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Accent
I have a strange accent. I mostly think of it as just the way I talk, but once in a while, it makes me ponder where it comes from.
Well, the answer is simple: it comes from my environment. But that’s neither here nor there.
When I was small (and still living in Korea), we lived in Seoul, so I assumed that we had a straight-on city accent. I assumed this until college, when my spoken Korea cracked up some of the newer Korean immigrants. They found it cute and didn’t make me feel bad about it or anything, but speaking with them made it clear that HOLY CRAP, I SPEAK LIKE A HICK! Ahem. Pardon my yelling. It was pretty shocking.
I learned my first bits of English while attending school in Queens for two years, and learned to say, “Mira!” when I wanted a friend to pay attention to what I was saying, what “pendejo” and “puta” meant, at the same time as I learned the Pledge of Allegiance with my stumbling accent. Frankly, at the time, I had no idea I was hearing two different languages. Being younger helped to get the pronunciations much more quickly than my sister or my brother did, but it was still strange at first.
Then we moved to Philly. I don’t know if you’ve heard people with strong Philly accents, but I couldn’t help but pick up on that in the many, many years that I lived there. So I rather thought I had a Philly-Korean accent. I assumed this until I visited my family in Atlanta sometime after college, when I heard the Korean-Americans who live in Atlanta speak English & Korean. I spoke mostly like them, but not. I expected them to have a strong Georgian accent, but nope! They sounded more like the people I knew up in Philly than other people in Atlanta.
And when I went to Korea, people knew instantly that I spoke Korean with an American accent; I couldn’t quite get some of the sounds right and I don’t know how to properly end a sentence (but that’s more of a grammar issue really).
So maybe it’s a Korean-American accent — not the one that belongs to older immigrants that is easily mocked on shitty nail parlor sketches on MadTV *glares* *boycotts* — that is acquired by kids who speak Korean with their families but American English with everyone else. There seems to be a greater commonality in sound due to that than regional accents.
At the same time, when I see my Philly friends, after a couple of hours, I hear my speech altering considerably to pull in more Philly sounds. So that must mean I have acquired somewhat of a Californian accent. But if you ask me, I have no idea what a CA accent sounds like (I’m not counting common phrases, but an actual difference in how words are pronounced); I just know it sounds different from the familiar tones of my Philly pals.
I once knew a guy who insisted to me that museum was pronounced “mew-zay-uhm” (rhymes with “dayum” [sic]) and tried to correct my “mew-zee-(u)m” pronunciation. It was such a bizarre way to say it for me.
Anyway, I’m totally lost. 😀
Weekended
Wow, I was so busy this past week/weekend.
Work has been really hectic, so I haven’t been making any social plans, but things kept coming up so I was able to be human and actually talk to people other than the little code monkeys in my head.
Sometime during the week (I think it was Tuesday?) we had an impromptu dinner with Holly at Mekong Garden on Piedmont Ave. Everything we ate was delicious, and I especially loved the dry fried salt and pepper squid. Yum! Mc & Holly were awesome company and we had a great time.
Wednesday, I think, we had Uyen over for shabu-shabu, but her meat was not very tender, as she’s been working out like crazy for her upcoming half-marathon. Ok, we didn’t eat her. It was a good time. Since the weather’s been getting cold, I think we’ll be having soups and stews more often.
Roopa came into town on Thursday! I didn’t see her until Friday because she was here for work, and I obviously also have been busy with work, otherwise I would have taken the day off while she was here. 🙂 We went back to Pearl Oyster Bar & Restaurant on College Ave, and this time, every dish was awesome, unlike last time when we were sort of torn on the food. I’m sure we’ll give it a write-up at some point in the near future.
After a most delicious dinner (thanks Roopa!), we headed over to Jaguar Karaoke (formerly known as Music Box Karaoke) and sang for 4.2 hours (or so the time sheet said when we paid up)! My throat was so raw Saturday morning. Holly, Leila, and Lindsi joined us for the ridiculous sing-a-rama, meaning Seppo was trapped in a dark room with only five ladeez for hours and hours. Dun dun dun! Lindsi makes a really great air guitar partner, I have to say. 😀 I think we are the only ones that knew *every part* of the Bon Jovi songs and the New Kids on the Block songs, including the random backup parts. LOL!
It was interesting to observe the varying tastes of our friends. I tried to think of how I’d order us by similar musical tastes, and the best I can do is this:
Me -> Lindsi -> Holly -> Seppo -> Leila -> Roopa -> Me
Lindsi & I overlap in everything from the Motown era to the late 80s. Lindsi & Holly overlap in the more contemporary areas, I think. Seppo & Holly also do, but in different music than Lindsi & Holly overlap. Holly is key to the group because of her very diverse musical tastes, I think. Leila & Seppo have Radiohead-like music very much in common. Leila & Roopa definitely had music in common, but I had a hard time putting my finger on the exact subgenre. Roopa & I have a varied assortment of music in common, also not easy to categorize.
It’s been a while since I’ve sung Pearl Jam and Roxette at the top of my lungs within a 15-minute time span. 😀
Saturday morning, I woke up thinking that my cough & cold had returned from the week before, but luckily, it was just that my throat was raw from all the singing. Roopa and I headed over to Piedmont Ave and had yet another delicious meal together, this time at César (this is the second location; the original is in the Berkeley Gourmet Ghetto). Man, we were on such a great food roll. It was really great to sit outside at a nice restaurant and eat great food while chatting with a dear, missed friend about life and nothing in particular.
Seppo and I got spiffed up after lunch to attend Claire & Nick’s wedding. After weeks of griping that they had nothing to wear, Uyen & Becky turned up looking like hot stuff indeed, and I looked like their matronly spinster aunt who had come to chaperone them. Hahaha. Anyway, it was a really pretty wedding with some very personal moments. Joe, of course, was the life of the party and danced up a nice older lady, who I’m sure now wants to make him her boy-toy. Watch out, Joe! 😉
Sunday was thankfully empty of engagements, since I had to catch up on some work so that I could be back on target. I managed to get some work done but it took much longer than I was hoping for.
I took a break from work so that we could go grocery shopping. I think that I’ll be experimenting with spicy chicken & potatoes for as the next item in my Korean recipe refining series. 😀
I got a call from a college friend this morning! She is in town for a few days, so I am going to try to catch dinner with her tomorrow night. 🙂 Yay! So busy…