finished (as in a- my semester and b- the state of my being)

It is freaking cold in our apartment....for various reasons...some acceptable, some I bitch about...whatever...

anyway, so, any given evening, you can catch me in full body longjohns....and that's what I usually sleep in...

the type with the trap door

Last night I finished my paper, which means I finished everything I needed in order to end this semester...

w00t

...heheheh...anyway...

so, I ran up to the university last night to hand in my paper way before the 9 AM deadline today. 'Cept everything was closed.

On the way home, paper still in my hand, I stopped by the liquorstore and bought a bottle of wine.

BF wasn't feeling well, so he was taking a nap when I got back, so I settled in by pouring a glass and playing WoW.

I got drunk and sobered up by the time he awoke. We played for a little while together then I went to bed to get an early start so I could run up to the uni before work.

couldn't sleep...couldn't sleep...couldn't sleep...woke up early...

so, I'm tired, right? But I was too elated to feel it.

trained it to the uni and when I got there it was quiet...no one about. Not a peep.

so...I debated over: a- shoving my assignment in the slot in the main office door...which would entail a plastic envelope full of stuff and three books I used as references...then imagined someone tripping over the old worn out grammars I used...

or b- hanging my assignment (with all accessories) on the doorknob of her office because I already had it in a plastic bag in case that was my best option...

forward thinking

I picked b...and got back on the train towards downtown so I could go to work. Along the way I imagined every scenario that could possibly prevent the connection between my prof and the assignment hanging on her door....up to and including the thought that since 9/11, maybe strange packages hanging on doors are disposed of by a bomb squad in a foamy mess.

I was tired.

But...I emailed her and she emailed me back saying she got it and to have a good holiday. Thank god. Crisis averted. And now I'm free...and I feel grrreat!

oh...yeah...but I forgot to mention that last night I had a dream that I was sitting in class and for some reason said prof asked me to write something on the board but I refused because I looked down and realized I was wearing my longjohns with the trap door...

hahaha...what a typical 'school dream'...

I linketh thee

I think Girls Are Pretty is a great blog.

these days

ray patin
Originally uploaded by himbly.

I found this guy's blog and started clicking on links. It's like a goldmine of animators and illustrators and they are all incredible.

How I wish I could draw.

Anyway...since all I can think about right now is myself, this'll be another post about me.

I wrote an exam this morning and was kinda confident about most of it, though it was hard but when I came out and started talking to some people from my class...well...I think I got one wrong.

Damn.

Because if you know you got one wrong...how many don't you know you got wrong?

But...anyway...I went for lunch with bf and then came home and slept for 2 hours because I'm exhausted and my prof also said that we could have until the 19th to hand in our 15 pg paper.

I almost leapt up and kissed her right on the lips.

Then I thought I dreamt it, so I had to ask around after the exam. Then I had no pants on. And, like, I was in the social science building but it looked like my elementary school.

So...in just a few more days I can stop waking up with fear gripping my belly over what I have to accomplish that day for my life not to suck.

That's gonna be sweet.

me?

I just think that butterfly nets are the funniest accessory out there...




that doesn't really look like Chris at all.





but this is SO TOTALLY what I'm wearing right now.

going mental

good laugh
Originally uploaded by himbly.

7 days left

1 - final exam
1 - take home final
1 - 15pg paper

...to go...

yeah...heh...heh

eff

anyway...I live above a restaurant, right? So, they've taken to playing Xmas music.

I hate Xmas music.

I'm not a Scrooge...I don't hate Xmas or anything...it's okay.

But I can't STAND Xmas music and I especially can't stand those little toys that you press an effing button and then it plays a cute little christmas carrol as if the dog, snowman, santa, elf, construction worker, police man, leather guy, native indian, or sailor is singing it themselves and they've got one of those in the mailroom at work and me and one of the women who work there are going to sneak in there and bash it into smithereens with a 3-hole punch if they continue to play it and laugh as though it was the fucking cutest thing they've ever seen since the birth of their hare-lipped, club footed, bow legged, bowl hair cutted grandchildren.

anyway...

16 years ago today

this happened

blog stats

stuart mclean
Originally uploaded by himbly.

someone got to my blog by googling the words:

hate "stuart mclean" voice

hahahahahaha

well, i certainly don't hate stuart mclean's voice, and if you're familiar with stuart mclean and the vinyl cafe then check out his blog. Bet you can't read it without hearing his voice.

it's better that way.

i'm gonna try that technique on my text books.

an ode to tea

peppermint tea
Originally uploaded by himbly.

you google peppermint tea, and you get that picture. I probably shoulda used one without the 'for promotional use only' tag...but I think I like it more that way

it's a no caps kinda day

i've got two papers, a take home exam and a regular ol' final exam within the next two weeks.

yesterday was a very demanding day and i think i stressed so terribly that i've probably slept about a whole half day since...not to mention eat 2/3rds of the house.

and now i've got a headache and i feel nauseous.

this peppermint tea in front of me is saving my life.

i'm trying so hard to work but i keep flitting from one assingment to another so that the total work i've managed to get done equals bupkis.

i just watched arrested development for the first time and a/ it's totally funny and b/ the david cross character (who is hillarious, btw) is an ex-psycholinguist from MIT that is super weird and flakey and I thought, 'jesus...when it comes to making fun of people, are linguists up for grabs, too?'

two of my fave profs: one's a psycholinguist and the other is straight outta MIT, yo.

i went to go see the grad advisor for our department the other day. i can't stop going over the potential stupid things i said during our meeting. i fixate on my stupidity and akwardness, like, lots...i'm gonna make someone a great grad student one day. when i went to visit him, i guess i expected (don't know why) him to give me a run down of all the programs i could get into with a BA in linguistics, but all we talked about were MAs in linguistics. easy now. i gots to do more research but i know i would love to do a masters in linguistics.

eff

that's gonna get me nowhere

besides, it's been so long. he asked what discipline i'd like to get involved in...uh. dunno. syntax is nice. i like phonetics.

dork <---- me

GQ Man of the Year

GQ Man of the Year
Originally uploaded by himbly.

Now, really...I don't give a rat's ass about GQ or its Man of the Year.

But I'm so sick of Jennifer Aniston and everyone's bullshit pity and happiness over watching her 'get back on her feet'.

I'm not going to go into the Brad, Angelina and Jennifer thing here. Gawd. Go to any supermarket and all the research is right in front of you.

And after you read all that...we still have no idea what really happened. Who cares? Its between them.

But what exactly is important if you're to be a GQ Man of the Year? When your partners in that prize are Vince Vaughn and 50 cent, probably not much...but what I would like to bring up is that JA is the first female 'Man' of the Year because she "exhibited a lot of poise, unbelievable amount of grace and good humor this year."

So...because she didn't pull a Medea on us that she's deserving of the 'Man' of the Year award?

"Heck, Jenny-poo...the way you handled that whole marriage thing...that was mighty manly of ya..."

and a hearty slap on the back

I understand that the media must be a total bitch to deal with...really, I do. But, after the wound healed a bit (and after public interest into how she was doing grew), who released her story in an exclusive to Vanity Fair that flew off the shelves?

They had a harder time keeping the contents of that interview secret than they did a couple of months previous revealing who Deep Throat was.

Now...another point. What the eff is she doing on the cover accepting the honour of "Man of the Year" with her shirt off like she's in a Maxim spread? Take your shirt of for photoshoots, by all means...but don't you think it's a little tacky when the other Men of the Year get to keep their shirts on?

pfft...Man of the Year. She gets it by keeping her cool when her husband leaves her. Irony is that Angelina Jolie was only recognized by the effing UN for all the goodwill work she's done.

She gets called a 'homewrecker'.

nice

hollabacknyc

With the advent of cell phones that can take pics (of which I still am stubbornly refusing to buy) come great ideas for websites...like this.

I think they'll allow non-nyc content.

Anyway, next time you get harrassed by someone on the street, quietly snap a photo of the creep and post it. They deserve to at least have some small part of fame for it.

But be careful...remember, you can't really predict what a complete asshole will do.

Finally

pandora.com

...a way to find new artists I might like without having to actually tell someone I don't trust their abilities to guide me...





no offense

I just don't trust you and don't want to put in the effort to prove you wrong

Extra! Extra! Zombies own LARPers!

LARP vs Zombie
Originally uploaded by himbly.

Doin' homework, I accidentally came across these.

From what I can understand these people (call them Team Dork) would LARP in this park every Sunday (I don't even know where) and these other people (call them Team Bubble-burster) decided it would be great fun to dress up as zombies and break up their LARPing nerdness.

Pretty funny.

Team Dork were apparently hangin' out doing their LARPy thing when Team Bubble-burster...well...burst on the scene and gave them a jawful of zombie revenge.

Then, if I'm reading it right, they took out a drum circle.

I love anyone who takes out a drum circle.

Dirty hippies with their stupid lack of rhythm.

Check out the pictures.

an insight into Himbly's current state

don_music
Originally uploaded by himbly.

Remember that guy?

If you don't, this will serve the purpose of a/ reminding you, and b/ describing my thoughts and feelings at this moment.

omg!

pee&poo
Originally uploaded by himbly.

I think I've just seen the best thing I've ever seen in my life and the life of my mother and my grandmother.

In three generations of the maternal side of my family, none of us have seen anything better than this.

I swear it.

more better

I was telling eeners this today:

The other day in class, I used the word "polite-er".

I was all like (to myself), "Hey, good answer. Wait. Did I just say 'polite-er'? Damn."

Actually, it wasn't even a good answer.

It's totally right about Little Red Corvette

You Scored 60% Correct

You are a solid child of the 80s You'd never confuse Tiffany from Debbie And while you may not know Prince's first #1 hit You know every word to Little Red Corvette

How Much Do You Know About 80s Music?

oh great. I'll just eat Kraft Dinner...

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

not entirely true...

You are Agnostic

You're not sure if God exists, and you don't care. For you, there's no true way to figure out the divine. You rather focus on what you can control - your own life. And you tend to resent when others "sell" religion to you.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

musings while driving today

wiretap
Originally uploaded by himbly.

I got into the car and turned on the radio just in time to hear The Vinyl Cafe, and I smilled and thought, 'alllll right!' when I heard Stuart McLean's voice.

I love getting into the car when my fave radio shows are on.

However, Stuart McLean's voice was saying goodbye until next week. So I was all, 'bummer'.

And then, after the news, they introduced Wiretap. That is totally even better than the Vinyl Cafe, so I ended up driving past Safeway and into some residential area just so I could listen to it.

I laughed myself stupid. I recommend it (the show...and laughing yourself stupid).

...

When I don't feel like listening to what's on CBC at that moment, i surf other radio stations. WTF? Why does almost every other radio station in Calgary suck? There is NOTHING good to listen to...'cept CJSW and sometimes they're stinky, too.

...

Was thinking about my typology class and how I found a language atlas at a bookstore yesterday. Typology is a type of linguistics where you look at features in a language and compare them with the other languages in the world. You find that of all the possibilities, really most languages fall within only a few of them.

Anyway...I won't get into it.

The guy who started it was named Greenberg who wrote this paper in 1966 that turned the linguistic world on its ear! *echo*

In it he wrote 45 'universals', which is to say he studied a bunch of languages, compared them and found out 45 things that always or usually happen. And they're written like this:

Universal #5: If a language has dominant SOV word order and the genitive follows the governing noun, then the adjective likewise follows the noun.

(Which just means that if the word order of a language (like Japanese) is subject, object, verb and if you use a possessive phrase (John's car) the possessing thing (John) is after the noun in possesses (car John's) then an adjective (black car) will also follow the noun it's modifying (car black). If you care.)

This is an awful long setup for a stupid joke that made me laugh in the car...but Rush was on one of the stations.

Himbly's universal #1: If a person's genetic code (for gender) is XX and if their country of origin is Canada then, with greater than chance frequency, that person will dislike Rush.

...

Good lord. I got nothing these days.

yeah, 'cept I'm not taking phonetics this semester...

ipa
Originally uploaded by himbly.

I still can't sleep.

I'm not even tired. I go to bed late, wake up early, and aside from an unpleasant and tired hour or two in the morning, I'm okay.

I finished my paper and handed it in.

But...when we handed it in she told us if we wanted it back until Monday, it was fine with her.

I turned the offer down. I didn't want to look at it again.

But now I'm wanting to read it over (it's still on my computer) but I'm scared that I'm going to decide everything's wrong and I need to redo the whole thing.

"...and my inner voice is saying, "Don't go."..."
--aww..heck. I'm trying to quote Best In Show but I don't remember how it goes.

Anyway...I'm listening to my inner 'fraidy-cat voice 'cause I was quite chuffed with myself earlier when I thought I at least knew what I was writing about in this last paper. Now that I've had time to think about it, my inner critic voice is yelling, "Fool! You don't know the first thing about ergativity in Kalaallisut!"

But, right now, I wouldn't trade this for anything.

I am so happy right now to be going back to school and studying stuff I care about.

The problem with linguistics is that you fall in love with every language you research. I've been working on Kalaallisut since September now, I've looked at its word order, morphology, how it modifies its nouns and where it puts its possessors. I've tried to prove that it's ergative (or not in a small group of nouns), that it's polysynthetic, and that it's highly fusional. Oh, and certainly not least, I've researched its speakers...where they live, how, how many, how commited they are to keeping Kalaallisut alive (real committed, btw)...

And I know almost nothing about this language. Seriously.

There's so much.

I don't know how the writers of grammars do it, frankly. The guy that wrote mine had to spend...I don't even know how long in West Greenland recording data. Then he comes home (or stays there...I don't know) and writes a book based on his findings.

I don't think I've ever read so many sentences about ptarmigan, sled dogs and polar bears in all my life.

Oh...and did you know that the Kalaallisut word for 'polar bear' is nanuq? Oh...and that Kalaallisut is a very close relative to Canadian Inuit dialects?

[q] is phonetic for a voiceless uvular stop. In other words...if you make a k sound, you feel the back of your tongue touching the back of your palate..the soft part...the velum? Your uvula is the dinger donger in the back of your throat. Now, try to get the back of your tongue to touch that and try the k sound again. If you can do it, you make a [q].

(I still remember the day we learned this in phonetics..all of us trying to make the [q] sound with our prof excitedly yelling, 'Further back! Further back! You! (pointing) Try it! Further back!')

So...since English speakers don't make that sound, we use [k] to replace it. So, when people say Nanuk of the North...it actually means polar bear.

Neat, huh?

Anyway...to all those that think linguistics is easy, I say this:

Up your nose with a rubber hose.

And since this is my blog and I've been reading a lot of bloggers lately saying, "this is my blog, I'll write what I want"...Ima write what I want.

'cause that's just how this bi-atch rolls.

And what I want is to write this (so prolly best to skip it):

I've never worked with a language like this before. There is so much morphology (prefixes, suffixes, infixes) going on and I used to hate studying morphology...so it totally effed me up at first. But now, g-damn if I don't think that it's the coolest thing ever that you can incorporate a verb into your noun and keep going.

That means a whole sentence ~can~ be said in one word. Not always, but it can be done without it being weird to anyone speaking or listening.

Isn't that cool?

Like you can say the word "aqissirniarput" and it means "They are hunting ptarmigan"
...
(told ya so about the ptarmigan and stuff)
...
because it's actually one noun with two suffixes: aqissir-niar-put (ptarmigan-hunt-3rd person plural). A suffix just like in English when we say accomplish-ment-s (accomplish (verb) - ment (makes it a noun) - s (plural)). 'Cept, instead of the middle affix meaning 'make a noun/verb' it is a verb.

The 3rd person plural at the end is a bit of a different story but I won't get into it here. Probably no one is reading this anymore -if they even started.

Anyway..that's just a small thing I had to get off my chest. Linguistics is so effing neat. I didn't realize how much I missed it.

Oh dear. I've got to get to bed.