Today, I was having lunch with my besties at McDonalds after a sleepover. We were all exhausted due to different reasons and so it was kept relatively short compared to the multi-hour meals we usually have. Towards the end, the conversation somehow managed to steer itself into relatively foreign territory. Quite literally so too. We, or rather, two of us were talking about Taiwanese drama and actors/actresses while the other two (which includes me) were looking on with an expression that you usually see in mentally-ill patients or Sarah Palin.
My first reaction was something along the lines of, "What kind of ancient foreign language are they talking in?" Then I realised it's just Chinese and they were just blurting out names of the "celebrities" and titles of shows. That made me think of how much of the Chinese language has been lost in the last 4 years since I stopped studying it. Let's put it this way, apparently there's some definition in the great motherland China that people who don't know more than 500 Chinese characters are considered illiterate. I'm one of those people. No, really. During dinner, I asked my mom to test me on some words and idioms that I have learnt before and apparently, 95% of it was lost to some blackhole within my mind. Naturally, the blame has to fall on someone other than me. This time, it's this little stint in this wonderful little organisation infamous for it's bureacracies and inefficiency. Obviously, some star in my cerebral cortex decided to turn into a supernova and collapsed into itself to form a gargantuan blackhole. Screw you, assholes.
Now, I have decided that in a time of boredom so absolute it makes death seem like a fantasy, I should pick up the lost language again (no not Latin) and at the same time get back in touch with my sawed off Asian roots. So I dusted off the covers of this essay book they forced us to buy in school and a huge dictionary which I had to use twice within the first page of the first essay. I'm going to read one everyday until I finish the book so that at least I'll no longer be considered illiterate in China. That can't be too hard right? I mean, I did get C6 for my Higher Chinese paper in the 'O' level.
Who the freaking hell am I kidding. Seriously.
- stealing through the night's uncertainties