The result is mixed. The weakness in my chinese is my limited vocabulary size. While on my trip, I definitely learned new words, but I’m not so sure how applicable they are in the business world. Here aree some new vocab words that I still remember:

心和性 (Xīn hé xìng) - Feelings and sex. Credit to Lily.

喜好(Xǐhào) – Preference. Credit to Yv/John.

傻眼 (Shǎyǎn) – Shocked.

她不是我的菜 (Tā bùshì wǒ de cài) – She’s not my type. Credit Karen 菜. I like 她不是我的牛肉面 more.

壓(Yā) – Bet. Credit cousin Jacob.

初戀 (Chūliàn) – First love.

失戀 (Shīliàn) – Lovelorn. Credit cousin Jacob.

年薪 (Niánxīn) – Salary. 薪水 (Xīnshuǐ) is how I normally say it. Credit Jacob.

角頭 (Jiǎo tóu) – Corner. In Monga, it means territory.

Note: Words may not be accurate because Google translate isn’t 100% correct, plus I hacked together the words.

WTF is wrong with me. Not even Word could understand what I was trying to spell as it suggested words like “lionization” and “aliens” as alternatives. I had to finally google the damn word.

This suggests that I’m picking up more stereotypical engineer traits: bad writing, socially awkward, and flabby. Hopefully I’m not the latter two (yet), but certainly my writing skills have deteriorated. My writing probably peaked during soph year of HS and has all but stagnated since.

Much of my writing these days has been relegated to short incomplete sentences that will fit onto PowerPoint slides. When it comes to writing longer and more descriptive sentences, I often find myself rewriting a sentence three or four times before it makes sense. ARG. As an example, this sentence you’re reading now took me two tries to get right. I’m retarded. I know.

Thus a benefit of blogging is that I get to practice writing. I’ll never enjoy writing, but it’s such an essential skill for work, which ironically I don’t often get to practice at work. If I stopped writing, this skill will wither away and fall apart like my chinese. Remember the time I tried explaining to Camille that I was standing on the street outside my office waiting for her? My brain almost cramped up searching for the words “corner” and “intersection”.