accents

very interesting. though i do claim that english is my first language quite commonly to avoid confusion and also for the same reason cenk stated, i don't actually speak english as a first language.

english is the language i speak and write most fluently in, but i speak a dialect of Wu chinese at home (Shanghainese) and was the first language i learnt to speak in. (though english was the first language i learnt how to write in)

i think accents and fluency is also something to be set a part, i have met many individuals with a strong accent but with extreme fluency. my parents on the other hand, have a strong accent AND poor fluency, which means they speak in an ..."odd" grammar?( i'm not sure what the proper terminology is, but that'll have to do). the way they arrange words orally and in written form sounds strange, though my parents have lived in Australia for more than 10 years, their fluency hasn't increased as much as i would expect, possibly due to the nature of their employment (not having the chance to interact with locals)

I agree, discrimination does exist, but i do think that at least in Australia, you are less credible not because your accent/lack of fluency reflects your heritage but more so that it is a requirement to have fluency in that particular role.

I had a chat with an international student and she said that it was extremely difficult to find a job in Australia as an international student, she assumed it was because of discrimination.
I don't think thats true, I think that even if you have an accent, when you show fluency and articulation in your language skills (along with all the other requirements for the job) there is no reason not to hire you.

take eg. Telemarketers
i'm a pretty open minded guy, a part from when i was in high school and sent a telemarkter on a wild goose chase by giving them a false address, i've been quite nice to them. but i think i am definitley more inclined and a lot more likely to hang up on a caller from india, not because i hate indians, but because its just takes that much more effort to understand them.


so if you're an employer, its natural that you hire someone you can understand more efficiently.

If discrimination was the issue here, Australians of ethnicities other than white, would have just as hard of a time finding a job, but i don't think thats the case.

get your engrish skills on yo!

pop culture

so watching the newest snsd video got me thinking (ironic).

When we say 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s styled theme party, what we really mean is USA themed party or maybe UK.

Why is that the case?

Might it have something to do with that most other countries were busy with revolutions, political turmoil etc?

Did people in the 60s have 30s themed parties? What did they dress like? I wonder how this will change in 50s years time, as Asian economies and influences rise, will we ever have an 2010s party based on how people dressed in China? Korea? Japan?

here we go again

now, true love dictates that i love taeyeon no matter what (lol so sad). but i cant help but think this is slightly "wondergirlish".

btw if anyone has a cure for this disease of snsd, please help me thanks

the one

i know this stuff is old but man, is it just me or is this stuff hilarious?

student internationale

decades ago, international students, exchange students from China were always the best and brightest the country had to offer. Without your proven academic success, there was no way for you to be accepted into a foreign university.

Sure, academic results are not definitive indicators for your intelligence as a whole, but even so...how times have changed.

I have met many international students who are very bright, very cosmopolitan and very open to new ideas. Unfortunately, these students are a very small minority.

The motivation for many Chinese international students do not come from within themselves, but came as an ill concieved contingency plan for failing academically in their own countries.
The irony of it all is that if they fail academically in an enviroment where academic results is everything, where you are forced to study...how would you succeed with no one to control you?

Given the situation in Australia, we love these international students, they come here, make up a large portion of intakes for most universities, often pay more than twice the fees local student do.

Is it ethical to be benefiting like this?

Universities often lower their english language skill requirements to increase international intake, again, is this ethical when even students who achieve 7 on their IELTS test sometimes have trouble linguistic problems at school and at work.

regent

so a few days ago, at my train station, a woman was crying as she waited for the train.
upon closer inspection, she was on the phone.

she didn't realise I was there, but she yelled into the phone to the person on the otherside,

"IS IT MY FAULT THAT I'M PREGNANT WITH YOUR BABY?"

amongst other revelations. she hung up and sat in her seat, sobbing loudly.

if someone sat down next to her and patted her on the back, it would have probably meant the world to her.

so why didn't I do it?

was I afraid that she would get the wrong idea? was it because I didn't want to seem creepy? was it because she looked like the crazy cat lady from the simpsons? was it because she smelt funny? was it because she was carrying a suspicious looking suitcase that was probably full of drugs?

all of the above? none of the above?

purchases

Team Noble (Jorge, Kat, Carter, Emile and Jun)
Sculpt very detailed, i'm loving it, unforutunately you can't take them off the platform and they're not poseable, but otherwise still awesome


mum's 50th present

text reads "longevity" in chinese

i am now a long way into the negatives on my credit card account

Rolando Mendoza

If you didn't know, roughly a week or two ago, a disgruntled, highly decorated ex-cop in Manila decided to take a bus load of tourists as hostage. He had alleged that he had been wrongly discharged out of the force and wanted his job back.

It took 12 hours to kill this man, 12 hours and 8 dead tourists, some of who's deaths could possibly be attributed to the police rather than the Mendoza.

This story has angered on so many levels.

Not only was the assault poorly managed, anyone who's played a game of CS could have done a better job.

The first assault resulted in a retreat as Mendoza fired towards the police entering, police are expected to show courage and determination when faced with these situations, however after the first cop was wounded, instead of pushing forward to kill the hostage taker, they all retreated
(keeping in mind that this was inside a bus)

At this point, what was stopping the hostage taker killing some hostages?

The second assault which happened hours later, was even more poorly managed, a group of SWAT members assaulted the bus, first by smashing windows...and then...not much else. They did not have ladders to enter the bus after smashing the windows, nor did they have an effective plan to prevent Mendoza from killing any hostages. Footage reveal police throwing smoke grenades... into a bus full of hostages.

Again, there was nothing to stop Mendoza, who has nothing to lose at this point, killing everyone on the bus.

After revealing his position inside the bus by firing his M16, snipers were able to pick him out.

The reckless assault wasn't even required, when a sniper could have just shot this guy at any given moment in the 12 hours.

Mendoza was out in the open without his M16 raised many times during the day with negotiators, yet no attempt was made at either disarming him or killing him.



The pinoy government has defended the actions of the police at the scene, apparently the gun-man had not shown signs of wanting to kill the hostages (despite taking them all hostage with an M16).

The Chinese Central government as well as the Hong Kong SAR government has expressed their anger at the situation and has refused to host a delegation in Beijing and Hong Kong to "explain" the event, and has rejected the pinoy president's press conference explanation.


Now sure we can all say that this is the short comings of a corrupt and immature government, the people are just as fed up with this sort of incompetence.



I know you all want to be billionaires, but can you please not seek your 15 seconds of fame at a place where 8 innocent people were just murdered?

Sure a bunch of naive school girls do stupid things. I'm sure the government and the police department would condemn such behaviour, possibly even go to their school and give them a lecture...oh wait...




(theres even a picture of a policeman posing WITH a high school girl, but I can't seem to locate it.)

I hope everyone around the world can learn something from this incident ...apart from don't go to the philippines

i've been missin your devilicious?

did anyone know nikki webster is doing this rubbish these days? this is like a crappier version of kylie minogue x keisha

grandmaster kia and the furious 5

i was eating my food before and i heard "the message" playing on my tv

the message about urban youth struggling through a unfair and racist society...playing in an ad about some white guy who forgot to buy his nappies?

"...from beat street to commercials for micky d's..."

power catalyst

this is showing some promise, im glad kanye has finally gotten over his emo-ness and even more glad hes gotten over autotune.

according to wikipedia, his new album will include production work from RZA, Q-Tip, Pete Rock and Souljaboy...what? Souljaboy? oh dear...

i am slightly curious though to what souljaboy has to offer kanye in terms of music and how hes feeling about himself being placed along names like RZA, Q-tip and Pete Rock. Will be an interesting album

at the same time



i like this song a lot more than "what i've done" and "what i did/what i've done again" aka new divide. very different from anything thats been done by them before. rick rubin is co-producing with mike shinoda himself. this album should also be interesting

i dream of corea

martin, cissy and I were somehow high school students in Korea, but cissy was of billionare status. whilst we were just chilling out on a beach in Korea, we realised that cissy had some stalker fanboys around who was in love with cissy and her friend whom was nameless but lets call her taeyeon (at this point martin wasnt in the dream)

we decided to move locations as cissy only likes to be bukkaked by people she knows. we get in the car and they approach us and asked cissy if they could come along, i was disapproved but, since they introduced themselves, cissy now officially knows them...so yea.

we are driving to another beach and more fanboys are chasing after what appears to be our carriage pulled by automatic robotic super horses. the two fanboys inside our carriage are naturally sitting next to cissy and i'm sitting next to taeyeon. the fanboys outside soon grab a hold of our carriage and are trying to climb in so i had to defend the carriage from being breached whilst cissy is flirting with the other fanboys, soon enough i succeed but the fanboys next to cissy are so happy and nervous that they vomit all over me, i get pissed off, and to cissy's dismay i throw the other two fanboys out of our carriage and make a turn back to our boarding school so i can go shower.

this is where it got all "asian high school drama".

so i am taking a shower to get all that vomit off me and martin comes in and tells me there seems to be a big group of people waiting outside for me.



a bunch of those dudes walk into the bathhouse and scout around and are speaking to everyone there, one walks up to martin and asks him in korean, if he was korean and if he wanted to beat me up, i chuckled and martin chuckles and says ok but continues showering, one of them looks at me and walks off.

so i walk outside and theres a whole bunch of guys sitting outside waiting for someone, most likely me but i ignore them and approach taeyeon to chat with her. as the conversation is going great, one of the fanboys i threw out of the carriage earlier interrupts my conversation and is like

"YA! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" (all dialogue is in korean too, i miraculously speak and understand korean in my dreams)
"chill buddy, i'm just speaking to my friend"
"why did you throw me out of the carriage? you are stupid!"
"you vommitted on me buddy"
"i will beat you like a drum with all my friends, you do not deserve taeyeon" he whispered to me



i gave turned around whilst they were all staring at me ready to fight, i walked up to taeyeon and kissed her. martin realising that this was a signal, punches about 10 guys in the head whilst i'm fighting the more agile ones in a fashion similar to this:






me being the guy in the black except there were about 20 of them and 2 of us and we actually win the fight

end of dream
(images courtesy of young and dangerous and temptation of the wolf (worst movie ever))

who wants to be a billionare?

Travis "Travie" Mccoy (not so) new song is really starting to shit me. This song not only has no substance but flamboyantly preaches...nothing.

according to the video clip, travis mccoy gives someone a car, a new skateboard and some new spray paint, i dont think you need to be billionare to do any of those things for one, and two, travis is definitley rich enough to do all those things though i doubt he has.

i was sitting at melbourne central, just eating some food before work and theres a group of high school kids sitting next to me, this song comes on and as if the(their) national anthem had come on, they all started singing

"i wanna be a billionare sooooo frickin baad"

i don't think any single one of those kids will ever be on the cover of forbes magazine next to opera and the queen (as far as i know, i don't think they've been on the cover of forbes? could be wrong, not gonna pretend i read forbes regularly)

as far as materialism goes, i think this song is the epitome, but its covered up to make it seem like its got some sort of hipster substance (oxymoron?) when its full of ignorance typical of its target market.

lol

+



=

lol

refs

please fifa, introduce video reviews

technology these days

i want one

smoked

now I don't know if i should present this story as a serious issue or as just a humorous happening.

an acquaintance of mine from work, who shall be known as "pree" recently took up smoking, i'm not sure how old he is but if i had to guess i say hes about 21 or 22.

"it still hurts my throat a bit," he says "but i am getting used to it."
"so why exactly did you take it up if it hurts your throat?" i asked
"because i need a girlfriend man, all the smokers have girlfriends, girls think its cool"
"HAHA" i chuckled due to the humour of that statement
"what are you laughing about? its not a joke"
"HAHA" i continued to chuckle as i was still under the impression he was making another obviously ridiculous statement to further his initial humourr.
"its not funny"

At this stage, my mind considered the odds of this guy actually genuinely believing his statement in regards to cigarettes being the reason for female attraction to males.

"so explain your theory," i said in a very worried yet curious tone

his theory is as follows:
he has never had a girlfriend nor has he had much luck with girls relationship wise and sexually. now he attributes this situation to the lack of cigarette addiction on his part. he thinks that it is extremely attractive to the opposite sex when a male walks around with a cigarette in his hands. "it looks cool" as he likes to put it.
to justify this theory, he said surveyed 10 people he knew and discovered that all the ones who don't smoke have never had a girlfriend, and those who do are either in a relationship or are "successful with the ladies" as he likes to put it.
he proceeded to demonstrate this theory was real life examples in the room, he pointed to person A and person B who were both smokers.
"neither of them have a girlfriend..."
"yea but they are both successful with the ladies! they told me!"
"i see, they told you they were successful with the ladies did they?"
"no not exactly, but they tell me stories about their chicks all the time."
"so you think, the reason why they are successful is due to cigarettes...?"
"yes"

our conversation pretty much finished there, i saw him again the next day and someone looking to exploit him due to the tax hike on cigarettes asked him for a smoke, he kindly replied that he has not officially started yet, but he will start buying decks soon.

"let me know when you start buying decks yea?"
"for sure man, for sure," pree said with a confidence in his voice

i think he attracting more cheap guys who can't afford to smoke than he is girls.

Avatar

I've acquired avatar to view at my pleasure but you know, the more i watch this movie, the more i realise something crucial that was overlooked by many people.

there are some very obvious themes to this movie such as colonialism, racism etc. this movie has been praised for dealing with these themes.

however, i feel there are points that need to be critisized. one very outstanding point needs to be considered, an american made this movie. a very rich white american came up with this story and filmed it.

it seems funny to me that Jake Sully (a white male), mastered the arts of the Na'vi, that usually take a whole life time of training and conditioning within a few months. and it's ironic to me, that though there has been only 5 Toruk Makto's throughout the entire history of the Na'vi, Jake Scully was able to capture a Toruk with 3 months of training.

This suggests to me a few things:

The white male is far more superior than any other ethnicity or race.

The Na'vi are stupid and only 5 of them have ever thought about flying higher than a Toruk to capture it.

It is even more ironic that the Na'vi, a culture rich in history and traditions, needed a White Male to lead them to war. Yes, he was a US Marine Corporal, but apparently a US Marine Corporal is better than anyone native to that entire planet.

Jake was able to defeat Tsu'tey, apparently the finest warrior who has trained all his life in the arts of the Na'vi, in hand to hand combat with ease, didn't even need his knife.

Not only did he tiger knee Tsu'tey, he stole his girl too...



James Cameron, instead of debating an issue, subconsciouly reinforced all the negative imperalist stereotypes of Western Culture.

"the last samurai, starring tom cruise, get the hell outta here"

fashion promotion

for those of you who are any interested, i am doing fashion promotion as a subject this year and i decided to start a blog to track my progress

here are my attempts at designing/marketing/being cool:

likeled.blogspot.com

i'll be updating it regularly and i'll probably make the blog more presentable
in the near future

analogies

now i read these when i was in year 11 but i discovered them again last night...enjoy:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.