Sigh...

gotta love it.

non-permanence

Saturday, March 04, 2006

SHAME.

I don't know how I sound like anymore. I've recorded my voice mailbox over a zillion times this NEW year in hopes that I could sound casual yet somewhat professional. (Those interviews come in like crazy, a warning to y'all using MONSTER and HOTJOBS). Those engines? They WORK.

Okay. So I will forever speak Tagalog. And hopefully,while here in this country, I'd still be speaking it fluently with the help of dear TFC and Filipino friends. I want to be able to PROUDLY say that I can automatically switch off whatever 'accent' kuno, I've acquired whilst (hahah, don't you just love saying 'whilst'? My poetic brouhaha starts) I live here.

But I don't want to sound like a complete moron speaking English either. In Boston, it's fine. In school, you can switch off a thousand accents, I've acquired my own (they think I'm from California, wha? But a cricket says that I sound YET SO Filipino -- which is good. One less person to correct. I've only been here a year people.) Oh. My point. Where was I?

Boston. See, when you're in school--- it's a friggin melting pot. You got your Taiwanese, the Japanese, the Japanese who learned English in Canada, Canadians (It's good,eh?), Indians from the North, Indians from the South, Italians, South people (gotta luv em.. hey y'all) Venezuelans, Jamaicans (yo, sometimes you CANNOT tell. Contrary to popular belief, not all of em sounds like Sean Paul) Or that's just me being clueless. What else? Hmmm, the brooklyn accent. (hahah I love it.) In high hopes I wish to be able to identify the difference between Mexican Spanish and South America Spanish. (But then I really have to learn Spanish first) and of course... the BOSTON accent. Yeeeea, I pahked the cahr. To those of you who don't know, revisit 'Good Will Hunting' they do a pretty bad one...but you'll see how they change it up.

So yeah, when all of this comes to you.... and you speak to lots of different people... you kind of drift off and assimilate some expressions. Driving around with my cousin he suddenly looks at me funny and goes, "Did you just say 'yo'?" Hmmm. Whoops. Okay. That somehow slipped. Didn't mean to! Really. I just gotta stop and speak normally. But truthfully, I don't know what 'normal' is anymore. Words just kinda slip out. Am I communicating to you people? If you understand the words I'm sayin' then, we're good.

Another conversation I remember was when we were at this billiards place. One of the guys was making fun of the people at the next table. They were wearing all red and the other people from the next table were wearing blue. And he goes:

"Yo, lookit 'em CRIPS and BLOODS wannabe's".

Okay, so Crips and Bloods are their version here of Tau Gamma and NSP or the so-called gangstas who break into fights forming some kind of brotherhood or something like that. Snoop Dogg was a Crip. Get it? Snoop Dogg from the LBC? (Long Beach Crips). That's why he's sometimes all decked out in Blue.. well I dunno. He probably grew out of it. So of course, these kids... and they really look like kids, let me tell you. Like 14 year olds playing billiards.

"They're not Crips." I go. I mean COME ON. "They're mad young"

And the guy looks at me. "Do you guys talk like that in Philippines too? 'Mad' young?"

And I blinked. Because that really just slipped out. Or maybe it's because of hanging with Beisa a lot. So I go "I'm sorry, REALLY young." And he laughs and goes. "No, I'm really not tryin' to be smart witchoo, it's just you don't sound like you were here for just a year you know? So I wanted to know if you speak like that back home."

Maybe it's assimilation. You kind of pick up different expressions. Depending on who you chill with I guess. I mean, there are the cono wannabes back in college... "Pare, dude, tama ka na nga, if you're not wearin' ferregamo or prada pare, you're a loser pare. Listen yo, ganito yun, LISTEN LISTEN. It's all like that when you're up there, you know what I mean?"

Hmm. O-kaaaay. Well, I'm not sayin' it's bad. Really. I'm just saying it's funny. When I'm back in Philippines. Trust me. I'm as BAKYA as ever. I'm telling you. I'll be the girl laughing and snorting eating isaw and fishballs by the street. A time in college when I was hanging with this dude, who spoke, DEEP Tagalog. Man, you should've heard me. "Hindi mo na alam ang minimithi mo pagtagal ng panahon."

Yup. I SPOKE like that. LIKE that. Normal everyday conversation.

Assimilation's the name of the game. I guess I just wanted to be there to see the change and hear the change while going through it.

Whoa. Imagine if I lived in London.

'Pick up yaw trawsahs at tha draaah cleanahs."

*sigh*

Accents. accents. Fascinating stuff.

It's nice to live an animated life.

mades [ 2:51 PM ] 0 happy lost cabbages