Confessions of a City Slicker

For the past 2 days I have been saddled with the unenviable task of translating presentation materials from English to Malay which has me bent over my desk scratching my head 90% of the time.

Now, I’m as adept as the next person who calls himself "Malaysian" at translating anything to Malay in a casual context, but when it comes to sales materials or formal documents, it’s a whole different ball game all together.  They might as well be speaking Swahili.

Like how do you translate a phrase like "Our System Pays For Themselves"?  "Sistem Kami Membayar Sendiri"?  Even a simple word like "lock" which is "mangga" in Malay and can even mean "mango" has me pondering for hours.  You just can’t use words that sound fruity in a formal document now, can you?

Lucky a small portion of these things have been translated previously, so I just have to copy and paste them, else I’ll really be sporting a bald spot by the end of the week.  The online dictionaries are also no help, especially with the more technical terms.  They give you a direct translation of the word then you have to figure out how to fit it in the context of your material.

At this rate, I’m probably gonna be at it all week.  I wonder how my fellow colleagues are faring…..they get to translate the damn thing to Chinese.

Wanna know what the irony is?  I wrote some of these things :p  You would think that will make it easier to translate.  Think again!

I got the heads up for this event from Lillian aka the5xmom who is also my friend from the choir and cooking sifu hehehe…..

So after choir practice last Sunday, I went to check it out.  Lillian was not at choir practice, so I figured she must be there.

The event was an opportunity for bloggers in Penang to meet new bloggers and exchange ideas, you know, the usual yadda yadda yadda.  There was no proper agenda for the day, though.  It was very informal.  Most of the bloggers there were young people, mostly students, but with very mature and interesting points of view.

Sorry, no photos of me from the event to be shown here as I was only there for like 1/2 hour.  Also I didn’t have much time to "put on" my face properly that morning, so I look like shit :p

But take my word for it, there were lots of people there.  And the next time someone organizes something like this again, you can be sure I’ll be there fully prepared.  Their next event is a hike to Pantai Kerachut…….eeeekkkkk!!!!!  Not for someone like me who is not a nature lover.

Well guys, next time you have another meeting, let me know.  Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll find out about it from Lillian’s blog.

It was nice meeting all of you

Just came back to work after the long CNY break.  Nobody at work but a skeleton crew as most people are still on an extended break till the end of the week.  I SHOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING!!!!!!

Someone up there has a sick sense of humor.  As soon as my alarm clock goes off this morning, so too starts the pitter patter of raindrops on my roof, rubbing in the fact that some people are still enjoying a restful sleep while I’m going back to the daily grind

I’m sitting in the office right now, about to nod off and the nice cool weather outside isn’t helping.  Things are so quiet in the office as most of our clients are still on a break, so there’s nothing much to do.

I would love very much right now to go eat snake (goof off), but unfortunately, there’s nobody online I can IM at the moment.

OK.  I’m gonna find a quiet spot to nod off for a few minutes.  Weather outside is getting more and more conducive for a snooze.  Sob!  Sob!  How I wish I’m at home right now all snug and warm under my comforter

SOMEONE UP THERE HAS A SICK SENSE OF HUMOR!!!!

Just came back to work after the long CNY break.  Nobody at work but a skeleton crew as most people are still on an extended break till the end of the week.  I SHOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME THING!!!!!!

Someone up there has a sick sense of humor.  As soon as my alarm clock goes off this morning, so too starts the pitter patter of raindrops on my roof, rubbing in the fact that some people are still enjoying a restful sleep while I’m going back to the daily grind

I’m sitting in the office right now, about to nod off and the nice cool weather outside isn’t helping.  Things are so quiet in the office as most of our clients are still on a break, so there’s nothing much to do.

I would love very much right now to go eat snake (goof off), but unfortunately, there’s nobody online I can IM at the moment.

OK.  I’m gonna find a quiet spot to nod off for a few minutes.  Weather outside is getting more and more conducive for a snooze.  Sob!  Sob!  How I wish I’m at home right now all snug and warm under my comforter

SOMEONE UP THERE HAS A SICK SENSE OF HUMOR!!!!

OK, got a gripe here.  Why is it that just because I am a Chinese person, every stranger (90% of them at least) who approaches me will inevitably speak Mandarin to me the minute they open their mouths?!  Duh, is it like every Chinese person in this world speaks nothing but Mandarin?

Hello!!!!!  There are so many dialects in the Chinese language that are more user friendly and sound waaaaayyyyyy better than Mandarin.  Oh, I know, Mandarin is the more "common" dialect in the Chinese speaking world, but hey, there ARE people out there who don’t (or in my case simply REFUSE to) speak it.

To top it off, when I give these people a blank look which clearly indicates that I don’t know what the f*** they are talking about, they ask me, again, in Mandarin "Nee Poo Huey Chiang Hwa Yee?" (Rolls eyes)

And before you guys out there give me that crap about not knowing my mother tongue, I’ll have you know that I was raised in a Hokkien household.  Therefore, Hokkien is my mother tongue.

And yes, China is emerging as a commercial force to be reckoned with, so the world is scrambling to learn to "chiang hwa yee", but hey, China should meet the world halfway and learn some English, no?

Finally, yes, I do chiang some hwa yee, but I simply choose not to because I never liked the dialect in the first place.  Come "kong kong tung wah" (speak Cantonese) with me anyday.

After a long hiatus from Body Pump, going back means taking it easy so that I don’t injure myself.  It sucks when I had to reduce the weights I lift for each track when I had significantly increased them from my newbie days