Public Relationships

I've always liked the name Jenny. Really, truly. But the past six weeks or so has befouled the name to such an extent that it will take a really dramatic shift for me to look at the name again with any positivity.

As some may reember, I tend to critique certain educators that I have been unfortunate enough to suffer through rather harshly. There was the inspiration behind Comic Relief, the one who was petitioned against, a cross-eyed Enron lawyer, the drooling mother of Bowser and a few others. Add Jenny to the list.

Sure, she's all smiles and yes, I understand that English may not be her native tongue but -

Wait. Wait just one minute.

Is that fricking Mandarin I see on my frickin slides that I am studying for my exam in little over twelve hours? I was unaware that a course in Public Relations, hosted by an American University in Singapore, would have course material in a language that the students hardly understand! This is ridiculous.

It's bad enough that she takes ages to barrel her way through a single chapter - hindered, no doubt, by her insistence on breaking into Chinese narratives as and when she feels like it - and that her sense of logic is questionable, at best when dealing with matters of her own design, but now I am staring at "notes" which I can't understand even if I wanted to?

Here's the typical exerpt from one of her classes:

"So yesh, de Pee-Are orgazashens speng millings of doh lahs oh nowah public meedya and evry day we see and a here messages becausah you canna pay for Pee Are only you can pray for Pee Are ah ha ha ha. Wo ching chiau Hu way ren du Taiwan de Hong Kong pu may lau ren ta gu xin Democratic Model han shong lay."

And she moves on. I usually step out after the first line in a dialect I don't understand.

How the fuck does Democratic model fit in anywhere?

I've had to deal with this for over a month now, and there really has been little to raise my spirits during this period, though I do admit that the course has brought me closer to a few people I barely spoke to before.

One of the few things that had got me even a little smiley was someone Ive been talking to alot lately, but not recently. Yeah. Kinda weird to be in this situation, realy, and to be honest I have no idea what's going on. A lost, noobish, amateur.

Realised how long it's been since I had a proper phone conversation that didn't end in frustration, though it looks like that end is on the cards again. Ah well, I guess I was right. Everyone got excited over nothing.

Now, I just need to learn Mandarin overnight.