrong, but whatever) of the world... so, why do I have a new blog?
The thing is... Blogger or Google+ just refuses to allow me to log in to my old blog for some reason. It has happened in the past but somehow I still managed to get control of my old blog. But this time I couldn't remember what I did back then and gave in to them. Yes Google+, you win! Maybe it's time to move on with a new blog anyway. The old one is...6 or 7 years old already. I can't remember. Although, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll still be doing these days.
Anyway it's good to be back here. Mental note: must redesign blog and make it more ME. What does that even mean? The older I get, the more I realise that I don't fit in anywhere. Some people think I'm good, the good ones think I can be bad, I'm not that brainy, not that cool, not that nerdy, not that popular. So yeah, it gets confusing... but I'm enjoying being me, in my own little niche. Wonder if other people feel the same way as well. Probably lots of people do. Was having a chat with a friend about being hipster and mainstream, and he said he couldn't place himself in either one category cos he thinks he's a bit of both. So, I guess you can be a little bit of everything afterall. We're all created unique by God that way :)
Actually, I meant to have a good rant here but what kinda first blogpost starts of as a rant right? I mean, I don't usually complain right? haha. Sure.
Instead, I should tell you all about my current Korean "hallyu" wave which hit me when I started watching Running Man. I won't go on about it because most people know about it by this point, especially those who talk to me on facebook or whatsapp, cos I'm almost always watching it while chatting to them. haha sorry if I was somewhat distracted. Long story short, Running Man is great when you're all tired out and just want to laugh and be amused. The characters are really funny and endearing, and the challenges are pretty cool. It does get a bit boring and monotonous halfway through (I'm at like episode 80-ish now), but still... good. So, through Running Man, I got to know singers, bands, actors etc. Which got me listening to korean music (calling it K-Pop just makes it sound so lala and frothy), like Leessang, and CN Blue (fine, I concede that CN Blue is a kpop band, but they make good music. Plus one of the singers is cute. Yeah, so what if I like the singers AS WELL AS the music they play). And then, korean dramas came next. I used to watch them when I was still in school, but stopped for a long while since. I'm currently watching this one called 'Big', which is about this 18 year old boy switching bodies with a 30 year old guy in an accident. In his new older body (which is this totally hot tall doctor by the way), he falls in love with the doctor's fiance who also happens to be his teacher. Complicated or what? Now if you happen to know even a little bit about korean dramas (the rom-coms anyway), you'd know that it usually starts off funny with the hero and heroine always getting annoyed at each other and eventually they fall for each other, and then they have to hide their feelings for each other because of circumstances (eg: parents disapproval, can't decide between 2 people), and then it becomes sad and slow and sappy... I'm at the slow sad cry cry cry part at the moment. Seriously, just get together guys... Most of the time is spent with me rolling my eyes exasperatedly at why they are still hiding their feelings for each other, and yelling at them to "hurry and get together already cos you guys are perfect together CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!" haha... ok maybe I exaggerated it a little bit. But I get a bit impatient when they overplay the sad parts.
So yes, you can tell I'm a little bit obsessed at the moment.
Ok, if I want to keep your attentions, I should stick to shorter posts. This has gone on waaaaay too long than I initially intended it to be.
Bye for now~
Firstly, kudos for being this loyal: for browsing through my old blog (more about that later) eventhough I haven't been blogging in a very VERY long time. I hope you were a little bit disappointed to find no new posts each time you came to check. Well... anyway, a girl can always hope right? Loyalty is hard to come by these days, people just stick with you until they find something newer and better.
Ok, at the risk of starting my new blog with a sad, pseudo-angry, rant about the dysfunctionality (i think i just made the word up because spellcheck is giving me an angry red line to tell me I spelled it wrong, but whatever) of the world... so, why do I have a new blog?
The thing is... Blogger or Google+ just refuses to allow me to log in to my old blog for some reason. It has happened in the past but somehow I still managed to get control of my old blog. But this time I couldn't remember what I did back then and gave in to them. Yes Google+, you win! Maybe it's time to move on with a new blog anyway. The old one is...6 or 7 years old already. I can't remember. Although, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll still be doing these days.
Anyway it's good to be back here. Mental note: must redesign blog and make it more ME. What does that even mean? The older I get, the more I realise that I don't fit in anywhere. Some people think I'm good, the good ones think I can be bad, I'm not that brainy, not that cool, not that nerdy, not that popular. So yeah, it gets confusing... but I'm enjoying being me, in my own little niche. Wonder if other people feel the same way as well. Probably lots of people do. Was having a chat with a friend about being hipster and mainstream, and he said he couldn't place himself in either one category cos he thinks he's a bit of both. So, I guess you can be a little bit of everything afterall. We're all created unique by God that way :)
Actually, I meant to have a good rant here but what kinda first blogpost starts of as a rant right? I mean, I don't usually complain right? haha. Sure.
Instead, I should tell you all about my current Korean "hallyu" wave which hit me when I started watching Running Man. I won't go on about it because most people know about it by this point, especially those who talk to me on facebook or whatsapp, cos I'm almost always watching it while chatting to them. haha sorry if I was somewhat distracted. Long story short, Running Man is great when you're all tired out and just want to laugh and be amused. The characters are really funny and endearing, and the challenges are pretty cool. It does get a bit boring and monotonous halfway through (I'm at like episode 80-ish now), but still... good. So, through Running Man, I got to know singers, bands, actors etc. Which got me listening to korean music (calling it K-Pop just makes it sound so lala and frothy), like Leessang, and CN Blue (fine, I concede that CN Blue is a kpop band, but they make good music. Plus one of the singers is cute. Yeah, so what if I like the singers AS WELL AS the music they play). And then, korean dramas came next. I used to watch them when I was still in school, but stopped for a long while since. I'm currently watching this one called 'Big', which is about this 18 year old boy switching bodies with a 30 year old guy in an accident. In his new older body (which is this totally hot tall doctor by the way), he falls in love with the doctor's fiance who also happens to be his teacher. Complicated or what? Now if you happen to know even a little bit about korean dramas (the rom-coms anyway), you'd know that it usually starts off funny with the hero and heroine always getting annoyed at each other and eventually they fall for each other, and then they have to hide their feelings for each other because of circumstances (eg: parents disapproval, can't decide between 2 people), and then it becomes sad and slow and sappy... I'm at the slow sad cry cry cry part at the moment. Seriously, just get together guys... Most of the time is spent with me rolling my eyes exasperatedly at why they are still hiding their feelings for each other, and yelling at them to "hurry and get together already cos you guys are perfect together CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?!" haha... ok maybe I exaggerated it a little bit. But I get a bit impatient when they overplay the sad parts.
So yes, you can tell I'm a little bit obsessed at the moment.
Ok, if I want to keep your attentions, I should stick to shorter posts. This has gone on waaaaay too long than I initially intended it to be.
Bye for now~
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