Language

So, I've kind of been dreading this post. But on top of not studying for the LSATs and having nothing to do besides stan 2PM, I guess this is the only thing to do.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with the Thai language. I liked that I knew how to understand another language so I could giggle while my parents and the members of Thai club would say sarcastic comments and occasionally poke fun of people while those people were none the wiser. But I hated how much I failed while speaking it. How nothing I said ever sounded remotely Thai. Whether it be the fact that I could never quite tell the 5 tones apart or could never quite do the "ng" sound correctly when trying to say ง, I was always so frustrated with the Thai language. Oh, and don't get me started on the situations where ล sometimes has the "L" sound but other times has the "N" sound. Or how พ, ฟ, ฝ, and ผ totally look like our good old friend the W but really make varying "P" and "F" sounds.

But I've also had some fun with the Thai language. Like when I fell out of my seat laughing when my sister recounted the time when she told the interviewer of her medical school that she once confused the words for "pregnant" and "gold." For the record, they're both pronounced like, "tong," but "gold" uses the the neutral tone (ทอง) and "pregnant" uses the rising tone (ทัอง) (Jeez, and I'm not even sure about that). Or how happy I was when I actually recognized the label of EURO's Custard Cake (คัสตาร์ดเค้ก) actually said, "Custard Cake," completely untranslated.

Omnomnom.

But when it came time to tell my professor (อาจารย์, "ajaan") about my Thai proficiency through a writing sample, I wrote a 7-sentence paragraph about myself and ended it with a 2-sentence phrase pleading her to put me in beginning Thai.

...It took me a total of two hours, a Thai-English dictionary, a friend, and my mom and dad to finish that email. No joke.

So when people assume that I'm basically fluent in Thai and that I will have no problem with the language barrier... Boy, are they wrong. And thus, the language barrier is one thing that I'm most anxious about.

Oh, one last little caveat. Before my sister left to do awesome things back in med school, she asked me if I had a Thai name, since she has one. I said I didn't, and she advised me to go to my parents and, y'know, get one. At the same time, a friend studying abroad in South Korea made up own Korean name (something like 지은, or Ji Eun... supposedly a derivation from her real name, Jenny). But my name is... me. So I'm just going to go with Emily (เอมิลี, as it were) -- mostly because of the whole identity thing, but also because I already memorized how to spell it in Thai, and I'm lazy.

And in other news, 16 days until I depart! I'm guessing I'll see a lot of this [Thai American!] man around when I get there. Not that I'm complaining.

Please excuse the horrendously awful lyrics.