Valentine's Day 2014 - aka, "the day Margaret's love for chocolate milk came back to bite her."

Yeah, see, my jar of chocolate milk leaked in my lunch bag, which I didn't notice until I saw the drops of milk across my desk at work as I put my lunch bag in the usual spot. (I wonder what the seat of my car looks like?!) So I went to the break room to clean it up - yup, my lunch was swimming in 1/2 inch of chocolate milk at the bottom of my apparently-only-partially-waterproof lunch bag.

It wouldn't have been that big a deal, I mean, every item in my lunch was in a tupperware-like container, but today was also the day I decided to restock my supply of chocolate at work, so the contents of my lunch bag included a bunch of M&M's...in a paper sack.

So the truth that I have learned on this day of chocolate is, as one of my co-worker pointed out, M&M's melt in your mouth, not in your hand, unless they are swimming in milk.

And also - I should make sure the lid and the jar go together.

I totally don't have my dad's permission to post this on my blog.

But he and my mom are going to Paris tomorrow, and we already know how I feel about my parents, or my possessions, taking trips to places that I want to go.

And so, without further ado, or permission from my dad, I give you...the email he sent to my sisters and me entitled "Resurrecting my French." (I should mention that he was fluent in both French and Spanish as a young person, and continues to be fluent in Spanish also as an older person, but not as fluent in French. Hence the need to "resurrect" the French.)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my father:
 

For the last couple of weeks I've been immersing myself in French for almost 2 hours per day.

I remember how we heartless children used to make fun of my father, listening to his Berlitz records late at night, and never getting anywhere. 

"Un."

"Un!"

"Deux."

"Deux!"

So ashamed.  As busy as he was - coming home at night and working on that.  We were wretched.

If you cast your bitter herbs on the water, they return to you.  Or verbs.

I got some intermediate/advanced CDs and work on them walking to and from the train and on the train.  The guy says something in English.  Pause.  Girl says it in French.  Pause.  In French again.  Pause.  Then the guy on a new phrase.  So I use the pauses to try to figure out how to say it, then correct myself, and work on pronunciation. 

Two hours a day of this is pretty intense.  I'll look for them.  Cram some of this down their charming oh-so-competent "sur le pont d´Avignon" throats.

Ruining Spanish - sometimes a French word or pronounciation intrudes.  And French phrases and conjugations keep flitting through the brood-o-sphere.  And dreams.

The verbs are the worst.  Je suis.  Tu est.  Il est.  Elle est.

The whole language nothing but insane labyrinth of verbs.  Doing things to or by a few innocent nouns.  Subjunctive.  Passe compose.  Conditional.  Darn it all.

Thank heaven for the occasional cognate.  [My mom] woke up Sunday absolutely bushed after Saturday's excesses.  "Je vois que tu est tres poupée."  Yes!  I can do this!

The nightmares.  In my dreams it still doth haunt me.  The prehistoric jungle with gigantic insane reptilian birds verbing their way through the dense miasma of eons-old wreckage and decay.  Purple.  Greenish orange.  Brownish blue. That's just the birds.  Snatching out your liver.  Ma fois!

Marie Antoinette.  "Qu'ils mangeant du brioche."  A precursor to the tumbrils, the guillotine.  Charles, a peasant, hauled to the scaffold for disobeying her.  "Je n'aurai pas du ne pas y en avoir mangé du brioche.  Avoir.  Chouette."  "I shouldn´t have not eaten the cake."  J'ai.  Tu as.  Il a.  Elle a.

me te se nous vous

le la les

lui leur

y

en

Accents!

Darnit darnit darnit.

Gloria en excelsis les neuf inmortels.

Halleluja!

Amen! 

And to that I say also - amen! :) And also - bon voyage! :)

I took a walk on the wild side...

You know those tags on your hair dryer / curling iron / straightening iron that warn you not to electrocute yourself or your small children by licking / using while in the tub / dropping in the toilet?

Last week I cut those tags off my hair dryer AND my straightening iron.

Oh yes I did.

Nope.

Actual conversation I just had with my sister:

Her: I want to tell you one more thing. Did I already tell you this?
[pause]
Her: You don't know yet.
Me: Nope.

Heehee! :) And that's how we roll. :)

Oops

Turns out "all your base are belong to us" was NOT said by the Iraqi Information Minister.

My bad.

True dat.

So after several hours of logging video from Abu Dhabi, I went into my coworker's office and said, "I just want spring break to start NOW!" and he said, "Start it!" and I said, "the problem is that it's not like I'll really have a break. I mean, the only thing that really changes for me next week is that I don't have Arabic class" and he said, "Um, but Arabic class is the bane of your existence!"

Well, yes.

So I guess it will be a nice spring break. :)

el oh el

So one of the undergrads I work with recently told me this in an IM:

my dad sent me a text today that said "hey [name] watch out for snow el oh el"
then I asked why he said el oh el and he said he thought if he put lol that I wouldn't get it

Um...


heehee

Bowling

New personal best: 163

New personal worst: I'm so out of shape that I have sore muscles.

From bowling.

Something has GOT to be done.

Typoo

Proofreading is a good idea. I almost just sent an email with the subject line "A Poo equipment overdue."

It was supposed to say, "AV Pool equipment overdue." Sometimes this keyboard bugs the L out of me.




heehee

shots from today

One of the labbies at work was getting to know a fancy camera today, and thus we have preserved this:

...shirt I bought in Abu Dhabi when our luggage didn't arrive and I didn't want to wear my "I've been wearing this for 24 hrs of traveling" clothes to meetings at the university, new haircut that I am LOVING, aaaaaannnnnddd...dumb expression. Terrif.

And this:


...action shot of me and the pizza. ?!?

For the love.

For your midnight snacking pleasure: a bit of nostalgia

So it's 12:07 am and that means it's Sunday, and since I don't study on Sundays, that means I'm done with my prelim studying.

Read those last 6 words again, please, and see if they register with you a little more than they register with me as I think, type, and read them.

And also, it's after midnight, as I've already noted, which means that my emotions are a little closer to the surface than usual (no, I'm not crying) (Jer), so humor me while I wax nostalgic here for a minute.

I've been preparing for prelims for almost 2 and a half years now, since September 2008. As first year students my cohort (now my dear, dear friends) and I were warned to start preparing immediately, there was a lot to read. And there was, and we did. We had a very consistent study/reading group that first year. It petered out a bit second year, as we realized we were on different schedules for the actual date of prelims (I'm the last one of that cohort to take them; Arabic classes put me a bit behind in my other coursework), but even this previous semester, when I was the only one still preparing, we have met every couple of weeks and talked about their dissertation proposals and pilots and my prelim prep. They've talked me out of (and into :) ) panic on multiple occasions and been THE. MOST. FABULOUS. supporters and cheerleaders and co-conspirators that a grad student could ask for.

And now my exams start Monday. There will be four 3-hour exams, Mon-Thurs, and then I'll wait for ~2 weeks to find out if I pass or if I have to retake any of the portions (in May).

It's just crazy -- all this time, all this reading, all this trying to understand, to reason, to remember, to put things together in my head, to not doubt my abilities to understand, reason, remember.

The last couple of days, and especially today, I've felt a difference in my reading and reviewing and comprehension. I feel like I FINALLY (only now?! ;) ) understand what I should be looking for as I read a theoretical piece or a research article. I'm finally seeing some of the big pieces in my field and how they fit together. And I feel like--let's just get this prelim thing over with already! :)

And yet with all that is a bit of nostalgia--is this really happening? Is the dread of prelims really going to be a thing of the past in just a few days? Am I really one of those students who does this, who makes it to this point, who TAKES PRELIMS, for goodness sake?? This is a big deal, a big step. It's been pretty emotional to talk to my family and friends about it -- there's so much emotion and insecurity tied up in my confidence in myself, in my fear that I actually CAN'T do big important things or ever be an expert in anything.

When I was taking a little study break earlier I found this, from a post back in 2006 when I was working (and working, and working) on my Master's thesis:

I have realized recently that the good feeling [that I had posted about the day before] is NOT that I am working on my thesis. The good feeling is PROGRESSION. The purpose of my life is NOT to finish this dang thesis, THAT is not why I feel so much better when I work on it. The purpose of life is to PROGRESS. And I have NOT been doing so the last I-refuse-to-admit-how-many months -- I was allowing my thesis-writing, or lack thereof, to be exact, to hold me back, to "damn," or "dam," my forward progress. But [...] I have broken through that "wall" and can now move forward. And right now, moving forward means getting the thesis done. Here I go!

I think that's part of what I'm feeling now -- this is the next step for me, it's progression, and it is scary, but good. And I'm happy that I'm doing it. :)

So it's really interesting to be here, now, to feel like, for better or for worse, I'm taking prelims the day after...today, and people? I'm ready. (And fine, now I'm crying. :P) I don't know everything, but I know quite a bit of "stuff," and I hope and pray it's enough, and deep down I feel like it is. It's still scary--they may, they probably will!, ask me something that I really have to dig and stretch to be able to say anything about, but I'll write something, and I'll turn it in, and...life will go on. And maybe in a few weeks I'll wonder what the big deal was. Maybe. ;)

And I haven't cleaned this up yet:




But hey, it's past midnight (did I say that already?) and I'm going to bed.

Besides, I'm not quite ready to say good-bye yet.

Just in case you forgot...

...this is what I look like when I'm talking:


And also - this:


And for those of you who need it - photographic evidence that I DON'T actually talk ALL the time:

The end.

Weeping and wailing and...what? Oh.

I just got a phone call from my sister, and I panicked--I couldn't understand a blessed word she was saying! She sounded garbled - like she was sobbing uncontrollably or there was something horrendous happening in the background. Possible explanations flashed through my mind as I left my office and ran to a place with better cell phone reception - her husband lost his job? Got a better job? One of the kids got hit by a car? She broke her leg??

None of the above.

She was laughing. Uncontrollably.

She just called to say that she got my email with this link in it.

Well. I'm so glad she enjoyed it. :)

My sister knows...

...these people. Those are her friend's kids.

And yes, the baby really is duct-taped to the window.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!





heehee

Um, okay...

So if you have multiple bumper stickers on your car, and one of them says:

Friends don't let friends vote Republican.

...and another says:

Buckle up! It makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car.

...then you should know that the latter makes it hard for me to take the former, or really anything about you, seriously.

Just so you know.

You might be in the south if...

A friend of mine recently got back from a trip to Tennessee. This is an ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPH she took down there.


And that's all I have to say about that.

Happy finals to you, too.

It just got louder in the library (people JUST getting out of bed, or lunch time??) so I turned up the volume on my Pandora. Think it'll help?

Ugh ugh ugh ugh

Current status:
--> Arabic final in 23 hrs--not ready
--> 4 pg essay due in 27 hrs--at 3 pgs, but too many more sections to write, will need to trim a lot
--> 10 pg paper due in 27 hrs--umm...have sources, and outline...
--> 7 pg paper due in 3 days--eep. Maybe have topic? maybe a few sources?
--> Blog--updated. At least I have my priorities in the right place. :P

send help

P.S. One possible reason that my status is as stated above.
P.P.S. The aforementioned reason has to do with the CONTENT of the comic, not the fact that I am reading the archives of an online comic while my finals are in such a sorry state...
P.P.P.S. send help

He's right.

My brother-in-law, that is.

See, his wife, my sister, likes to share with the family the cute things her kids say.

She wrote:

"[Four-year-old daughter] just asked me, 'Mom, have you ever noticed some babies just have one hair?'

We were reading Horton the Elephant (one of [four-year-old daughter]'s favorites). On the last page she piped up, 'We don't have elephant birds around here.'"

And because I am always interested in both sharing my knowledge of flora and fauna and gaining new knowledge, I responded:

"No, I believe they are native to Argentina, and are a close relative of the feral chicken. Right, Dad?"

And my esteemed father, also always oh-so-willing to share his, ahem, extensive knowledge, wrote back:

"Margaret, of course, is right.

It´s that old saw about opposites attracting.

Moonlit nights - soft background music - and chickens and elephants just find each other irresistible.
Generally, it is culinarily irresistible - feral chickens have a tremendous, gigantic, enormous weakness for elephant steaks.

But sometimes, in the springtime, the hens fall for the big guys in a serious way."

And then my bro-in-law:

"You people are all totally, irrevocably, certifiably insane.

It's so good to fit in."

And he's right. :)

Don't hide your light...

So I have a paper due in 4 hrs and 49 minutes, and oh, it'll be done by then. :)

But I just saw a guy from the class for which that paper is due, and we were talking about the presentation of our papers, which will be in class tonight, and how we have a very limited amount of time to present, and I made a crack about how "I talk so fast that I can fit 20 minutes of content into 1o minutes" and he agreed, and then he said the following (he's a native speaker of English, btw):

You know, you should take pride in the fact that you are one of very few native English speakers that I have a hard time understanding...not all the time, just sometimes.

Um, really? I should take pride in that?! I'll have to think about that...

But under the circumstances, with only 10 minutes to present some pretty interesting material, I'll just be grateful for this "talent" and move on with life. :)

Today's status

Desperately trying to find sources for a paper that is due in one week. Yes, I'm THAT awesome.

And I wear my jean jacket every day. I am also THAT awesome.