i have been asked many times by my korean “friends” to help them translate–note: it’s translate, and not edit, which means that i do all the dirty work–their and their friends’ resumes/CVs/cover letters into english. none of those who came to me had even attempted to do an english version first.

(it’s like, you know, they boast about knowing someone who speaks english, and then all their friends come up to them and go, “oh can you help me ask her to help translate my blablabla? thanks!”)

while i don’t mind doing that, since i also get to practice my korean and at the same time get to collect some “case studies” of actual korean resumes, sometimes i wonder if i am doing the right thing.

sure, the means by which they land a job is none of my business, but the bottom line is that i am essentially playing a part in this act of deceit. when i was looking for a job here and did up my resume in korean, i did not enlist the help of any of my korean friends at all, not even those whose resume i had helped translate before. i submitted my korean resume in its imperfect form–grammar and spelling mistakes and all.

the reason why i didn’t ask a korean to help proofread my resume was because i wanted my future employer to know exactly how good or bad my korean was, and if the standard of korean that he saw in my resume was good enough for him, then mayhaps he would grant me an interview or even offer me a job.

and apart from being dishonest, it says a lot about a person’s character–to have no qualms about asking someone totally unrelated to you, who is not even your acquaintance but a friend (and i am using this term in the broadest way possible) of a friend, to help you do the work which you yourself should be doing.

they can hand in a resume drafted in perfect english and land an interview, sure, but do they realize the pressure that they have placed on themselves? that they have to live up to the high expectations of the interviewer during the face-to-face interview with regards to their proficiency in the english language? and as with the norm in most multi-national korean companies, there would most likely be a written test as well. how are they going to explain the discrepancies between the standard of english in their resume and the score they received on the test?

i am pissed, yes, but i am still going to do it if only for completely selfish reasons–it does benefit me in some way and i do rather enjoy translating. my only misgiving is that i actually have a hand in this rather dubious affair, but i’m still quite morally ambivalent about it to outright reject such requests. (and no, in case you are wondering, i am not getting paid for this, and i have never asked for payment.)

i’m neither a boss nor an HR employee, so i think it would be interesting to hear the opinions of someone in those positions. what exactly do they think of job-seekers like that?

(a redeeming point: it’s one thing to hire professional translators or ask for help with your resume when the hiring company requests for an english resume even though the job scope does not require proficiency in english, but otherwise it’s a totally different ball game altogether. all of the resumes i have so far helped to translate are for people applying for positions in either MNCs or the hospitality / service / tourism industry which i assume would require a certain standard of english, but i cannot be sure as i haven’t seen the job ad.)

but you know, good luck to them anyway.

the sis, her bf and i visited the casino on the thursday (with lx) and friday that they were here–thursday because we attended a function at the hilton hotel and they had a casino there; friday because it was part of our original plan.

we bumped into alvin at the casino on friday and watched him play a little before leaving for dinner. having hong kong/chinese blood running through his veins, he has been frequenting the casinos here ever since he quit his job. on msn that night he told me he won some money. heh heh.

it wasn’t my first time at a casino, but it was the first time that i’d really sat down and watched the games. in vegas, me and jen spent most of our time milling around the penny slot-machines and exploring the various hotels/casinos of different themes.

watching people pit their money against chance was eye-opening to say the least. here are some observations that we made; please excuse the layman terms because i have no idea what the games are officially called.

- at the roulette table, certain numbers will always come up.

- at the dice (big/small) table, the person who rolls the dice actually makes a difference to the result, defying the laws of logic and common sense. for example, person A might have the propensity to roll a combi with doubles (like 2-2-3 or 4-4-6 or 1-2-1) while person B tends to roll “big” (3-5-6, 2-4-6 etc).

so when you look at the history board, you kind of notice a certain pattern going on, which makes you think: is it all really chance?

watching people play “live” is totally different from watching it on tv; it was exciting to follow the exchange of chips between the players and the banker and exhilarating to wait for the outcome of the roll or spin because while i didn’t put down any money, i was in a sense also participating by trying to guess the result.

at the roulette table, all of us would always go “wahlaooooo” when we saw the amount of chips a person received when s/he won (the odds for placing a bet on a single number are like 35:1). hahaha.

we were tempted to join in, but when we saw the towers of chips that were placed in front of each player, we were kind of put off. all those high-rollers. hur.

despite having studied in a faculty which should be statistically favourable for geek-spotting, i have never in my 3 years there come across one. nerds, though, i have seen many. but they don’t interest me in the least.

this could be the reason for my fascination with geeks–they seem to be the product of fiction; people who exist only as characters in books or on screen, people whom i may never get to know in real life.

nerds, though, on the other hand, seem to be everywhere. -_-

and yes, there is a difference between geeks and nerds, at least in my dictionary.

to me, geeks are charismatic nerds; nerds who are cool, who have the x-factor, who can draw you in and capture your attention.

the classic example of a geek vs nerd (according to my definition) would be: steve jobs vs bill gates. yes gates is a nerd, albeit an extremely affluent one, but all his riches cannot compensate for his lack of an x-factor or style (at least to me–other people might find his wealth sexy though; but to each his own).

here are some real and fictional geek personalities (i have no idea what they are like in person, but they have managed to capture that elusive geeky x-factor in their works and have me absolutely enchanted) who i love <3:

randall munroe of xkcd.com
tatsuya ishida of sinfest.net
sheldon, leonard and koothrappali of the big bang theory
douglas adams, author of h2g2
john cleese of fawlty towers and monty python

i do know some geeks in real life too though, both male and female, but not many. i am not sure if they would be offended at being labelled a geek (though i really do mean it as a compliment!) so i shall refrain from naming names. heh.