January 2002 archive
(200 entries)
January 31, 2002
The stuff that minor headlines are made of
ALBION, MI -- A van carrying eleven Albion College students and their organization's advisor to a conference in Ohio careened off the road today, killing everyone inside. One student, later identified by the tag in her underpants as Sarah M*****, managed to croak a few last words to our reporter on the scene before croaking herself. "Damned snow and ice," she whispered, clutching at the reporter's arm as the rescue team tried to dig her out from under the pile of CDs and games she had brought along on the trip, "I knew this was going to happen. Eleven students and an advisor in a college van on the way to a conference in this weather is just a recipe for disaster."
If I don't blog anything by Monday, you'll know why.
P.S. I don't really have my name written on my underpants. Do you? (Why would you have my name on your underpants?)
srah | 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: weather |
Are you ready for some football?!
It's Super Bowl time again. For some reason, they break up the Super Bowl Commercials Show with a whole bunch of football breaks, so I usually watch it on tape in order to be able to fast-forward through them. I don't think I have blank tapes around this year, so I may be forced to watch it live. Sigh.
srah | 4:28 PM | TrackBack | Tags: commercials, football, sports, super bowl |
Looking for a good carpenter/demi-god?
Why am I reading posts from last July? I don't know. Check out Davezilla's The resumé of Jesus Christ.
Tonight, tonight
I had a sandwich for dinner and played Charades in Baldwin with Alex and Kjersti (or however the heck you spell her name).
The I-House meeting guest was excruciatingly negative.
RHA went fine and there was Laffy Taffy with stupid jokes on it. My favorite: What's black and white and green and bumpy? A pickle in a tuxedo.
Saw The Great Fiction in the Kellogg Centre. They started out well, but overall earned a shrug. I felt kind of bad because they wanted people to get up and dance, but they weren't playing particularly danceable music, so it's their own darn fault. Looking over the audience, I wondered why Albion students always look so tired. Is this normal for college students? Aren't we supposed to be full of energy and plans to change the world? Yawn.
Watched French Kiss with Alex and Ligia. Kate seemed more tired and beaten than last time I watched.
Roommate is a happy drunk. She is funny.
My favorite search request ever
If you are interested in study at cuef, please ask me questions!
srah | 1:03 AM | TrackBack | Tags: search results |
January 30, 2002
Respect mah dragonly authori-tye! This
Respect mah dragonly authori-tye!
This is according to the name generators at The Barrow-Downs:
Orc Name: Kurtakh the One-eyed
Dwarf Name: Nerin Diamondlegs
Hobbit name: Belladonna Goodbody from Michel Delving
Elf Name: Entauriel
According to the Ancient Scrolls of the Red Book of Westmarch, I am really a Respected Dragon. Oooooh.
[also via Skittles?]
Keep the change, ya filthy animal
According to Celeb Match, I am 100% compatible with the skank-nasty Macaulay Culkin. Apparently compatibility is based on the fact that we were born on the exact same day. Thrilling. My runners-up are Tarso Marques (who?), Noah Bastian (who?), Chris Klein, and Randy Moss (who? sounds like a football player). I think I'll go shopping for someone better.
Kevin Kline - 15% :(
Mike Myers - 98%
Jean Reno - 60%
Alan Rickman - 94%
Kevin Spacey - 74%
Not bad. Too bad JH isn't on the list...
[via Skittles?]
srah | 4:42 PM | TrackBack | Tags: alan rickman, boys, john hannah, kevin kline, kevin spacey, macaulay culkin |
Communication is a good thing
Communication is a good thing
Have talked to the suitemate and I think we both feel better. I guess.
Thank you, sicko!
I have a Disturbing Search Request!
srah | 1:33 PM | TrackBack | Tags: search results |
The weather demons are jumping up and down on my soul
I shouldn't have said anything. The weather was beautiful and lovely yesterday and today it was cold and rainy. Which is only one day on the way to this weekend, when we are supposed to be having something like ice storms as we drive to Ohio. Poo poo poo.
The Effing Toilette
We got a nasty note on the white-board from one of the suitemates regarding the state of the bathroom. This is probably going to annoy me for the rest of the day. Grrr.
I left a very polite "thank you and please don't leave notes like that on my door anymore" note on their door. We will probably spend the next three months sneering at each other.
...In the middle of July
I woke up this morning to Shades Apart's "Stranger By the Day" which starts out "Snow is falling from the sky..." It prompted me to look out the window and emit a rather unladylike expletive.
I. Hate. Snow.
srah | 8:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: weather |
January 29, 2002
D'oh part 2
Okay, I'll talk about it now. I've looked it over and maybe I'm not quite as stupid as I thought. Still stupid, but not as stupid.
All this time, when I've looked at the webpage for the assistantship position, I have been reading the second part, where it says
Remuneration
The gross remuneration of foreign assistants is 890 Euros, minus approximately 60 € for Social Security (medical insurance).
Now, is it just me, or does gross remuneration sound like that's all you get? 830 € converts to about $718. So I have been thinking, ever since I applied, that I am going to have to work my butt off this summer in order to fund the seven months that I will be making less money than it will cost to feed and house me and, in essence, be paying to work. I can't go to Europe over Spring Break or Chile during the summer because I will have to save my money to live on.
Now look a little higher. Yeah, right there. The part that says
Monthly Stipend 890 € (Euros)
Monthly. Ahem. La la, I am stupid. It has been there all along, and there I was, panicking about how I was going to live for seven months on $700.
$700 a month? That's $15 an hour! Oh my god! I'm rich!
srah | 10:46 PM | TrackBack | Tags: assistantship |
What's round on the ends and "hi" in the middle?
I am going to a conference in Ohio this weekend. Twelve Albion ISU members crammed into a van, forced to share beds, then to sleep on Wooster students' floors. BUT - there will be Mad Libs. And that makes everything okay.
I thought about going to Wooster for a while. I may have even applied - I don't really remember. But when I went on a visit, I was told that there were two kinds of girls at Wooster - the weirdos and the sluts. I didn't particularly want to be either.
Comment communiquent les hommes de caverne?
Hooray - I got to talk/grogner to Denis on IM for over an hour, until he was tragically eaten by a tiger. The Internet is a magical wonderland and I want to give it a kiss on its little nosey.
srah | 5:14 PM | TrackBack | Tags: host family |
Hire me
Spacebus (local band) should have a website. And when I say "Spacebus should have a website", I mean "Spacebus should pay me money to make them a website".
srah | 4:05 PM | TrackBack | Tags: job search |
Young Nasty Men I'm listening
Young Nasty Men
I'm listening to Tenacious D's "Wonder Boy". I don't really know Tenacious D, like some bloggers seem to (if I were compiling blogger statistics, I think Tenacious D and They Might Be Giants would pop up at the top of the music charts) but this song is quite amusing.
What's my name again?
AAAAAAAAAAAH! I hate voice mail and answering machines. I, like everyone else, sound like a gibbering idiot every time I leave a message. I have just left a voice mail in regards to possibly teaching an after-school French class for Albion middle schoolers. And I'm not entirely sure I left my name. I know I left my phone number and email address, but I'm not completely 100% sure about the name. But maybe I did leave my name, in which case I would feel really stupid calling back and saying "Oh yeah, I just left a message? And um, I'm not sure I left my name? So here it is..." YARGH.
Dream
I dreamt last night that the evil airport people wouldn't let me say goodbye to Alex or him say goodbye to me (I'm not sure which of us was leaving - maybe both of us) because they thought we were just some random teenagers who had met on a plane.
January 28, 2002
My history teacher says the
My history teacher says the worst way to die is being burned alive.
On my CS webpage, I
On my CS webpage, I joke that I'm going to refuse to leave the safe womb of acadæmia and become a permanent student. But was I really joking?
My History teacher was talking about medieval monks and nuns and how their life was sort of like being at Albion for the rest of your life, taking classes and learning but not having to worry about grades, write papers, or take tests. You would get a single and be fed and you would have opportunities to travel from time to time. Everyone in my class was arguing about how they wanted more out of life than that. Me? I was looking around for the sign-up sheet.
The weather is so beautiful...
The weather is so beautiful and springy. I hate winter. I hope it's gone for good, but that's probably a little too optimistic for January.
January 27, 2002
Laura has been...
Laura has been to a lot of places. I'm rather jealous.
ljc blog has been particularly
ljc blog has been particularly amusing this week. Check out the colored ketchups and peanut butter slices (ew ew ew!).
We tend to say
We tend to say THE Netherlands and THE Ukraine (or is it just me?).
What other countries have articles?
srah | 12:55 PM | Tags: |
In March, the JASWM is
In March, the JASWM is showing Nijushi no hitomi,
a very hard-to-find film about life in Japan around the time of WWII. I
want to go. And now I want to learn Japanese. And eat noodles.
Last night...
Last night we (several members of ISU and the Wenzels) went to the Japan America Society of Western Michigan's New Year's rentai (networking) and film. What a great experience.
First we filled up on Japanese food like rice, noodles, fried vegetables, shrimp and vegetables, and sushi. There was a lot of food and it was all excellent. We all at least tried to eat with chopsticks.
Then we went into the auditorium and saw a Japanese juggling group. Normally, if I hear the word juggling I start to squirm and look longingly towards the exit. Not such a big fan of Western-style juggling, me. But this was completely new and different. First they juggled using umbrellas. They would spin the umbrella and make a ball or a ring or a porcelain cup spin around on top. It made a cool noise.
Before the juggling, they had played some traditional music and done the Lion Dance for good luck. The big lion head came around and sort of kissed audience members.
Then after the juggling, they did several incredible balancing acts. I was afraid to clap loudly because I thought everything was going to fall. They would assemble pyramids of stuff on top of a stick in their mouths, all the while keeping it balanced. Then they'd disassemble it. It was amazing. They balanced water, or put water into a bowl on top of a stick, then balanced the stick on a string. Then they spun the string around the stick and made the water come out like a sprinkler. Anyway, I don't know if you can imagine this, but it was great.
Then we had the film. For those of you who liked Amélie, you would probably like Tampopo. It has the same sense of nonsense and whimsy. The main story is about a noodle cook named Tampopo (Dandelion) who, with the help of her friends, builds up her restaurant into the best in town. A lot of it is sort of like Rocky being trained by John Wayne and aided by Mr Miyagi. Ha ha! But the theme of the movie is the joy of food and there are all kinds of side-stories relating to that subject. There's the Japanese woman trying to teach her students how to eat spaghetti properly in the Western way, while a Western man across the room is slurping away at his noodles. There's the woman who sneaks into the supermarket to squeeze all of the produce. There's the pipsqueak underling who embarrasses all of his bosses by being the only one in the room who really understands the menu in the French restaurant. There's the epicurean vagabonds in the park, the kid who's not supposed to have sweets, and the couple whose sexual exploits always seem to be food-related. We had just stuffed ourselves and we still left the movie hungry and searching for a Japanese noodle restaurant in Battle Creek. It's an excellent, fun movie and you should all check it out.
Something I learned: Ramen is the Japanese word for noodles - so if you say "ramen noodles" you're being redundant.
srah | 12:22 PM | TrackBack | Tags: food, japan, movies, ramen, tampopo |
Becky's presentation went pretty well.
Becky's presentation went pretty well.
Somehow, if I were the Department of Admissions
Somehow, if I were the Department of Admissions, trying to attract the best and the brightest to Albion, I would downplay our lack of ethnic diversity. It's the kind of thing that these scholarship candidates probably wouldn't really notice on day-visits unless they were looking for it. So I don't think I would call attention to it by having the all-white Briton Singers singing spirituals about picking cotton and being on the auction block. Just a thought for next time...
January 26, 2002
The Stupid Translator...
The Stupid Translator is fun.
srah - student of university per day, student of university per night. Appreciate words and languages. With pleasure moreover to read comments with its blog * council of council *. is known to chatter with itself in French and bemoan his entry imminent at the work-market.
[via not.so.soft]
srah | 3:31 PM | TrackBack | Tags: discovered |
Makes me wish I had money...
Makes me wish I had money: Blogger Pro™
By the time I'm grown up and have money, I will have missed out on the early-signup bonus. Life isn't fair.
My avatar...
My avatar is going to live over there [<---] until I get sick of it living there. The jeans, hair and glasses are close enough, but she's a little curvaceous for me and I never wear turtlenecks.
I never wear turtlenecks. I used to, up until high school, but they were always strangely deformed because I would stick my chin into them to keep them off my neck. I have neck issues. I think I was strangled or hanged or guillotined in another life.
I can't wear necklaces either, for the same reason. I can't wear most bracelets or rings because my wrists and fingers are too small (my ring size, I've just discovered when I ordered my class ring, is 4). I can't wear earrings because my ears aren't pierced. So jewelry - not my thing.
Anyway, where was I going? Avatar, turtlenecks, jewelry... ah yes, death.
I think everyone has a different idea of the Worst Way To Die. No one's is correct - everyone's depends on their own fears. Many people know that mine is being garrotted with piano wire. I think Boyfriend's is suffocation.
What's your worst way to die?
This will only interest you
This will only interest you if you're familiar with the city, but here's the Best of Ann Arbor 2001.
I don't think Subway should count for best subs because it's a chain. I'm picky. I don't like chains. I like "Michael Jackson impersonator in the alley next to Tally Hall" for Best Local Dancer/Dance Troupe. Peter Sparling annoys me, so I would put it #1. "Best Vacuum Store"? Hmm.
[via Hey Man Who Ate My Pizza?]
srah | 8:33 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Tags: |
That's right!
That's right! Krista reminds me that there is a terrible chicken pox epidemic spreading across campus. Or maybe three cases. When I went to the doctor earlier this month, I saw a sign about chicken pox vaccines, which really upset me. Why didn't I get a chicken pox vaccine? If I had to suffer through it, I think today's kiddies should have to, too. Spread the pain around. Heh heh.
I went to Casino Night...
I went to Casino Night tonight with Boyfriend and Alfie. Somehow managed to end up with more "money" by the end than they had handed me when I came in. AND YET, when my "money" was traded in for raffle tickets at the end, my absent Roommate's one ticket ended up being more valuable than all seven of mine. Grrrrrrrr. Still, I'm not quite as ignorant about casino games as I was and I don't think I've formed a terrible debilitating habit. So, good night overall!
Now we're off to bed so we can be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for tomorrow's activities.
January 25, 2002
Happy Burns Night!
srah | 11:57 PM | TrackBack | Tags: burns night, holidays, scotland |
This is also fun and
This is also fun and handy for picking up words and phrases in a whole mess of languages: Foreign Languages for Travelers
This is very cool -
This is very cool - it's a site about world languages. Check out all the languages spoken in France.
[via I Am Frequently Asked Questions]
srah | 4:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: |
I was just listening to...
I was just listening to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and was about to blog about how I had no idea what the lyrics meant, but then I found out. Darn.
The song reminds me of the "Dead People Game" which I used to play freshman year with Carl. The entire point of the stupid game was to try to come up with a longer list of dead people than the other person. So mostly we would just email each other lists of People Who Are Dead whenever we thought of it.
If you leave some Dead People in the blah blahs, it will make me giggle. Er... names of Dead People, that is. We don't want the blah blahs to start to smell.
The Pre-Date Confidence Builder...
The Pre-Date Confidence Builder is funny, as is Disturbing Search Requests.
I am a shameless link-thief and never come up with anything original. These two are...
[via KatieSherman.com]
srah | 3:24 PM | TrackBack | Tags: discovered |
So much of this is
So much of this is frighteningly true. The rest is just frightening.
Sarah CS151 Web Page are
strictly those
of different
parts of my favorite is probably study
something having to meet this page
author. The French I have a learning how to
meet this summer while
visiting England with other
subjects and learning
how to find a year
teaching English in
front of acadaemia and building on
the rather frightening
realm of International students and becoming
a passion for language I was
going to need any other
parts of me standing in a
French fluently and studied history,
cinema, art, literature, and also
because I also
took a passion for at least five years now
my liberal arts
education and studied history, cinema, art, literature, and am
a fan site for me. I am
considering include the Internet
is a French fluently and hearing French. I
decide
to
continue after one year.
Other international students and
studied history, cinema, art, literature, and
the safe
womb of different genres, but
I was in
a French I love
lots of different parts of the
rather frightening realm
of my thoughts and learning new
ways to
find a French I am only a permanent student.
srah | 8:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: |
The Friday Five
1. What cologne or perfume do you wear? Sometimes I wear Arielle, by Fragonard, which Alfie brought me back from France.
2. What cologne or perfume do you like best on the opposite sex? I like nice deodorant smells. I think I like Polo Sport but I'm not sure. I don't, as a rule, go around sniffing people and ask what they're wearing. Boyfriend wears Paco Rabanne and he smells good.
3. What one smell can you not stomach? Vomit. I suspect that's true of most people. If you are a vomit-sniffer, then you scare me and now I am probably going to get some strange referrals that will scare me even more.
4. What smell do you like that others might consider weird? Gasoline's okay. I don't know of anything else... I like certain cigarette smells.
5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Alfie is coming on Friday night and we're going to watch Moulin Rouge. Then Saturday morning is her presentation, Saturday afternoon/evening is a rentai and film with the Japan America Society of Michigan (for International Student Union), and Sunday is homework and sleeping.
srah | 12:18 AM | TrackBack | Tags: friday five, memes |
HOW LONG have you people
HOW LONG have you people allowed me to walk around with my pants unzipped? I HATE YOU!
I have this mania
I have this mania wherein I can only do my CS labs in the basement of I-House. Odd.
If you are searching on
If you are searching on "John Hannah poem mp3", this is the best I can offer you.
Things I hate: - Finding
Things I hate:
- Finding the biography I wrote for my John Hannah site copied word for word on another site, with no link or acknowledgement
- Finding the filmography I wrote for my John Hannah site copied word for word on another site, with no link or acknowledgement
Things I like:
- People who email me to ask if they can copy pictures from my John Hannah site.
Orphans
Orphans is a lovely Scottish film about four adult siblings dealing with the death of their mother. It stars the delectable Douglas Henshall (who you wouldn't know from anything), the dad from Billy Elliot, and Magnus from Rushmore. I don't know why I was thinking about it, as I saw it over a year and a half ago. But one of the most amusing things is that when it was released on video in the US, they subtitled it for people who couldn't handle the accent. Hee hee hee.
srah | 4:47 PM | TrackBack | Tags: accents, movies, orphans, scotland |
A LETTER FROM FRANCE!
A LETTER FROM FRANCE! A LETTER FROM FRANCE! Nothing makes me happier. THEY HAVE INTERNET! THEY HAVE INTERNET! Well... maybe something.
srah | 12:40 PM | TrackBack | Tags: grenoble, host family |
I am addicted
I am addicted to Random Poetry.
srah blah blah blah. to be in seeing the belly. Maybe have lost the basement of whining about that way. like contemporary poetry: dealie sounds like blogs OF entitlement that passed the Jedi Special effects? Is pretty dorky and loose spelling like to man,has proved to herself in a Wind in Grenoble or somewhere shady, and got me but I realize right here were my Great Issues yellow bellow 3:20pm un français en parle . I know how to go to myself linked with Ellen and I get a . [
BeatnikPad today takes you on
BeatnikPad today takes you on a trip into the confusing, expensive world of feminine hygiene. Mwah ha.
I just watched Il Postino
I just watched Il Postino con mi chilenito and it's got me in a big confusion of Italian, Spanish and French. Italian is so similar to both languages and we spent a lot of time talking about that. Then Pablo Neruda would stop the Italian and bust out in Spanish. And there's always French floating around in my head. Plus, it's a Chilean book made into an Italian movie by Italian-French producers. Ai! Must go to sleepy-bye porque tengo sueño. Anyway, the movie was good and very sad in the end.
srah | 1:58 AM | TrackBack | Tags: il postino, movies |
January 23, 2002
Alfie is coming to stay
Alfie is coming to stay this Friday night so she can go to her scholarship presentation the next morning. Fun times and hijinks will undoubtedly ensue.
srah | 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: |
This whole Random Poetry dealie
This whole Random Poetry dealie sounds like someone who hasn't quite mastered the English language and reminds me of David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day, when he is learning French. "He nice, the Jesus. He die and be put on two pieces of wood then he go to live in the sky with your father." <-- paraphrase
srah | 10:50 PM | TrackBack | Tags: david sedaris, me talk pretty one day |
You...
You: "I pay twenty-five thousand dollars a year, so I should get X."
Me: "Stick it in your ear."
Just got back from an hour-and-a-half conversation with Ellen and Roommate that included, among other things, the lovely lovely sense of entitlement that so many Albion students (especially the spoiled rich kids, the ones who actually do pay full tuition) seem to have. "I pay $25,000 so I should be able to drink where and when I want to." "I pay $25,000 so I should be able to have a single room." First of all, your parents are the ones paying, and second of all, that attitude isn't going to get you anywhere. Third of all... I don't know where I was going with this.
I don't know who I am to talk... my parents are paying my after-scholarship remainder, too.
Last one of the evening...
Last one of the evening - I swear!
srah blah to check Mongolian BBQ to
blame my CS class for how to shoes?were breathing,
A property of personal information to win
me,to the basement
of
Nimh does make
in shame
Someone worse by entertaining style and sudden, rather
than sounding like it was that people
When we had
both watched it Ho hum. I know anything
anyone you mean strange. Perhaps...
Scarlett O'Hara said...
Scarlett O'Hara said "I'll think about that tomorrow."
I find myself putting off thinking about lots of things until March or so. Which is, I guess, good for now - but it means I'll have a lot of things to think about come March.
srah | 4:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Tags: quote |
I generally don't like Macromedia Flash...
I generally don't like Macromedia Flash. I usually click "Skip Intro" on Flash introduction pages, because it takes forever to load and play (especially on my slow computer) and doesn't really present any useful information. Sometimes Flash can be useful - if, for example, you really need to pretend you are Thierry Ardisson and have a little keyboard to play the sound clips from "Tout le monde en parle". Which, of course, I do. But Flash introductions are usually skipped and if I link to a site, it will be to the page after the intro.
Someone in the JHAC keeps pushing me to learn Flash so that I can put it on the JH site. To that I say: "Bah." I wouldn't put it on my page just because I could, if I knew that people like me were going to be annoyed and skip it. I also say, "Put Flash on your own site if you like it so much." I like my sites clean and simple, easy and quick to load, and without a lot of bother. I like my technology and Internet gadgets to do something useful and make the information-finding process easier. Maybe they're not as flashy as some others, but I like 'em.
srah | 4:50 PM | TrackBack | Tags: technology |
Snippets from Tea with CKane:
Snippets from Tea with CKane:
"Up your vernacular!"... "Poom poom short"... "It's the financial aspects of my wings that worry me"... "I was in Vienna, in a small café on the Schtroumpfstrasse, when a man approached me..."
We have fun, doan' we?
Cheryl and her monster vocab make me want to expand my own. I think there are a lot of words I used to be able to use in conversation, but I've since forgotten their definitions. I usually prefer to say something else, rather than sounding like the guy in my History class who said that Catherine of Aragon's first marriage wasn't valid because it was not consecrated (which it was), rather than consummated (which it probably wasn't). Here is one that I wanted to use today, but I wasn't sure enough of the definition to use it: candor. (I was right)
My grey argyle socks are soft...
My grey argyle socks are soft. And argyle. And while we're at it, they are grey. I wish they were clean, because I would like to wear them right now. Instead, I am wearing Eiffel Tower socks, which are fun but not quite as satisfying.
Other comfort clothing I own include my hooded Michigan sweatshirt, any pair of pyjama pants (mouse-over pyjama please, IE users) and any pair of interesting socks - especially argyle. I like wearing my boots not for comfort but because I feel tall and maybe even a little sexy.
What's your favorite article (or pair of articles) of clothing?
srah | 3:28 PM | TrackBack | Tags: fashion, socks, spelling |
I'm going to giggle until
I'm going to giggle until I fall off my chair. *Reload reload reload*
srah blah blah. blahs as
of ice ! And where
they introduced me by
being kept adding some code to
anyone else. in
a film AméRecently :A class this might
be it. [makes me to blame my parents were talking, briefly
to a feeling in fast thick
pants were my
Yahoo! 3. of the history
class this page as
Bill
Nye always been President of The
Ten Most recent obsession?Blogging,
I was stalking me.