Monday, October 12, 2009

Last Day of LKM 100 Bahasa Malaysia


A few weeks back I wrote about my language course Bahasa Malaysia. Today was the last class before the final exam. The picture includes the classroom, students from China, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, along with the professor Puan Wan (in purple) from Malaysia. Not in the picture are the students from Iraq and Yemen. Also I guess the student from the US isn't shown since I'm taking the photo. Being in such a diverse classroom was a really cool, enriching experience. I look forward to taking LKM 200 next semester.

Ian

oh and three things...

BBC's Day in Pictures
Cool Hunting
ListenToYouTube

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Distracted, Twins Baseball, Negara Amerika, and Blog Addition

The Laos blog is on its way; just I suffer from lack of motivation at times. I returned from Laos with the usual enlightened feeling I have after traveling, but my energy was soon devoted to upcoming tests, my research paper on ASEAN’s relationship with Burma (Myanmar), another paper on the state of Indonesia’s economy after the fall of Suharto, the Aceh region in Indonesia, sharia law, the insurgency in the south of Thailand, teaching myself bits and pieces of Arabic, and the Minnesota Twins. Following the Twins has actually has brought some lifestyle changes as on Wednesday I woke up at 7 am to watch the game via MLB Gameday, the intensity of watching the page reload reminded me of asking girls out via AIM when I was 14, and on Thursday I woke up at 5:30 am to go to McDonalds to watch the Twins game. Chip Krachmer will be proud to know that in the 3.5 hours I sat in McDonalds I ate one sausage egg McMuffin with cheese, one sausage McMuffin with cheese, three hash browns, two ice cream cones, one cup of coffee, and one glass of orange juice. Sorry arteries, it had to end sometime. But I digress. The Laos blog will be up eventually.

I do have a shorter story though. As my intro level Bahasa Malaysia class draws to a close, we are studying Malaysian traditions and national pride. We watched a video from the Malaysian tourism department and then our professor talked about nice scuba diving places around the country. Afterwards she asked us all to write a short passage about our countries in Bahasa Malaysia. This is what I wrote:

Nama saya Ian. Saya orang Amerika. Penduduk Amerika lebih kurang 300 juta orang. Negara Amerika terbahagi 50 buah negeri. Ibu negara Amerika ialah Washington DC. Keluarga saya tinggal di Minnesota. Negara Amerika ada banyak bangsa. Negara Amerika tidak ada agama rasmi, tetapi perlembagaan milik kami jaminan kebebasan ke semua agama. Pelancong pergi ke California, New York, Florida, dan Hawaii. Burung rasmi burung helang. Saya harapan kamu melawat negara Amerika satu ketika.

Translating that with Google Translator makes for a rather hilarious text, but it gets the main points across.

The translation (via Google):

My name is Ian. I am the American people. American population of approximately 300 million people. American countries are divided 50 states. American Capital is Washington DC. My family lived in Minnesota. American countries have many of the nation. American countries have no official religion, but our constitution guarantees freedom to all religions. Tourists go to California, New York, Florida, and Hawaii. Bird official eagles. I hope you visit a country when the United States.

While I read that in front of the class, some of the Mainlanders (Chinese people) in my class took pictures of me with their cell phones. At this point it’s hard to be flattered since they take pictures of everything.

Interestingly enough some of the students in my class were surprised when my professor, translating into English line by line, said that there is no official religion in the US.

On Friday other international students and myself will be taking part in a Malaysia culture exhibition called “A Malaysian Handshake.” My role: fashion model. I’ll be sure to post a picture or two from what I’m hoping will be my big break.

A new addition to my blog: Three Things

From now on at the end of every post I’ll include three things that I think are worth taking a look at.

The inaugural Three Things:

Learn what Kerry Lugar is and what its implications are for US – Pakistan relations
How awesome Benjamin Franklin was
Autotune the News #9

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Laos blog not done yet....

....but in the mean time you can read this.

ian