Fiona Foo | January 16, 2009
"Man children and British men"
As of now, the MIT webserver has received 42424242 login attempts to their decision webites. Please have sympathy for the poor machines, y'all.
As the resident wannabe psychologist-blogger, I'm here to help your obssessive tendencies. The crucial part is picking something else to worry about—not the MIT application. Like fixing your car, or your Calculus homework, or releasing the zebras from the zoo. Whatever rocks your boat.
I've got two new worries, the first of which is blank faces. ‘Blank faces’ is an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teacher’s worst nightmare, because it means that your instructions rushed past the innocent learners like a speed train on meth. If speed = meth, then what’s a meth train with more meth? Eth train. But that's besides the point. Please don’t mention those two words of death - Blank faces. It makes me cry.
My second worry is freezing to death. I’m in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand, and we’re having a cold snap at the moment so it’s about 10 degrees Celsius. Brrrr, it’s really cold for a Singaporean, since it's about 25 degrees Celsius back home. I’m trying to adjust, since living at MIT is probably much worse than even sleeping naked here. Not that I’ve tried sleeping naked, it’s just a hypothetical situation.
I’m in Thailand to take the CELTA course and qualify as an English as Second Language (ESL) teacher. My tutors are British blokes, and they call cigarettes fags. I’ve never seen anyone (apart from Bridget Jones) call cylinders of tobacco a fag. Another thing to think about--faw, or faurrr? Apparently, if you say faw, you're an uppity English gentle(wo)man, and if you say faurrr you're a hearty cowboy/girl.
Lots of other funny things happen here, like Aaron, the Korean-speaking Saskatoonian, calling a son a ‘man child’. Say it out loud. Man child. Strange things happen when you put a Canadian up in front of 16 Thais. I’ve recently taken to writing notes in phonemic script, like /gʊdwɜrk/. Try it. It’s kinda like Klingon.
In short, pick stuff to worry about, and learn new stuff. By the way, I know Enoch has told you that 42 is the answer to the universe, but I did make up that 42424242 number. Sorry y'all.
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Responses To This Entry:
Not first!
Posted by: Matt on January 16, 2009 10:01 AM
FELLOW SINGAPOREAN! Congrats. Hopefully MIT will be where i study in the future. All the best now.
Posted by: Luke on February 11, 2009 10:02 AM
hi colleage....
Posted by: sepideh on February 11, 2009 02:02 PM
Haha Luke where are you from? I've got to wait for results to come out to see if MIT'll accept me.. :P
Posted by: Fiona on February 11, 2009 03:02 PM
What is faurrr or faw supposed to be?
Posted by: a on February 11, 2009 08:02 PM
Two different ways of pronouncing Four, whether you articulate the r or not.
Posted by: Fiona on February 14, 2009 08:02 PM
