Sendiri Cari Pasal

I was reading an article over at TIME online, titled " Steve Jobs and the Lure of Alternative Healing" and came across this sentence:

"Mainstream medicine, with its greatly increased use of high-tech diagnostic testing and medication has, despite its considerable progress and successes over the past few decades, he said, in some ways bred its own rejection."

"...bred its own rejection" is a powerful quote which can be rewritten as "bred its own trouble" to convey the same meaning for the Malay phrase "sendiri cari pasal" -- a phrase I often find difficulties in translating.

Other expressions and words of note from the article and from browsing through TIME: unmet needs, medico-pharmaco-industrial complex; tried half as a joke, half with genuine hope; seems callous and remote, deluding ourselves, 5.6-magnitude earthquake rattles Oklahoma, death toll climbed pass 500, incessant flooding, cars sloshed through a flooded road; relentless rainfall has pummeled vast swaths of Thailand, swamping the country; the runoff has massed around Bangkok...

In Which He Eschews Talking Heads

Non-native speakers of English can benefit a lot by reading text in English, especially those written by native speakers of the language or those published by institutions where writing in good English is a necessity.

Being a journalist, I often find myself gravitating towards articles by Reuters, BBC, Guardian, New York Times and the likes and it often impresses me to read their highly descriptive articles that you can virtually picture or visualise the described situation. Take this sentence for instance: "...it was his first full documentary in which he eschewed talking heads."

"Talking heads" is not a new expression but when the sentence is read in its entirety, it conveys a visual representation of what the writer wants to say. The full sentence is produced below:

"For British director Asif Kapadia, it was his first full documentary in which he eschewed talking heads and focused instead on Senna — in the car, at the track, in feisty drivers’ meetings, surrounded by screaming fans or at home with family and friends in Brazil." [Source: Reuters]

Bed English Indeed

It has been more than a year since I last wrote here. I had actually forgotten that this blog existed until recently when revisited it and turned it into a website template for a digital journalism workshop.

The workshop went well, that much I can say; but now I am less sure whether the decision to use this blog as the dummy website was wise, judging from the many embarrassing grammatical mistakes found in this blog. I might have ended up embarrassing myself for doing so.

I should really get back to those entries and correct the mistakes one by one although that would be a tedious process.

On second thought, however, it may be a good idea to let the mistakes remain. This is after all -- and by the way "after all" should always be two words -- this is after all a blog to document my struggle in learning the language.

Now that this blog is out in the open, I should strive to write better and perhaps, time permits, to write more often.