'GORE let it out'

It seams I’ve written about quite serious matters lately, so today I’m gonna write something about British English.

But, what is British English? Is it the so-called Queen’s English or is it like David Beckham’s speaking? It seems there’s no definition. An English teacher has said, there is no ‘typical language’ in English. After living in the UK for nearly two years, I’m realising gradually that there are several different ways even only in terms of pronunciation.

I’m getting able to have some idea of from where a person comes from her or his speaking. Now I can somehow recognise cockney accent and also sort of northern accent.

Recently, I’m quite interested in the northern accent. One of the reasons is the TV drama Life on Mars, which I’ve reviewed on this blog before. The story was based in Manchester and the people’s speaking was very difficult. For example, the “o” sound is more like “or” i.e. “hole” is similar to “hall’. If you listen to some Oasis songs carefully you will notice it. When Liam sings ‘Go Let It Out’, the “go” sound is like “gore” (does it make sense?).

As I still sometimes get confused with “o” and “or” sound, this was an interesting discovery. I’ve listened to many northern English bands like Oasis and the Verve, so this may be why the “o” sound still confuses me.
In other words, it doesn’t really matter even if I confuse with “o” and “oh” sound, as most of the people will understand anyway.

This is just one example of the many aspects of the diversity in British English that I’ve noticed. I would like to keep on talking about it sometimes.

unfinished monkey business

For the past few weeks, I’ve been so busy with deadlines on every Friday. I’m so stressed. I’m now again suffering from the ‘holiday escape’!

Today, I was told by the boss like this.

“We are not monkeys so you need to say something when you have any doubt before you draw it.”

I didn’t really care as I of course did so. That’s just essential. That’s the sort of thing that any boss might say.

I’ve actually confirmed with the project architect if he was convinced with that strange idea. He was convinced, and I didn’t take it seriously, because the time was so very short. It was also because I’ve just returned to that project after three months absence and wasn’t too sure about what was going on. We aimed to finish everything by last Friday although the actual deadline is tomorrow, as the project architect were to go for holiday. The fact is, there are still some things left even though we’ve worked until midnight. Furthermore, we are making some changes to the design without the project architect just before the very crucial deadline which will affect the competition result.

To be quite honest, I don’t really wanna be called as monkey. My pride wouldn’t accept it. Never. However, more important thing is the truth that my boss has said such kind of thing to me. I mean, this might represent how he treats me. It’s not a matter of age, but it’s about evaluation.

I believe I’m trying to do my best with motivation and ambition. However, this is probably the truth. It is always difficult to convince the bosses through everyday work. Particularly, it is actually difficult to deal with our boss who is over 70 years old. It is a difficult but essential subject to give good impression to the bosses in order for forwarding my plan.

in only seven days

Last week I was very busy. Not too busy, but it was rather mentally hard. However, I could do much more than I’ve been doing before.

Despite my expectation to be easier after the tender issue at the end of the week before, there were so much to do with the project last week. In fact, the project architect has gone to a holiday! So I needed to deal with a lot of things on behalf of her. I felt that she had almost escaped, as there were so many mistakes in the tender issue and I had to prepare a lot of information by the end of the week.

I had to work with our boss. He is already about 70 years old and quite difficult to work with. Although he had been working with us on the project, he wasn’t aware of everything and kept on asking me about many things that even I don’t know! The most difficult thing was to identify which part of work I should ask him to do and which should be done by myself. Also, I had to make or answer to a lot of phone calls and speak with other consultants, suppliers and even the client.

It was really hard. Even now in the Sunday evening, I’m so tired. But it was a really good opportunity. I was enjoying it. Generally, I sometimes hesitate to do something, particularly the things I haven’t done before, but this time there was no choice, I had to do it! Now that I feel I could develop myself quite a lot only in one week.

Am I getting closer to the project architect!?