Thursday, July 26, 2007 > My Manglish is Underestimated!!

Here's the story:

I am almost done with my placement, well, that meaning that I am going to be done tomorrow evening at 5pm (WOOHOO!!). Anyways, because it is afterall a Uni placement and I am supposed to be graded on it, my "boss" here has to fill out an evaluation form. I just came back from a meeting with her in regards to that.

There are many different areas that I am evaluated on. Stuff such as, "Leadership Skills", "Willingness to learn" and blah blah. All that sort of stuff. I saw the ticks in the boxes, "Excellent", "Excellent" and "Excellent". Suddenly I noticed a tick out of alignment, slightly more to the left. It was ticked on the "Very Good" box. Fyi, "Very Good" is less good than "Excellent".

Guess what box was ticked as only "Very Good"???? My Oral Communication Skills. Seriously, out of the all the different aspects, the one that I thought I would have at least gotten an "Excellent" or better still, an "Outstanding", I got a "Very Good". People who know me know that I have no trouble at all in my oral communication, in fact, some people probably wish that I had less ability to display my oral communication skills so often.

She explained that she sometimes doesn't totally grasp what I am trying to say and she said that I seem to lose her. She said that it's ok, because I haven't been in Australia for long. I proceeded to tell her that English has been my first language my entire life, and she was certainly surprised. I tell you, these Aussies. Just because someone has a different accent to them, they give them a "Very Good".

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining about the grade. It's just that, if I could have gotten an "Excellent" for Punctuality (people that know me will again know how bad I am with time), it is truly an insult to get a "Very Good" for my Oral Communication.

Oh well, what to do. I will never ever conform and take on the Australian accent. I will just have to live with it LAH!