Don't get how some people can go overseas for a few months and come back with an accent. Okay, fine, when I came back from Singapore, I couldn't stop using acronyms and shortening every >2 syllable word into one syllable, ending with Z usually. But after awhile, I've managed to keep two distinct conversational styles: the Singapore Slang (Sling, har har) and the Malaysia Mangle.
In Singapore, my tongue works a lot harder, sticking to my palate, touching my teeth, to pronounce my words clearly. My voice is clearer, higher, more demure.
In Malaysia, the tongue gets loose and the words get loud and slurred. Everything sounds like it rhymes with 'Arh', and every conversation sounds like a rough crude yelling match. Especially with family and friends. You've no idea how many people have expressed shock that the person I was on the phone with was a relative. And how many times people have wondered why I'm fighting with my family on Skype or the phone, when we're just worked up and overexcited. Yeap, we don't speak prettily at all.
I've had occasion to bring people back to KL before, but only one person in particular where both lives collided. And I struggled to make myself clear to both parties, while trying to still be myself. It was like the two sides of me warring to come out, and my mind trying to filter my words so they would be understood yet still natural to everyone's ears.
Maybe that's why those overseas people just choose to stick with their new accents. They sound much better anyway.
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I've been using the same header for my blog ever since I started. I know it's time to change, since change is the only constant in life, blah (x3). (See I wrote multiply by three instead of repeating the words.) But every time I want to do something to it, I gaze at it and it looks so pretty again. And it symbolizes everything in life I treasure (other than my family). So, yup, it's staying up.
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