...boy don't try to front i-i know just-just what you are-are-are...

Currently listening to: Womanizer - Britney Spears

.thesunsetandthetable.

My room, Clayton, Oct 1 2008

Finally. The end of Week 12. That spells total freedom for me, with caps.
*heaves out a sigh of relief*


This whole week has been full of ups-and-downs.
Started off with a couple of lazy days before moving on straight to a full-on sequence of panic attacks and sleepless nights because the demented MKC2210 (yep, you didn't see it wrong, that was still the code of the same annoying subject I freaking hate) presentation wasn't finished yet. Then things got a bit out of hand the night after everything was done, because I was so exhausted and overworked that my stomach acids acted out and I got awful stomach cramps that hurt like hell. So I took some medicine and rested well; probably a bit too well since I couldn't get up early enough to catch the morning tute the day after. *sighs*

But yeah, I'm fine now. And finally, every last piece of assessment before exams has been totally over and done with as of right now. YAY!
*dances around like a retard*

Anyway. *clears throat*

Just now I was absently browsing through yesterday's edition of The Age, and since Saturday papers are usually delivered in two plastic-wrapped, rolled-up bundles, flipping through crumpled pages and smoothing out curled edges can sometimes be a pain in the ass, but that's completely besides the point. So after spending a couple of minutes wrestling with stubborn curls and what-have-yous, I came across this fascinating article about literacy in Australia.
Wait for it. This is gonna be interesting. *grins*

Apparently research has shown that one-fifth of Australians, meaning one out of every five people in Australia, has difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and sentence construction. Surprise, surprise. You'd think that in a country with English as its de facto national language, which surely means that the language is widely-spoken amongst its people, various problems regarding its proper usage should be completely out of the question. Yet apparently this assumption isn't evident in reality.

The article states that a majority of Australians can't differentiate between simple homophones and often spell them wrongly. Common mistakes include "you're" and "your", "its" and "it's", or "there" and "their". In addition to that, structuring good, comprehensible sentences is another issue, since often written sentences contain ambiguous meanings due to misplacements or words and such if not structured properly.

What's worse, these mistakes and so-called "glitches" continue far well into adulthood, with job applicants and even university graduates not being able to phrase their CVs and application forms well enough. One confident girl, for example, as stated in the article, wrote in her CV that she possessed "five key strengths" that would make her suitable for the job she was applying for, and one of those strengths was "attention to detale".

Ironic, much?
Well, I don't know what exactly is wrong with the system in this country to have allowed for such "glitches" to happen, and perhaps nothing is actually wrong to begin with.

Being born as a true-blue ESL-speaker, I have never been exposed to the process of learning English as a first language, to state the obvious. Even though I was introduced to the language at a very young age, I familiarized myself with it as a second language from the very beginning, and that gave me a wholly different perception towards the language and its usage. I really learned how to use the language properly, along with its properties as well as its complicated forms of usage variation, tenses, gerund, idioms, vocabulary construction, and such. I'm a fast-learner, too, that's a plus so I learned stuff pretty quickly as a kid.

And even now, although that I can confidently state that I am exceptionally fluent in English, even more so than most of my Chindo counterparts *wink wink* I must say, it is not my mother tongue. Never was, never will be. Because of that, I use English differently, and my perception towards the language will greatly differ when compared to that of a native speaker's. A typical Australian's, for instance.
Oh, and probably the fact that I was heavily exposed to American English also has any contribution in my lingo construction or something. I dunno. Dang, of course it has; those of you who know me in person should know that under normal circumstances I have a slight SoCal tone in my speech, yet I know too well that the accent is slipping away from me. *sighs*

So, yeah. I really don't understand what exactly is going on here. I've had my share of evidence to have been able to confirm that this issue persists in the society I'm currently living in. Maybe they just do things differently here and teach English in schools with a different approach. Or perhaps people take using proper English for granted because they're already too used to the more-casual and supposedly less-structured form of English used in the society? *shrugs*

Whatever. Just thought this issue would be interesting to talk about.
I should probably head to bed now. *yawns*

Week 13 starting tomorrow YAY!

Apparently Spring ends early this year, and Summer's just round the corner. Jackets in, tank-tops out. Time to grab my summery flip-flops, SPF+30 sunscreen lotion, and aviator shades, and head to the beach!
Strange, coming from somebody who hates the sun and prefers scarfs over shorts. But hey, sometimes you gotta give in and mingle with the crowd. So be it. *laughs*

And I swear, guys, "Womanizer" is so damn catchy. Now I really can't get it outta my head, and that's totally not my fault. I haven't been able to stop myself from humming the repetitive "womanizer woman-womanizer you're a womanizer oh" part under my breath like some crazy-ass retard or something, and it's been going on for a couple of days now. Not to mention the fact that the music video for the song is super hot.
Man, this song is gonna be HUGE. *grins*

See you all around! =]