Sunday, December 31, 2006

aaaannnndddd....BREAK!

Holy crap.

Holy effing crap.

Last night at around 12:30, I finally finished my semester.

Whoooo! Spring...no....Winter break! YEAH!

I've been writing papers for so long that I don't know what to do with myself. I hear that there's people out there who know me...some of them even like me. I hear I have friends. These people I have not seen in so long, I have forgotten what they look like.

Dang.

I have a week to do nothing. OH. Again, that's a negative. But...I have a week to do considerably less pressing stuff before school starts. Even slightly longer than a week. I'm rolling in free time!

No one cares, but it's my blog so I'm gonna tell you that my papers were on the following topics:

Morphology class: I wrote about the acquisition of the morphological causative affix order in Inuktitut. This stuff is NOT my strength, so it was really hard. I am pleased because, really, I think this means I never have to take another morphology class my entire career. Not that I regret it, but one is definitely enough.

Phonology: I wrote about the asymmetries in the acquisition of onset and coda clusters (kids master coda clusters faster than onset clustesrs) and why I think that there's some physical and psychological reasons for it.

Thanks for indulging me.

These papers have obsessed me for...well, I don't know how long but I did start working on both over a month ago. Never again! I will, from now on, start papers significantly earlier. Jacqui and I have a plan.

It is new year's eve today and I am happy to be able to relax and hang out at home tonight without being tied to a word document. But first, I feel like musing on my first semester of graduate school:

holy effing crap.

That was something else. I seriously can't believe a/ how much I crammed into my head about linguisics and b/ how little I know about linguistics. I really hope for the next semester, and indeed for ever more, that I learn how to manage time better.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Sunday, December 17, 2006

That's right, bitches



The Veteran

You scored 88%!

You've picked up the majority of the classic rock basics. You probably have a classic rock collection and can sing along with most of the songs on your local radio station.

This is not the highest score, but it is arguably the best: that subtle combination of impressive knowledge and not being a pretentious geek.













My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 99% on notes




Link: The BASIC classic rock Test written by allmydays on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Friday, December 15, 2006

Dreamweaver

The past two night I've dreamt:

1- that a huge storm beat the shit out of our fair city. Actually, it looked more red brick building-y...but whatever. There was rubble and broken walls everywhere.

2- dang...I forgot this one. But it was distressing.

3- that a murderous brother and sister pair were after me.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Hitch goes crazy, World still turns

So, my friend and colleague of hard knocks, Jacqui passed to me the other day an article that women have been passing to each other as of late. Hitchens thinks women are no fun at parties, but they do great at funerals and brises.

Now, I've been mulling this over in my head about how to write about this. But I've got 2 papers pending and a LOT of test marking...plus some dork thinks all my intellectual time should go to arguing with him about his delusions of grandeur over at another blog that I'm not going to link here because I've sworn off that xenophobic piece of crap because even arguing against her belittles your soul. I seem to have gotten off track. Ah, well...

Okay...so the Hitch response was back-burnered.

In the computer lab yesterday, Jacqui told me about this short response tucked into the larger, yet still funny, post which I finally got around to reading now and found this one. Now this is comedy that Hitch obviously never counted on.

So...my work's been done, and better than I can do it. Great. I'll leave you to read it, then.

Brucio

One of my faves. Also, it made it okay to admit that I, too, hate reggae:

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Monday, December 11, 2006

The way to go. Yoooo Hoooo!

So, I've started running again because my advisor made me.

ha!

She started a running group with our lab and, really, her grad students (me, and 2 PhDs) don't have that much of a choice. We gotta go.

Which is good. I like it. We've all started to look forward to our weekly run because at the end we always find out that we've gone significantly further and for longer each time. And it's our little psychological treat.

So, in the wake of this, I've started to make Sundays my "me" running day. It's not the 3 days a week I was doing, but it's something. I throw on my iPod and I go.

My god I love my iPod.

What I've discovered, though...although I usually like listening to the radio or podcasts while I'm running...when I need that extra push Parliament Funkadelic is there.

Honestly...I knew that PFunk is motivational, but it really works. That line in Bop Gun...the one that has the backup singers repeating "gotta get over the hump...gotta get over the hump..." made me forget my ankle was hurting me. I try to make every step match the beat, and when I can't...long strides make it feel like I'm gliding through the music.

Of course...I'm certain it's quite a different sight if you're watching me from your car as you drive by. Less 'gliding' than it is 'dorky'...but, whatever. I'm trying to stomp my foot on 'the one'...and it's hard.

Usually I end up clapping.

Yeah...for sure I look like a dork.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Out of control, yo!

I don't know what's going on but the past few days, although more disciplined than usual - been exercising, doing a bit of my 'learned from a book and have no idea if I"m doing this right' yoga, reading, getting that school beeach in line - my eating habits have gone out of control. I get home and I'm instantly like 'awgrh awgrh awgrh' (that's the best Cookie Monster to print transcribing I can do) all the way through the kitchen. I've had this thing against sweets that I'm sure if you know me you've known about...well, sweets abound, sir! Sweets effing abound.

I was sitting in my meeting today listening to this psych grad talk about some interesting crap and my stomach was growling and I was feeling all weird n' stuff and I thought, 'I ate breakfast..what was it?' and then I thought, 'oh...chips, the rest of a chocolate bar, and tea.' Wtf?? I mean, I'm 34 years old now. When did that particular breakfast of champions become acceptable?

And another thing. Why doesn't anyone like my frikking hat? I made a hat for C that was too small, so I've been wearing it and no one is like, 'g-dammit-that-is-the-best-hat-I've-ever-seen-I-will-pay-you-double-the-price-of-the-yarn-and-labour-to-make-me-one-exactly-like-it!!!' and drooling and stuff like I really think they ought to. Seriously, it rocks so much that I went out and bought more of the yarn that it's made of just so I can make christmas presents. So, sucks for family if this hat actually looks crappy. I was going to take a pic and post it here, but a/ I'm lazy and b/ what if I actually find out the truth? Can't risk it. You'll just have to compliment me to my face.

Who wouldn't wake up early for this?

It's 7:30.

I went to bed at midnight'ish.

I don't have to be at school until 12:30.

So why am I up now? And...why have I been up at this time for the past few days?

Fear, my friend...fear.

It is now January 7th. Tomorrow I will be presenting to my class my term paper topic, what I've done so far, what I will do, and where I might encounter troubles.

That's just dandy if I ~could~ stand up and say, 'I don't know what the eff I'm doing. I feel that I will encounter trouble when I start to write. Thank you.'

Dang.

I mean, I sorta know...I think. I mean, I know what I would ~like~ to write on, but the logistics of the thing may cause a crash that I will not be able to recover from.

So...I'm up at 7:30 so that I can spend today preparing myself. I wanted to sleep in a bit, but the pounding of my heart and cold sweats really called for me to get up and do some work.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Anyone got change for funk?


Pfunk3
Originally uploaded by himbly.
George Clinton's website is the B-O-M-B.

A toast to his booty.

What I find (un)interesting

Was at Chinook mall yesterday and I stopped into Music World to pick up some cheap DVDs.

Now, I am no stranger to those people who have carved their own path as far as fashion goes. As a young'un, I felt drawn to social deviants, or people who thought they would like to be, and often that was accompanied by unusual fashion choices. In some cases (rockabilly) I found that these fashion choices were little more than uniforms, but that's another discussion all together. So, yeah. Weird people don't bug me.

However...I'm starting to find out that ~sometimes~ the weirder the look, the more cliche the shit that comes out of their mouth.

Did I say sometimes? Yeah, I meant 'nearly always'.

Watched this kid at the till. Gotta admit, he never had a chance for me not to judge him. Huge ear-plugs. Gad, I hate those things. Stupidest fashion statement I've ever seen a North American wear. That alone makes me think that someone's a complete idiot who I wouldn't trust to use the toilet the right way around (I can't remember who said that before me, but I love that phrase). His hair was all spikey and blonde..but like, huge long spikes. His eyes had, actually, quite a beautiful shade of pink on the lid spread thickly across. He began telling some other kid about, '...ummm, the little old lady who just left here?' He started his story, only pieces of which I caught because a/ I was busy with the bored and listless girl with piercings serving me (yay! now THAT'S a teenager), and b/ I sorta knew that what was coming was gonna be the typical retail/service industry complaint where a customer was completely justified in their actions as it is not their job to know the rules and customs of the store, yet the employee will somehow construe this as a show of stupidity or nastiness. '....and I was all like, I'm sooo confused!', he finished. Seriously, the amount of times I've heard guys who look like that say exactly that...well, if I had a nickle for them all I would be able to buy myself a decent meal at Earls and then have a few drinks after a movie. But..then...don't get me started on Earls. Actually, it's similar to this rant, 'cept the people are complete slutty clones of each other.

I digress...

I know a guy. He's a drag queen. Since I know more than one drag queen, and from completely different circles, I'm feeling this is anonymous enough to say. He likes to glam it up. Yet, everything that comes out of his mouth is a freakin' cliche. Which is really disappointing to me since his life must be more exciting than mine. Really nice guy. I like him plenty. But really boring to listen to sometimes. And he says things like, '....I'm like, I'm soooo confused!' too!

I think, too, that I probably looked exactly like a cliche yesterday as I could not stop frowning and glimpsing at Confused Ear-plug Boy. I just know that the girl told him I was "totally freaked out" by his "look" after I'd gone. Or whatever kids say today.
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