Language Tips

To me, summer means more work and less money. No classes in summer, so no excuses to be absent from the lab. And three months' hard work only get me one month's money I usually earn during semesters. I am not complaining anything. Knowing that a lot of grads don't have any money at all during summer, I am more than glad to get any money. It's just a fact.

But to get summer financial support, I have to submit a "brief description of your summer research plans signed by your advisor" to the Department. I spent two days to write up a 3-page "brief description", which is so bad that I wouldn't read it twice.

When I gave it to my boss, he took a look and go:"I will look it over and probably there will be many changes."

Translation: "Just one look and I find many mistakes".

I said:" Great! I appreciate it. I am glad I have someone to revise it."

He said:"Yeah. I remember my boss used to revise my writings too. He liked to cut some of my words out and pasted them on a piece of paper, and then add some of his own words. So when he returned it to me it was like a sentence of mine and a lot of sentences of his and then a few words of mine and then a lot of sentences of his..."

Then he said:"It must be hard to write in a second language. I can't imagine myself writing in French, although I learned some in high school."

I nodded:"Yeah, it's hard."

"But there is one advantage. When Jin(former grad student from China) was at his defense, someone asked something, like, what is the name of, like, a certain enzyme that he used. He said,'Oh, I know it! But I only know its Chinese name, which is blah, blah, blah, but I don't know its English name...'"

I showed my full sympathy:"It's probably true. When we learned genetics, we learned it in Chinese. Those Chinese names got so burned into our brains that it's hard to replace them with English ones."

He said with a grin:"Yeah, but even if you really don't know, you still can say: I only know its Chinese name, but I don't know how to say it in English."

I laughed:"That is a nice trick. I will remember it."

See what I mean? Lab life can be fun after all, if you have a boss sharing such tips with you.