Lost in Translation

I forgot to say that when I was at Subang Parade, being desperate to draw out cash from the ATM machines, I actually have to fake a British accent to walk up to this group of cashier girls to ask them where can I withdraw money so that I won't look like an idiotic citizen who doesn't know the locality.

But, I was lost in translation. They gave me the wrong information. All the accent for nothing.

Anyway, the sister asked if I wanna help her do translation over the weekends because she has an exam coming up and she has a lot of work to do as well.

And so, I happily obliged. Because there's the motivation of m$$lahs. [I decided to replace the oo for $$s (it's moolahs)... Why have a hole?? Fill it with money!!! Yeah!!!]

But what I didn't know is that my Malay is completely rotten after not writing in it for 3 years.

I had hell of a time searching the dictionary just to translate that 18 pages with 36 main paragraphs and another 20 something more sub paragraphs.

Only to get scolding.

"Debble. You do not do direct translation!!! You must have an appreciation for proper Malay phrase structure!!!"

"You had better not do any attachments this year!!! Wait for next year when your Malay has improved!!"

"Did God, by His Grace give you an A1 for SPM?? Your Malay is horrible!!"

But hey! I did most of the donkey work and all you have to do is to re-edit my "horrible" phrases.

I, on the other hand still think that my translation was a pretty damn impressive work. [It took me 1 1/2 days to complete it though]

But towards the glee of completing the translation, the electricity in my house tripped.

Pissed off, I carried on doing my work relying on the battery and the reliable flashlight from my phone to read the English document.

Only to find out that the main switchboard in my house got burnt. Which means, NO ELECTRICITY UNTIL THE SWITCHBOARD IS REPAIRED.

Such Joy.

And today, I found that my laptop plug got burnt too.

I suspect there was an electricity surge from TNB along with overloading from my house; hence the burning [even the plastic of the switchboar melted and hence the noxious fumes burning my nostrills]. The heater is spoilt but thank God my laptop charger plug is not spoilt too.

So I was lost in translation while I was translating the document; because seriously, there are terms which just do not exist in Malay and you'll just have to crack your brains for the Malay vocabulary, lost in translation from those cashier girls, and momentarily when the electricity burned.

Not to mention that all my beautiful Malay vocabulary and phrases before this has been flushed down the drain.

It was really difficult to translate with super bright laptop screen and flashlight from phone.

Did I mention that it happened at 11 pm??

It was quite chaotic. Luckily, I was the nocturnal one in the family who can walk through the entire house without light.

If you're wondering, Yes, I'm rotting at Starbucks again. With my sister this time.