Gorlen! goorlen!!! Thats what some of my army friends call me, all thanks to my CSM who has serious problem pronouncing our names. Here are a few examples on how he 'mutated' our names:

1) Gordon -> Gorlen
2) Jeffrey -> Jeh fee
3) Dillon -> Di4 Ren2 (地人）
4）Andrew -> En doo
5) Joseph -> Jo ser
6) Royston -> Loyston
7) Yian -> Yuan
8) Joel -> Jwell

Haha, we imitated him so much that it has now become a habit for us to call one another using the mutated names he has given us, even after 6-7 yrs. I guess my army mates are very interesting ppl as we do not only have our own ways of calling one another, we also have our own unique style and patterns in our communications.

Talking abt pronounciation, I am now getting pretty appreciative of the singapore government for educating us as biliguals, and emphasizing English as the first language. I really see its usefulness now helping to make Singapore a regional hub in the competitive business world. For instance in my company, i feel tat we are made playing the regional roles not becos of our geographical location, but rather, becos of our command of language.

In a typical conference call, I am often the translator for the attendees who may come from diff parts of the world. You will be hearing chinese-english, jap-english, indian-english, US-english, korean-english, filipino-english and of cos, singlish. Its basically like putting dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, cows etc into one conference call. All may be speaking english but they may not understand one another. Thats where and when we Singaporeans play the impt roles.