Gap year plan 1

Writer's ProfileAn unconventional boardingschool-educated gap year student who isabout to study at Oxford University.The usual gap year plan for moststudents involves a period of work, lengthytravels and a lot of crashing of friends'universities. I must say, my gap yearfollows that bland (枯燥乏味的) format, butI sure have tried to spice things up a little.Starting with the job...

As I shall be studying Biochemistry atOxford, I was keen to get more experienceon the discipline, in order to understandwhat I am delving into (as Biochemistry isnot taught at school). I was incrediblyfortunate to gain a six-month placementwhere I worked on a project related toswine flu, aiming to find out the viralprotein structure, so that specific drugs canbe designed to tackle it-a research areawhich deserves a lot of credit. Anotherproject was to do with a brain receptorsensitive to psychoactive drugs such ascocaine (可卡因)-it was pretty excitingwhen I ordered in small amounts ofthe drug for research purposes!Before I bore you with thescientific details, the mainadvantage of having a job in my gapyear was that I achieved hugely inall aspects of the subject-I met leadingscientists in the world, attended famouslectures, learnt and practised techniquesthat most undergraduates weren't allowedto do during the course, all of whichcontributed vastly to my development as ascientist.

The most important part, however, wasthat working gave me the rare opportunityto experience the real world, so I'd knowwhat to expect after university. Educationputs us into a great bubble, which oftendistorts ( 扭曲) our perception of society. Ifind, more than ever, that it is incrediblyimportant to step out of that "bubble" inorder to absorb what is really going onaround you. Furthermore, this could giveyou a boost in terms of your CV, as mostemployers prefer applicants with more"real" experience, as well as the sideeffects of maturity, wide knowledge,teamwork, practicality and exposure.

text by Amanda Yu

around 還是about？

Ask&Learn聞問切切

Fai (english@mingpao.com)Have you any questions about English usage?Don't hesitate to send them to us!

陳姓讀者來電郵問，說「在9 時左右」，應該說「around 9 o'clock」還是「about 9o'clock」比較正宗？

About 和around 都可以用來表示近似值，無所謂哪個比較正宗。有人說英國人偏向用about，美國人偏向用around，我看也不一定，反而跟各人習慣更有關係。但 about 和around 這兩個字有時是用得太多太濫了。一個大房間，坐着七八個人，說There are around/about seven people sittingin the room 就不及There are approximatelyseven people sitting in the room 那麼合適了。原因是有一個說法，about 或者around 只可以用在10、20 等齊頭數字，about 20 可以，但around 7、around 13 就有點怪怪的了。無論如何， 一定不可以說There arebetween seven and eight people sitting inthe room。Between 指的是兩個數字之間的數值，別的還可以，人要是不來，一來總是一個一個，絕對不可能會有七至八個人的情形出現，除非是鬧鬼。就算是小孩半價，也不可以說他不是一個完整的人。