Does “weird” even exists in Star Wars?

So I’ve been watching the Star Wars saga recently, from episode 1 to episode 5 where I’m at now (there are six movies altogether if you didn’t know). Even after 5 movies, it still perturbed me whenever I see aliens and humans interacting and even living together in the movie.

I know it’s all fiction, but after watching episode II I thought about why the Queens of Naboo (name of planet in Star Wars) are required to paint their faces entirely white. It’s that some kind of make-up only for the Queens? I thought that was kind of weird. But then again, if that is weird, what about the other species (aliens) with three eyes, horns, and so on? Of course they are weird from our point of view (in reality) but what about the “world” in Star Wars? I just wondered how do they even define “weird” or “strange” if there are all sorts of creatures living together, even appearing to share similar cultures! Does the word, “weird”, even exists in their world? Maybe not.

Korean study vacation confirmed!

If you guys saw my recent facebook status, you would know that my coming “vacation” will be spent in Korea! Vacation with quotes because I’m going to study Korean for 2.5months, so I don’t really have a break… I’m not complaining since I wanted to go on my own accord. Of course, being in Korea with A, I’ll definitely play as well, that’s why I wrote Korean study vacation as my title! heee.

I’ve already booked my flight and paid for the course fees, so it’s a 100% confirm! I’m really excited because this time I have to be more independent in Korea which is GOOD so that I can know my way around Seoul, travelling on my own, buying my own stuff, and so on! Previously when I spent a month in Korea, I depended SOOOOO MUCH on A. Even when I was shopping for girly stuff, I had him to speak to the salesperson for me, everything was done by him! I want to learn how to live in Korea! I want to live in Korea like how I’m living in Aus right now! Of course, with the language barrier, everything will be so much more difficult but it will not only strengthen my independence, my Korean abilities will improve as well! Hopefully!

There’s just 1 thing which I feel regretful about, that is spending time with my family and friends in SG. Especially the special time of the year- CNY! It will be the first time I won’t be able to spend CNY with my family which sucks! My favourite time of the year has always been CNY, seriously. I won’t deny that dressing up in new clothes makes a big part of it, lol. But it’s the only time when I can see long-distance relatives… I’m just curious about how they’re doing, how much have they changed since a year ago, are they still the same… things like that. And it’s the good feeling of spending the start of the new year with the family that makes the occasion even more special. OH YES, the HONG BAOS as well!! As a jobless, young, unmarried person that’s my yearly income! :P

On the bright side, I’m probably going to spend CNY with A and his family! If you didn’t know, Koreans do have Lunar New Year as well and they also spend it together with their family. I’ll definitely be looking forward to that! :)

Potential Plan For Upcoming Semester Break

What a frustrating day I had yesterday!

Okay, firstly it has got something to do with my application for the Korean language program in Seoul National University. My passport, certificate and academic transcripts were needed as part of the application so I had to go to school to scan them since I don’t have a scanner. The scanner in school was the huge multi-purpose photocopying machine in which you can photocopy, scan and print. I had such a hard time scanning the documents because once I scan them, they will be saved into my usb but then I can’t see if they were scanned properly. The only way is to get a computer and check the images. After scanning all my documents the first time, I went to check them on the computer and realised only 3/4 of each document were scanned properly. So I had to go back…. This happened a few times, so I made many trips back and forth- scanning and then finding a computer…. It was so frustrating!

I knew it was the problem of aligning the documents properly so the machine could scan the entire doc. But the first time I did it, it was properly aligned and it turned out only 3/4 of the docs were scanned. After so many attempts, I finally got them properly scanned. Frustrating!

Anyway, I manage to apply for the program yesterday. It was quite a hustle because I had to sign in, register, etc… AND I had to upload a photo of myself onto my profile page which I presume an official resume kind of photo was needed, but damn I didn’t have such a photo. Thus, in my desperation I went to Facebook and find a photo of myself, download it and crop it. Haha… Well, I have no choice!

For the Korean language program, if I manage to get accepted, I will be there for at least ten weeks because that is how long the program will take. That means I will be there for most of my holidays…!! I cannot even celebrate Chinese New Year at home… It took me some time to think about applying because of these aspects and more, but I really hope to fast track my learning progress for my own abilities and for the translation thesis I’m doing right now. There is also the matter of my speaking ability which has not seen much progress… Even though I may have a Korean boyfriend, his English is better than my Korean, so I end up speaking English to him when I can’t express myself in Korean. That’s something which will NOT help in my speaking abilities because I have to push myself in speaking Korean if I want to get better. I’m sure my speaking abilities and confidence will improve heaps when I study in Korea.

Skip spring and move on to summer instead!

Typical weather of Brisbane… From winter, skip spring and bring in summer instead. The temperature heated up to 33dc yesterday, bringing in serious bushfires around Queensland causing the entire city to be engulfed in haze today. Well, I’m not sure about the city but suburban areas and UQ were definitely affected.

Surprisingly, I was not really use to wearing summer clothes again today. Especially exposing my legs without stockings and jeans… maybe after all the time my legs were hidden under the long pants and stockings, it was weird looking at them bare. haha. >.< But it felt good to be wearing summer clothes, lighter and less clothes, more comfy!

Although the sun can be blazingly hot, unlike the humidity in SG, Aus weather is much drier so I don’t feel as sticky. The good sides of Aussie weather~ minus the blazing hot sun. ;)

I just hope the weather won’t go overboard before I head back to SG. On that, the future is quite bleak….

Already half-way through the semester.

 

As the title says, September is here, I’m halfway through the first semester of honours. A very very overwhelming first half and I doubt that will change for the rest of the semester! Although overwhelming, I find myself absorbed into a quicker pace for learning Korean, because I have to do translations which are, sad to say, most of the time beyond my abilities. It is saddening and stressful at times, but I get to learn a lot of things along the way, practicing and hopefully, advancing my Korean abilities. I try not to let stress get in my way and positively take up the challenges as this is the only way to improve!

One of the greatest challenges I’m facing right now is having to translate a Korean novel for my translation thesis (for my honours, lazy to elaborate right now).  

Yes, I have this novel! It’s called <우리들의 행복한 시간> AKA “Our Happy Times".

A gave it to me last year when he was still in Brisbane! :D I tried to read it last year but it was soooo difficult that I gave up after a couple of pages. Haha. Now I have to face it because it’s going to be part of my translation thesis wherein I have to translate about 15,000words of it. I chose this on my own accord, of course. It has also been adapted into a movie, which some of you may be familiar with:

Kang Dong Won!! Hehehe.

I haven’t get down to watching it yet but I will do it very soon. A told me that the contents in the movie should be almost the same as the book’s.

The thing about translation is I have to be good in Korean and even better in English. I may be translating something but I am also writing it in English, and it has to be at a novelist level since it is going to be treated as an English novel. This is another aspect which I’m struggling with- WRITING IN ENGLISH! WRITING. WRITING A NOVEL. Sad to say, I’m not very good at writing and I think this is an area which I have to work on as well.

There are too many things to work on…… 

(MUST-READ) My translation of a news article in relations to A’s achievement!!!

KUT, two students awarded with the Director’s Award at the Campus Patent Strategy Universiade.
Ranked 6th among 89 Universities in the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment.
Students from the Korea University of Technology and Education (hereinafter referred to as KUT) were awarded with 2 Patent Director’s Award, 1 excellence award and 1 participation award in the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment at the 2011 Campus Patent Strategy Universiade Competition.
In this competition, KUT students Choi Sang-Jin (3^rd year in the school of Mechatronics Engineering) and Yoo Seung-Mok (4^th year in the school of Energy, Materials and Chemical Engineering) were awarded with the Patent Director’s Award, while Kim Dong-Ha (4^th year in the school of Mechanical Engineering) and Lee Byung-Cheol(3^rd year in the school of Mechatronics Engineering) were awarded with the excellence and participation award respectively.
The competition, divided into the segments of Pre-existing Techniques Investigation and Patent Strategy Groundwork, had large companies lay down questions in the areas of power/electronics, shipbuilding/mechanical/metal and chemistry/biotechnology. It comprised of patent strategies, in accordance to the questions set, proposed by undergraduates, post-graduates and their advisors.
In the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment, a total of 2393 students from 89 universities nationwide entered this year’s competition. They then submitted their answers to 29 questions, wherein 1153 students passed the writing evaluation. After which a total of 169 students passed the presentation round and advanced to the finals where students Choi Sang Jin, Yoo Seung Mok and Kim Dong Ha were awarded accordingly.
Although KUT, producing 4 winners in this competition, ranked 6^th place after Kyonggi University (12 winners), Chungnam National University(10 winners), Inha University(8 winners), Yonsei University(6 winners) and Kumoh National Institute of Technology(5 winners), the institute was praised for having 2 winners awarded with the Patent Director’s Award through the achievement of excellent results.
Park Keom Jin, the technology support team leader, said, “From last December, over a period of 10 weeks, there was progress for more than 40 student patent representatives that extended over patent concepts, law in relation to patents, methods of invention, ways of searching pre-existing patent information and lessons from visiting professionals. The students’ responses were extremely good.” (t/n: Not too sure about the translation for this paragraph. ^^’’ )
Yoo Seung Mok and Choi Sang Jin who received the Patent Director’s Awards revealed, “Since last summer vacation, we attended lectures about Patents during our spare time and familiarised ourselves with the basic concepts. Until the competition in May, we prepared for it diligently with the help of Patent lectures and visiting instructors.” They added, “In order to solve the problems, we always consider them through the stance of the companies, and that helped us a lot.”

Patent Director’s Award- Choi Sang Jin, Patent Director’s Award- Yoo Seung Mok, Excellence Award- Kim Dong Ha.
Original article from: 충청일보

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Bolded name, Yoo Seung Mok, is A's Korean name. ;)

OMG, it took me ages to translate this article. Actually I’ve been practising translation for the past few weeks on shorter articles and this was the longest I’ve ever did. Of course I HAD to translate this, it’s about A’s achievement in the recent Patent competition he participated in.

Last week I posted on my facebook status about his photo appearing on naver.com, it is because of this article! :) There were several other shorter news articles and I heard the article was published in the newspapers too! But since this was the first one listed on Naver with his photo included, I chose to translate this article! It’s just mediocre translation as there are certain parts which I’m not too sure of but I try to make the article sound coherent and logical.
Anyway, I am SO SO SO proud of him! ^^The award he won, the Patent Director’s Award, was the second prize after the Minister’s Award (1st prize). There was prize money and it is quite a lot! He said that his school even made some sort of a banner (with the photos above) that showed off their achievement.
This sure reflects how hardworking and diligent a student he is… ㅠ.ㅠ He’s my role model…

New semester, honours year… Tougher than I thought

It’s already the third week into the 1st semester of my honours year. There is definitely a level of intensity that is beyond the normal undergrad level. Because I’ve taken the challenge to do a translation thesis, it requires high proficiency of the Korean language. Right now, I’m trying to improve my proficiency level and at the same time practice doing translations which can be immensely challenging. But I welcome the challenge as it is always better than it not being a challenge. At least I will learn something out of it.

These days though, I feel a bit of a motivational-drain… I want to study, but I keep getting distracted by things and by the end of the day my to-do list will always be incomplete. That is very annoying and it kills my motivation even more. But oh well, I just have to keep fighting…!!

Sometimes I feel that I can be a little too ambitious too, wanting to be fluent in Korean in an instant and then getting frustrated when I realise my Korean isn’t as good as I want it to be. I want to really sit down and mug, just like a Korean high school student –studying 20 hours or so a day. LOL. Okay that’s too intense for me, I still need to cook, do laundry, clean, wash, drink bubble tea, etc… Hehe. But I’ve done quite a fair bit of studying when it’s only the third week. I just feel that I need to study even MORE. Yeap, I need to but knowing me, I get distracted so easily.

I realised that in the recent months, I’ve absolutely no inspiration or  (the word again) motivation to blog about anything…….. When I look at my blog, I’ll go “ok I’ll blog another time” and it’s the same all the time until now. One thing is I guess I can easily pour out my feelings through twitter, in an instant! Also, right now I feel that I need to put more effort into blogging well, language wise. Write well to improve my writing skills… that thought alone sort of kills my motivation by 80% already. LOL. And this blog post is like… almost close to effortless because I don’t want to care anymore…. I need to revive this blog!! ><;;

끝.