Ashley's Tuesday This-or-That?

January or July? July, but I may just be saying that because it's winter. No... July.
Email or letters? I prefer letters. I love to get letters. Email
isn't quite as exciting. But it takes me a lot of energy to write a letter
because I write long ones. So given the choice it's usually email. Milk or orange juice? Given the choice between those two nasties - chocolate milk.
Brunette or blond? Brunette. Are we talking me or my taste? Either way it's brunette.
Digital or film camera? Both. Digital camera! Coming soon!
Camping or hotel? How shall I put this? Hotel hotel hotel hotel
hotel hotel hotel hotel hotel hotel hotel hotel hotel. I am such an indoors
person. Pencil or pen? Pen.
Rollerblading or roller skating? I've never been rollerblading, but
I think there's something quite 80s about roller skating. I want to learn
to rollerblade before I go to France so maybe I can deal with transportation
strikes. Fly or drive? Fly. Especially if I would be the one driving. And if I could find a cheap flight.
White or black? Black, I suppose.

Aragorn peeing on the floor

Boy, a subject like that just makes you want to keep reading, doesn't it? That or run screaming from the blog.

Anyway, Laine over at Dear Mervis... is having fun with her Lord of the Rings-skinned Sims. And many other interesting Legolas-related things.

Legolas is by no stretch of the imagination srah's type. And yet... mrrrrowwwrrrr...

Did you have some of the special tea?

Want to see some cute but strange stick figures?

[via Amyscoop.com]

Yet another blogging article

Here is a cool article about blogging.
Actually, all articles about blogging seem about the same to me. Everyone
thinks they're the first one to discover the trend. But you might as well
read it.

Channel 35 is SCOLA. It probably stands for something. Scholastic Channel Of Language Aquisition, we'll call it. It shows news or other programs from around the world. They cram an amazing number of countries there so at any time of the day, you could be watching the Azerbaijanian news or a Quebecois variety show.

Alex and I were flipping through the channels on Saturday and there was nothing on the first 33 channels. We got all the way up to SCOLA and they were having some kind of Taiwanese New Year celebration. My favorite part was this big song-and-dance extravaganza. There was the host, then a bunch of people in various costumes. There were brides and grooms, cheerleaders, students, flight attendants, military people, and many more.

From what I could gather, the theme of the song seemed to be "China is reaching out to the world and learning English is a good way to start off the new year." The chorus went something like "China to the World! Okay!" The song was about half Chinese and half English, with the Chinese words subtitled in Chinese and the English words subtitled in English. I assume they were saying things in Chinese and then saying the same thing in English. In which case, the Taiwanese are insane.

It started off normal enough. The brides and grooms would come up to the front of the stage and everyone would say "lweirojcfs (something in Chinese) I love you." The students would come up and everyone would say "lweirojcfs Stay in school." The flight attendants said "lweirojcfs Can I help you?"

But then the second time around, things started getting weird. The brides and grooms said, with big smiles on their faces, "lweirojcfs I'm sorry" and the military people said "lweirojcfs TAXI!" and so on and so on. Maybe if I understood Chinese, I would understand the motivation behind the TAXI! thing. Maybe not.

That's right, it's Digital Camera Day One. Soon the blog will be filled with pointless pictures of things like Squirrels and What I Had For Dinner.

Run away while it's still safe, children.

Grandma sent me home from Grandpa's birthday dinner with a care package that included 5-layer bars, deviled eggs, and veggies. Yay Grandma. Deviled eggs: miam miam.

Jen Dively told me about rose bush maintenance and said I didn't need to water it as much as I have been doing. But it looks so thirsty! I watered it anyway. I hope I'm not drowning it.

Antoine's brother and best friend are coming next Sunday. Alex is afraid that I will meet up with Frenchmen and abandon him. Poor little jealous paranoid Patito. I talk big and friendly, but I'm sure I will go into my usual Stranger Mode and get shy and hide behind Antoine when they come.

I am listening to Michael Penn. I haven't in about two years.

Manau + Chow Manau, the French white-boy rap group, seems to have
a missing member. Looking at the cover of their first album - or at least
the first one I have - they have three members, then on the next one there
are only two. Anyone know what happened to the third? Just had a lovely
thai tofu dish in the cafeteria. I love our chef. I would love him more
if he would listen to me and have some French Onion soup. He claims it's
a year-round soup, but I think it's best in cold weather. Soupe à l'oignon,
s'il vous plaît, Cameron.

Is it wrong to dislike people on the behalf of your friends? I don't know if it's wrong so much as it's pointless.

I seem to be building a collection of people to dislike, although they haven't done anything to me personally. Sneering at them when I see them isn't really going to do anything because they won't realize how they've offended me and will just think that I'm an unpleasant person.

Take, for example, Bob's little blue-haired friend who talks through class and whines and complains. If I sneer at her, she's not going to connect me back to Bob and realize that I'm sneering at her because she represents all of the annoying classmates who have made my life difficult. (Sneer is a cool word. I think I have used it so many times in this post that it has lost all meaning for me.)

Or there's Pleiad-Blind-Date-Girl (ha ha, just in case you wanted to know exactly who I was talking about so you can sneer too), who called Yen (who is from Vietnam) Chinese and when corrected by Samata proceeded to say "Chinese, Japanese, Oriental, whatever" and continued to call Yen Chinese over and over. Perhaps I should approach them both in the cafeteria, tap them on the shoulder and say "Just so you know, I'm sneering at you. And here's why..."

Maybe I should just mind my own business and let my friends fight their own battles.

My Patito is missing

He was supposed to be back at 9 but I have heard neither hide nor hair of him since I've been back. ¿Dónde estas?

Skating was lots of fun. I only fell once and in my defense, it was because Samata pulled me down with her. I landed hard on my butt and I am convinced it is broken, although no one else really believes me. Owwwwwwww...

The women's Super-G results aren't online yet, but judging from the men's results, Chileans are better downhill skiers than biathletes.

Duncan Grob seems to have been the only of the three Chileans to finish, but came in 33rd out of 58 in the Super-G this morning at+8.77.

Left behind I don't know if it was miscommunication or what, but
we were about to go to the mall in Battle Creek with ISU this afternoon,
except neither Tara nor I knew how to get there. I went up to the computer
lab on the 4th floor of the KC to search for directions on the Internet -
first by figuring out what the name of the mall in Battle Creek was, then
by finding the address, then by finding directions to the address, and finally
by printing the directions. All of which took longer than expected, but
still! I went upstairs to find directions! And when I came back down, everyone
had gone without me.

We may or may not be going skating tonight as a goodbye get-together for Ayako, who is moving to Connecticut. The stinking rink doesn't have open skate until 8:30pm.

I haven't skated in several years now! And I never really got the idea of braking down, so I just coast to a stop or skate myself into the boards.

We took Satoko out last night to celebrate her birthday so I finally got to go to the "new" Chinese place that opened while I was off campus. What an odd place. We placed our orders, then the counter guy sat down and ignored us for a while so we thought "Well, I guess we pay when we get our food." Then the guy got upset when we walked away without paying!

I don't think wonton soup is supposed to be spicy, but the crab rangoons were good. And they let us stay there for hours, just talking.

1. What was the first thing you ever cooked? I've been making cookies and Rice Krispie Treats for years.
2. What's your signature dish? Rice Krispie Treats. How lame. They don't even require baking and the recipe's on the box. But I feel a need to make them for all Bentley functions.
3. Ever had a cooking disaster? Not disaster per se. I've burned things several times. My mom once put microwave popcorn in the microwave for 30:00 instead of 3:00. Sophie and I tried to make cookies with a US recipe and a French stove, but they still turned out pretty good. I don't know how to boil an egg no matter how hard I try.
4. If skill and money were no object, what would make for your dream meal? Raclette and Death By Chocolate.
5. What are you doing this weekend? Going to give a presentation on France to an Albion youth group, not going ice-skating with ISU, celebrating Grandpa's birthday on Sunday.

Olympic Update

Not my own, but from someone on the scene. The author of b-may.com seems to be working in some kind of security capacity in the speed skating venue. No Chileans in speed skating, but I'm sure it's still fascinating.

Mommying skills

I did not know this about sippy cups. I will be sure not to water my plant with one or it will never develop proper face muscles. In its little planty face.

[via Blather]

Neglectful Mommy Alex got me a plant for Valentine's Day. It's sort
of like a little rose bush with little roses in a flower pot. I've never
had a plant of my own before to have to water and care for. I'm frightened.
I don't think I'm responsible enough to handle it. I don't know what it
wants and it won't tell me. Am I watering it too much? Not enough? What
kind of plant is this?

My name in Japanese (kanji)

Humo(u)r I don't know if I really have a point or a message to this
blog, but I felt like posting about the kinds of comedy I like. Then I shall
invite you at the end to share your favorite types of comedy. We will all
rejoice in the sharing that results. Animaniacs
- I liked Animaniacs because it's fun for the kiddies, but it's fun for us,
too. Adults, or whatever we are. It's funny on several levels and often
plays off things that only older people would understand like current events,
Jerry Lewis, or... Gilbert and Sullivan. Helloooooooo Nurse!

Blackadder - Blackadder is good because it's sarcastic and it's rather smart
comedy... you "get" a lot more of the jokes if you understand your English
history. Sometimes Blackadder says the things I want to say. Disease and deprivation stalk our land like... two giant stalking things.

Gilbert and Sullivan - And
you thought the 19th century was dull and humourless! You didn't? Well
play along then. If you don't know Gilbert and Sullivan, they were a Victorian-era
lyricist and composer who wrote comic operettas like HMS Pinafore and Pirates
of Penzance. You've probably heard their tunes even if you don't know them.
Here is a bit o' G&S for the Math Fans in the crowd (and I know there
are at least 2.5 of you!): I'm
very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical/ I understand equations,
both the simple and quadratical/ About binomial theorem I'm teeming with
a lot o' news/ With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse...

The Marx Brothers - Full of snappy one-liners and puns. Puns are funny. I know there ain't no sanity clause.
It's also one of those lovely things where the humor just builds up and
piles on top of itself until it explodes. Or I do. Laughing. Monty Python - I like sketch comedy like Monty Python, Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live
because if you don't like this sketch, it will be over soon and another one
will be along. Plus, Monty Python is funny itself. They're good at spoofing
things like the life of Jesus, King Arthur stories, or the Spanish Inquisition. Heh heh. In addition to their spoofy kinds of things, they have odd characters that we only wish existed in real life.

Square One TV
- Once again, I'm appealing to the Math Fans. Although I have never been
one myself, I watched this show religiously and I really miss it now that
it's gone. It was sort of like sketch comedy but it was all math-related.
Angle dance, angle dance/ Come and join me please/ Angle dance, angle dance/ we're all doing it by degrees...

The Simpsons - The Simpsons are very quotable. They're also good because they make reference to other things. (see Animaniacs)

The Three Stooges - I do not like the Three Stooges. I'm not particularly into slapstick.

Whose Line Is It Anyway? - They have good chemistry on that show and play well off one another.

I like satire, puns, and general all-around zaniness and I am generally a big dork. What does your sense of humor say about you?

Olympic Update

*sad face*

Chile's latest biathlon results: Carlos Varas was 86/87 in the men's 10km sprint yesterday and Claudia Barrenechea was 74/74 in women's 7.5 km sprint. Better luck this weekend (both biathlon AND Super-G!)

France is stuck at three medals for the moment (7th), but more happily, the US has been passed by both Germany and Norway.

Digital camera, here I come!

You have to have faculty sponsoring to borrow equipment from Information Technology.
But the IT lady said she would sponsor me herself since I was interested
in testing them out and finding out what features I liked before I bought
one myself. Yes! She's going to sponsor me to borrow both the Sony and the Olympus so I can compare them. Rock on, IT.

I love my boyfriend because he is nice to everyone and not just to me. He bought a whole mess of flowers and made homemade valentines for all of his friends. I love him because he's a thoughtful little bugger.

And other reasons.

You have to love the Internet

... because I command you to. Want to find out which of two words is better,
according to the Internet? This is totally useless and a complete waste
of time. "Burp" is better than "belch" in case you wondered. [via Swish Cottage]

Huh.

Who am I most compatible with on campus? I did the Theta
Date Match and it's Alex Rivera, apparently. Who woulda thunk it? He comes
in first with a score of 57. I am also matched with Jordan McArleton (who?),
David Hall (who I didn't know I knew until I realized he was the same person
as Dave Hall), Ben Feeney (Apparently I am supposed to consider myself quite
lucky, but I can't put a face with the name), and Michael Kopec (?). So
hurrah for me. I think it's fixed.

Head 'em up and move 'em out

Bobby's moved to the Albion server. Check out the latest at small town life! While you're at it, you can check out Gator's page.

Should I be concerned that I have a horrible shooting pain in my upper back whenever I try to take a deep breath? I'm going to bed and it's going to disappear by morning. It had better, or I'm kicking my back's ass.

Francophile Blogs

I think there should be a ring for Francophile Blogs. But I don't want to start it. You do it. I'm a joiner.

Quoth the blogger "I can't help but think that if the World was really
a high school, that damn USA would be stealing Finland's homework and shoving
Peru in its locker." - dollarshort.org

I have acquired some new Spanish words

Roommate and I are tocallas. Boyfriend and Alex Camioneta Carroll are tocallos.

Spanish (or at least Chilean) for "kitty" is cucho. Thus, my new little stuffed tiger from Chile has been dubbed Cuchito.

Olympic Update

Chile has participated in two events so far. In Monday's Biathlon results:

Claudia Barrenechea - +15:00.9 (67th of 70)
Carlos Varas - +19:28.9 (86/87)

Better luck on the Super-G, which starts this weekend!

Downhill skiing gold medalist Carole Montillet and 23rd place Ingrid Jacquemod are from the Grenoble area. Which I suppose is pretty standard for French
downhill skiers. NBC didn't show the medals ceremony (first French gold
in female downhill since 1968?) because they were too busy yakking on and
on about Picabo Street.

I spent Mardi Gras 2000 in Louisiana - visiting various Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, Lafayette, and some crappy podunk town I hated because their parade consisted of the paraders getting really drunk and then trying to ride their horses into the crowd and their costumes were suspiciously similar to KKK robes.

Louisiana is not my favorite state. I think it's mostly because I didn't like the weather and I didn't like Mardi Gras. And the fact that I had to ride around in a van with Carlos, the Spanish Native Speaker who didn't like to bathe. And the fact that the trip came as a part of an awful class on French Louisiana, which was mostly about some big Cajun/Creole literary revival that happened for about two years in the 90s and was never heard from again and listening to traditional Cajun songs about 'Ti' Jean who fell out of the boat and drowned.

I went around to the various parades and collected beads from each one. Everyone on the trip was competing to see who got more. Then we got back to Michigan and I realized I was weighed down with a crapload of plastic beads and what was I going to do with them now? I think I gave them away. They should throw food. You can do stuff with food.

I much prefer Fat Tuesday in Michigan, with our high Polish population. Our Fat Tuesday tradition is a deep-fried Polish jelly pastry called a paczki.

How do you celebrate Fat Tuesday?

No one cares but me but I care enough for all of you

I have not only found the official site for the Transports de l'Agglomeration Grenobloise (Grenoble's public transportation system), but I have also found two unofficial sites.
Ha ha! Fan sites for public transportation! That's what I like to see!
I love public transportation. France has it by the bucketful. Grenoble
has an excellent bus and tram system and France in general has a wonderful
train system which includes the trains à grande vitesse
(TGV), the high-speed trains that serve certain areas of the country (Paris-Grenoble:
3 hours). What's more, the trains seem to reach even the smallest of towns.
I like public transportation because I wouldn't want to drive in France,
I don't like to drive in general, and I would much rather someone else drove
for me so I could do something fun on the trip like listen to music or read.
I wish the US had a decent train system. I wish Ann Arbor had a tram.

How attached are you to your car?

about srah

I added an about srah page for new visitors. Hopefully it answers some questions. If there are any new visitors or questions. I already had a me page on the main site, but I guess this one is specifically related to the blog.

Ashley's This or That?

Picnic on the beach or picnic in a park? Picnic in the park, if I
must eat my food out in the open. Don't want sand blowing in my food. I
don't like nature interfering in my meal. Atlantic ocean or Pacific? I've only seen the Atlantic. So I'd like to see the Pacific. Pacific sounds prettier.
Museum or the ballet? Museum. Not that there's anything particularly
wrong with the ballet, but museums are more interesting. Unless Mommy is
along, in which case I pick the ballet. Mommy is a notoriously slow museum-goer.
Personally, I like to glance over paintings then stop at the ones I like.
Mommy has to carefully examine every single detail of every painting. Yargh.
Lots of pillows on the bed, or just a few? I have four pillows in
the room. I only use one for sleeping. The other bed pillow is up against
the wall just for the sake of putting it somewhere. The other two have taken
up permanent residence on the couch. I like to have a lot of pillows but
when it comes to sleeping time, I can only handle one (or two thin ones).
Home body or not? Very much so. This is where the computer is! Why leave?
Introverted or extroverted? Rather introverted, but less so than I used to be.
Sunrise or sunset? Sunset for the very lazy reason that you don't have to get up before the sun comes up.
Do you prefer ceiling fans or light fixtures? I don't think I have
a preference. I am short enough that ceiling fans don't really scare me.
Anything, as long as it's not fluorescent. Lions or tigers or bears? Tigers. For the past few days I've had a desire to see baby tigers. I got a stuffed tiger for Christmas yesterday.
The Beatles or The Monkees? Beatles!

Oscars!

The nominees are online!

My picks: Tom Wilkinson (even though he thinks I'm a dork), Ian McKellen, Monsters, Inc. (if you look at the two other nominees, I think you can see why I chose that...), Amélie Amélie Amélie and when Amélie's not nominated, Fellowship of the Ring.

Amélie may have gotten the shaft at the stinking Golden Globes, but she's coming back for revenge in the Oscars. Watch out!

Can't Sleep... Campus Safety is Calling Me... Why the hell did Campus
Safety call us at 2:30 am? They had been given the wrong number, apparently,
but why would they be calling that
person at 2:30 am? It's all a lie and yet another piece of evidence that
Campus Safety hates me. They do nothing about the millions of non- or misstickered
people who park in the I-House lot but give me a ticket when I can't get
into the I-House lot so I park in Twin's. Gotta love Albion.

Can't Sleep... Clowns Will Eat Me...

Would you like to see Eric Convey an Emotion? Sure you would! I'm not exactly sure these all qualify as emotions, though...

[via xkot]

srah's drug problem

Aren't I possessive today? srah's this, srah's that. Ahem.

Roommate gave me some Fun Dip.
I think I am addicted. Worse than being addicted, I really want a Pixie
Stick. I'm concerned because this means I want to go from licking the powder
off the stick to pouring it directly into my mouth. It feels sort of like
wanting to go from smoking pot to snorting coke or shooting up heroin or
whatever the appropriate next step would be on the road to harder and harder
drugs. Help me!

srah takes a look at Nature and turns back to the computer

The sunshine is a lovely orangey color this morning. Okay, enough communion with Nature.

Dream

I dreamt we went to Wooster
and everyone hated it - especially Eva, who wanted to swim in the ponds but
wasn't allowed to. It wasn't the same Wooster we visited a couple of weeks
ago. The campus was ugly and had to be navigated by a whole mess of bridges
to get around the "ponds", most of which were really just big puddles. Their
cafeteria was horrible. Then suddenly instead of being at Wooster, we
were in someone's house who I didn't know. I felt I had to make friends
with their little kid quick and it turned out the only thing he liked was
mp3s - especially Star Wars ones. He made me sing him C+C Music Factory's
"Everybody Dance Now" because he didn't know it because it came out before
he was born. Then I was at my grandparents' and Erin's boyfriend Nick
kept walking in on me in the bathroom.

Dream This is last night's dream but I forgot to blog it earlier.
At the beginning, it was a graduation video, a sort of "Class of 2002, this
is you!" kind of thing. Then it turned into a teen movie that took place
at my high school. Sarah Grace was The Most Popular Girl In School. She
was mean, but she was dumber than she was mean. Her boyfriend, The Most
Popular Boy In School, was a cross between Ted Martens and John Revolta in
Grease.
I was The Nerdiest Girl In School and somehow all of my friends and TMPBIS'
friends ended up on the stage together where TMPBIS was making end-of-the-year
announcements (and I think earlier had been narrating the graduation video).
At TMPBIS' request, his jerk friends dragged my friends away with a bar
of soap and I think they were going to do something horrible to them with
it. Don't know exactly what, but it was bad. Not wash them, obviously.
But I didn't seem to care because I knew that I could make TMPBIS fall in
love with me (by blackmail if necessary) because I was the only one who knew
his dark secret: that he had webbed feet. I was kissing him when I woke
up. I love my dreams. There's probably something in there you could analyze,
but you would have to dig through a lot of excessive imagination and folly.

Juegos Olímpicos

Chile has six athletes
in the Olympics. Sometimes it's fun to cheer for an underdog rather than
the over-hyped, over-exposed host United States. Watch out for the chilenos
and chilenas in the Super-G and Biathlon!

Well, I'm chuffed to buggery!

This is a cool site I found to explain the meaning of "sprog": a dictionary of UK slang and colloquialisms.

Wondering

When you get reviewed at The Weblog Review,
do they tell you? Or do you have to keep checking several times a day to
see if they've done it yet (as I've been doing for about a month - why do
I keep admitting to the whole Internet how pathetic I am?) I hope they don't
hate me or review me right when I'm in a really boring period (or read that
horrible Train of Thought post). Do you suppose they look through the archives? My archives are often more interesting than the main page...

Train of thought (cont.) The woman just made my life more difficult
by moving to another computer. If I hop onto the scanning computer, I will
be admitting that I have been sitting here for an hour waiting for her to
get off but saying nothing. AAAAAAAAH! Why doesn't she just leave? The
sprog is still snorting, the computer is free, but I can't take it. I can.
But I can't.

some woman is using the computer that's hooked up to the scanner but she's not scanning but she seems to be in the middle of something so i haven't said anything to her and it's too late now even if she did leave and her kid is getting antsy and wants to leave but she's not leaving so here i am getting nothing done and wasting several hours sitting in the computer lab and my computer science lab doesn't work for some reason so i can't even do that and i love my sand dunes song and i'm lonely because it's just me and the woman on the computer and the lab assistant and there are 32 computers in this lab so why did she have to pick this one and she has a pack of pictures sitting next to her so i figured when i came in that she was scanning but i haven't heard a single brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr out of that scanner in the hour that i've been here and the lab is going to close in an hour but i'm sitting here hoping she'll go home before then and her sprog is making the most disgusting snot-noises i have ever heard in my life and why aren't there more scanners on campus i can use maybe there are and i just don't know it i wonder if anyone is going to bother to read this this is what punctuation was invented for don't you think that if you were using the scanning computer and someone came in lugging three photo albums you might think they wanted to use the scanner and if you were a nice person you might give up the computer to them realizing that instead the poor person was going to have to lug them home and then back to the library to try again i like to scan but it's rare that i find a big chunk of free time to do it in hey that's ligia i want to borrow a digital camera but not for educational ack there's the sprog snorting again get that boy a tissue purposes i can't believe it's possible that i of all people would get bored in a computer lab but i am why haven't i gotten any comments all day it makes me sad i wish that someone would at least take a guess at the olympics question but maybe you're all busy because it's the weekend after all and some people have better things to do than sitting in a computer lab with nothing to do the woman is making leaving noises but i think it's just wishful thinking on my part someone has new comment systems but i can't remember who it is oh yeah it's anna so you should leave comments i like comment systems better than guestbooks because the comments stay with the post they refer to where is the lab assistant going there are no witnesses i could kill her he just walked away is he allowed to do that i want this job you don't do anything and you can just walk away never mind he went to the bathroom it's right next to the exit i guess you ought to be allowed bathroom breaks flushhhhhhhhh boys are lucky because they can go faster than girls and so they never have lines to wait in i think that at joe louis arena there are more women's bathrooms than men's which is strange for a hockey arena but very sensible hey google has some funky bear on it they like to decorate for holidays but what does the bear have to do with anything i thought the symbol of the salt lake city games was a rabbit or something i thought i saw a picture speaking of salt lake city jell-o is pretty good i would like to try some new flavors of jell-o i also like jell-o pudding every once in a while butterscotch is a good flavor of pudding oh here it is there are three mascots but the rabbit is the cutest what on earth do these pins mean other than that americans like to eat junk food which the whole world knew already apparently a banana split is a "desert" i think i am smarter than a lot of people in the world which scares me because i don't like having to deal with people who don't use their brains or don't have much to start with perhaps i am insane but the idea of eating jell-o with coke makes my stomach turn who buys this crap anyway speaking of which who would buy that which is via xkot although he says on his site that his name is pronounced scott i always think of it as ex-kot which is silly i know but i can't help it i like his site it is very amusing and he has a forum i wonder if he has ever been here if he comes here now i'm sure he will be turned off because sprog-snorting sprog-snorting sprog-snorting this post is going to be annoying and difficult to read if anyone tries it well now it's 9:00 and the lab closes in 45 minutes so i will try to stop dwelling on the fact that this woman is wasting my time and i am too much of a doormat to do anything about it and see if there is anything i can get done instead of torturing my beloved beloved readers with any more of this spew remember slappy and skippy squirrel on animaniacs slappy offered skippy some buttermilk and he said speeeeeeeeeeeeeeew which i think is a cool expression of disgust okay i'm really going now.

If you're fond of sand dunes...

I got my other Ebay purchase today - "At the River" by Groove Armada. I originally liked it so much because I was in a really Wordsworth-and-Coleridge period at the time and I thought the words were "If you're fond of Xanadu". But I still like the song after finding out the error of my ways.

Nap time.

Opening Ceremonies

I caught a bit of last night's Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Salt Lake City.
Lots of silly-looking How The West Was Won (by dancing around to Copland's
"Rodeo", apparently), but I was happy because Olympic ceremonies are in French
and English (and the host language, right? It's been a while since Nagano) and I got to see 1968 Gold Medalists Peggy Fleming (carrying the flame) and Jean-Claude Killy (carrying the flag).

The first person to identify why 1968 is my favorite Olympics will get a gold star.

AAAAAAAAAH!

This freaky weird Mentalist Couple came to Albion
and scared me. We know they arranged things with members of the audience
beforehand... and we suspect how they did other things... but some of this
stuff I just don't get. I'm scared and paranoid. I'm sure Bob will have his report soon.

Seeing Things

Today's post titles all begin with letters down at the bottom of the alphabet. I am such a nerd for noticing that.

I'm wearing my contacts today for the second day in a row. Before yesterday, I hadn't worn them for over a month because one of the side-effects of Alesse is the very vague possible difficulty wearing contact lenses.
What does difficulty mean? That they will roll back into your head and
give you a blood clot in your brain? That your eyes will dry up and you
won't be able to get them out? I was scared but I finally bit the bullet
and tried and I haven't died so far. My vision is worse that that of most
people I know. I think they are amazed that such a tiny person can carry
a load like my thick glasses around on her face all day. When I don't wear
them, I can generally read things by putting my face directly on them and
can make out the shapes of things more than a foot away. I don't know if
glasses and contact prescriptions are the same, but my left contact prescription
is 4.50 and my right is 5.50. How is your vision?

I've never had a boyfriend on Valentine's Day. Josh, you don't count. Not that you're reading this, because I haven't heard hide nor hair of you in about two years. You don't count. I haven't really minded it... except for last Valentine's Day when I didn't have boyfriend, friends, or family and was wandering around Nîmes alone. But anyway. I didn't mind not having a boyfriend because I did fun things with all of my friends and sent them all valentines. And for some reason, I don't hang around people with boy-/girlfriends so it's not like I was left out while everyone else was doing something. This year I have a boyfriend. That will be strange...

I am almost completely certain (unless he is being quite sneaky) that I know what I'm getting for Valentine's Day. Would you rather know in advance or have a surprise? This doesn't have to pertain specifically to Valentine's Day, but rather to all occasions.

21 down, 66 to go...

What's your life expectancy?

(If you don't use the metric system (I can't remember what ours is called!), you can figure out your Body Mass Index here.)

[via new Michigan Blogger Walking on Sunshine]

Testing: My name as color code

Testing various email IDs, etc...

srah srah srah srah srah srah

Oooh, pretty.

[via Closer Proximity: Version Fishnets]

Up late I don't mind being up late. Freshman year, my first class
was at 11 so I would often stay up until 3am. Hmmm, doesn't work quite as
well with a 9:00 class. I don't mind being up until 2 right now... but I'm
sure I will tomorrow morning.

MOOOO(d) <-- Hey, if I remember to keep it updated, you can find
out what my mood is with the little faces living under my feet! (Hmm, that
sounds strange). Anyway, back to work. Anyone want to write a five-page
paper on Stephen Gardiner
for me? Thought not. I am listening to my CD player with headphones. It
doesn't happen often enough. Earlier today I couldn't think of a favorite
song - here is one: "Brazil".

Currently listening to: De Palmas
Up next: Serge Gainsbourg

Yup, they're smoking crack all right

I'm wearing the beige sweater just as an experiment. Four compliments so far. You are all ridiculous.

Things I have lost

Sliding Doors DVD, chai tea, Shirley Bassey CD, green gant de toilette (I can't think what one would call it in English), U2 Best of... album, white t-shirt, Cocoon Crash (just the CD, I have the case), the negatives of all the pictures I've taken since September, the lid to my Albion College mug, Windows 98
CD, chapstick. There are others that don't immediately spring to mind, especially
in the CD department. Isn't this an excessive number of things to have lost
and still be dwelling on? They must be somewhere! Most of the CDs I seem
to remember lending to someone but either I can't remember who or I can remember
who but they say I didn't lend it to them in the first place so maybe I'm
delusional. What have you lost recently? (Don't say "my mind" or I'll beat you with a shoe for the crime of unoriginality).

Anti-Bloggies

The prizes are better, the categories are more fun...

Vote in the Anti-Bloggies!
I would welcome a $25 gift certificate for Most Often Late to Work! Or
Most Updated Blog! You can vote for me for Most Banal Content if you want!
Vote vote vote by tomorrow!

Everyone in the whole world is smoking crack Why is it that when
I am looking really scraggly, someone always compliments me? This confuses
me no end. Today I am wearing a rather old purple sweater that I don't hate,
but - come on, it's purple. I put my hair up in a ponytail to be different,
thinking 'I wonder why I never put my hair in a ponytail anymore.' Ah yes,
it's because about half of my hair is in the ponytail and the other half
is falling in my face, on my neck, etc. So I look ass-nasty and I go to
Baldwin and everyone starts telling me how cute I look. I don't get it.
CKane and I were discussing this at Tea and she said that whenever she felt
scruffy and someone complimented her, she thought it was because they were
lying to make her feel better about looking scruffy. So that's how I feel.
Either they're lying to make me feel good about myself or they're smoking
crack. I have this beige sweater that everyone in the world except me (and
my lovely lovely Roommate)
loves. So I can't decide whether I like to wear it because I get complimented
or if I hate to wear it because I think I look awful in it. I think no one
knows how I'm supposed to look. Everyone else has different ideals of beauty
than I do. I am ALL ALONE. Whatever.

Happy birthday to Cheryl (as opposed to CKane), who is 22 years old today. I send you love and hugs. CKane, who has never met you, feels a great name-bond and hopes you get love, flowers, and cupcakes on your birthday.

I should have been born in a different year

The #1 song in the US on the day I was born
was "Magic" by Olivia Newton-John. In the UK, it was "Ashes to Ashes" by
David Bowie. Yechhhhhhhhhhh. Alex (John Cougar's "Jack and Diane"/Survivor's
"Eye of the Tiger") and Sophie (Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer"/Madonna's
"Papa Don't Preach") do marginally better than I do. Denis (Paul McCartney's
"Pipes of Peace"/Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart") is debatable. [via SheriShot]

Srah manically surveils the referrer page

Someone's been visiting from UC-Davis.
Do you know Greg Fisher? I love Greg Fisher. People like Greg almost make
me want to go to high school reunions. Almost. Hopefully I'll be in France
next fall and miss the 5-year one if we have it. Why would I expect someone
from UC-Davis to know the one other person I know there? Interestingly enough,
Abby was telling a story about her friend's friend from U-M in the van this weekend and it turned out to be Harini. Scary.

The Blogger's new best friend

Just found out about Nutshell, a new toolbar you can download that makes searches in sites like Amazon, IMDb, and Dictionary.com much easier. Yay. Only problem I had is that IE is for some reason identifying it as "radio" rather than "nutshell". Hmm.

[via words mean things]

I am being international (or at least European)

I haven’t gotten enough use out of my European phrasebook
recently. Here are some ways to try to get people to speak English to you
(or at least to identify you as an English speaker so they can beat you up
- ha ha!) Nemluvím česky. Mluvíte anglicky? Jeg kan ikke tale dansk. Taler
de engelsk? Ik spreek geen Nederlands. Spreekt u Engels? En puhu suomea.
Puhuuko joku täällä englantia? Je ne parle pas français. Est-ce qu’il y
a quelqu’un ici qui parle anglais? Ich spreche kein Deutsch. Sprechen Sie
Englisch? Δέν μιλάω Ελληνικά. Μιλάτε Αγγλικά? Nem beszélek magyarul. Beszél
angolul? Non parlo italiano. C’è qualcuno che parla inglese? Jeg snakker
ikke norsk. Snakker du engelsk? Nie mówię po polsku. Czy mówi pan po angielsku?
Eu não falo português. Fala inglês? No hablo español. ¿Hay alguien aquí
que hable inglés? Jag talar inte svenska. Talar du engelska?

The Grammar Test

Your Score: 85%

I am a grammar expert! My skills are certainly being wasted here on the internet. Perhaps I should become a teacher.

Test yourself at geekykid.net

Bienvenue!

A new friend has come to join the Blogs of Note. Please welcome Rebeca, who is living in France.

I have a lot of other sites bookmarked but not necessarily Noted. Don't be hurt if you're not there. :)

Ashley's Tuesday This or That

Coke or Pepsi? Coke. Or Cherry Coke if ya got it.
McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken? McDonalds is a nast-bucket. KFC sort of is, but I like their coleslaw.
Pizza or subs? Probably subs if it's like Subway subs. If it's meatball subs or something I'll say pizza.
Nintendo or PlayStation? No preference. PS2 plays DVDs, doesn't it? Then that.
One credit card or more? I've got one, plus my debit card. It's too much for me already.
Photos of people or photos of nature? I like people if I know them and nature if it's spectacular.
In the car, do you listen to the radio or CDs/tapes? Depends what's on the radio and if I remembered to bring CDs or tapes.
Would you rather see a dentist or a doctor? Doctor. No drilling or scraping involved. Oh wait, scraping... let's not think about that.
Did you watch the Super Bowl or not? From about the second quarter on. The important parts.
American or non-American made car? I've got a foreign car. I think I prefer them. I want a VW next.

Woe is me

Denzylle found me a job. Now the assistantship is in the way... Should I apply, even though I've committed to the assistantship if I get it?

Parlerai muchas idiomas if you will feed wo That last post came from
a disastrous session of my Business French class where we spent the hour-and-a-half
in the computer lab, searching on the Internet for jobs and companies that
deal with the French and English languages and have operations in the U.S.
and France. Which is what I spend all of my time doing anyway. So instead
of searching aimlessly for a French/English bilingual job and getting depressed
about the lack of prospects, I was searching aimlessly for a French/English
bilingual job and getting depressed about the lack of prospects and the fact
that I was going to have to share my lack of findings with the rest of the
class. Here is my only prospect (free cosmetics! ooooo!).

Will learn Polish for food

Does anyone
want to hire a nice little girl with no serious work experience to go work
for them and use her fluency in English to their advantage? Please? I'm
very nice and I speak English very nicely. I speak some French, too - as
well as a little Spanish. No one wants me.

If anyone missed important chunks of the Super Bowl - like the AT&T commercials or the trailer for Blade - you can watch them here.

Groundhog Day done gone I completely missed Groundhog Day! Not only
did I not get to blog on the fun 02.02.02 date, I forgot that Groundhog Day
happened. Anyone know the results?

Alex, in some very strange mood, has declared all music other than Sting and Cookie Monster illegal. If you want to record music and you are not Sting, you will have to dress in a Cookie Monster costume and mention Sesame Street issues at least once in your song, even if it's not relevant.

After looking the two over, I have decided that Moby and Wil are exactly as cool as each other.

Moby is cooler than Wil

Moby has a blog. Or rather, a tour diary. Same difference.

To make the ultra-Bloggied Wil feel better, Moby doesn't write as much. Wil is a more traditional blogger and Moby has a tour diary.

I'm home. I'm not dead. Don't be concerned (if you were). The snow disappeared by the time we got to Ohio, so we didn't go careening off the road or anything.

We spent Friday night in a hotel and I shared a room with Samata, Ligia, and Alex. It was fun, but we stayed up too late watching Road Trip. Mmmm, not really worth it. But we stayed in a really nice hotel (too nice if you ask me, but I'll let the treasurer worry about that) and they had a delicious breakfast the next day, then we set off to the College of Wooster campus.

The main theme of the weekend seemed to be "Wooster is so much better than Albion because..." Wooster won out for cafeteria, bookstore, international dorm, number of international students, and campus entertainment, but Albion did get points for international student diversity, better tea, and drinkable grape juice.

We met up with our hosts (I stayed with Ligia and our host was from Nantes, France - which is where Antoine is from, too) and had some opening talks, ate lunch in the cafeteria, then had our workshops. Mine was History and Legacy which was really fun, except that they tried to get me to represent Botswana when I don't know anything about it. I finally talked them into letting me be a non-fat American in our skit about stereotypes. Our group leader was Daniel from Bulgaria, who the whole Albion delegation seemed to develop a crush on.

Then we went to the leadership seminar and learned that other schools have enormous budgets but problems in other areas, like international student diversity or involvement.

We had dinner (the ice cream machine was BROOOOOOKEN and I'm never going to forgive myself for passing up espresso chip at lunch), then we went to do our presentations and skits. The seniors had a little more diverse ideas, but the Albion freshmen were all in the Theatre and Dance program. We were all very entertaining, especially the many-international-tales-combined skits that they put on. Alex played Ram from the Ramayana and got to scream "Sitaaaaaaaaaa!" very dramatically.

We had an evening of fun which consisted of sitting around Luce Hall watching TV for a while, but then around 10 we headed over to The Underground, Wooster's bar/dance club. WHY don't we have one of these? WHY? Anyway, they had open mic night, then we danced the night away until I thought I was going to fall over.

Today we slept in the car. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Now I'm back.

Did you miss me?

The Pleiad: Encouraging squirrel-shaving since 1884

You can't get rid of me that easily. One last thought. Our student newspaper
this week had a lovely story about one of my favorite things about Albion:
the black squirrels. They're so much more elegant and cuddly-looking than
brown ones. Anyway, I lost my copy somewhere so I can't quote exactly, but
it said something to the effect of "If you shaved a black squirrel and a
grey squirrel, they would essentially look the same." Cooooool. Does Tamara
Crupi (or whoever the heck it was they got the quote from) know this from
experience?

Don't sit down

I got this as an email forward. I don't know if any of it is true, but it sounds nasty enough to be fact.

During Autumn of 2000, a team of scientists at the Department
of Forensics at University College London removed a row of passenger seats
from a Central Line tube carriage for analysis into cleanliness. Despite
London Underground's claim that the interior of their trains are cleaned
on a regular basis, the scientists made some alarming discoveries.

The analysis was broken down. This is what was found on the surface of the seats:
4 types of hair sample (human, mouse, rat, dog)
7 types of insect (mostly fleas, mostly alive)
vomit originating from at least 9 separate people
human urine originating from at least 4 separate people
human excrement
rodent excrement
human semen

When the seats were taken apart, they found:
the remains of 6 mice
the remains of 2 large rats
1 previously unheard of fungus

It is estimated that by holding one of the armrests, you
are transferring, to your body, the natural oils and sweat from as many as
400 different people. It is estimated that it is generally healthier to
smoke five cigarettes a day than to travel for one hour a day on the London
Underground. It is far more hygienic to wipe your hand on the inside of
a recently flushed toilet bowl before eating, than to wipe your hand on a
London Underground seat before eating. It is estimated that, within London,
more work sick-days are taken because of bugs picked up whilst travelling
on the London Underground than for any other reason (including alcohol).

Vote for me! I suck!

The Anti-Bloggies are here...

There is something seriously wrong with this Kellogg Centre computer. It keeps making Blogger eat my posts. I don't blame you, Blogger.

As I was saying, before my post was so rudely eaten, my CS professor has cancelled Monday's class and pushed the test till Tuesday so that we can watch the Super Bowl Commercials Show. He may have mentioned something about football, too.

Off I go to be evaluated in Spanish.

Instead of the big puffy bumblebee-flakes that were coming down a few days ago, the wind has kicked in to help and there are now little tiny hornets flying at me and stinging my face. I'm moving to Tahiti.

As Mr Enlow pointed out, in this entry "favorite of the people left one" should be "won". He has gracefully pardoned this due to the late hour. I will be smacking myself in the forehead with a board all day as penance ("Pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem" *thunk*) and then sleeping in the van while everyone around me plays delightful delightful MadLibs.

I was a little disappointed - I saw that I had blah blahs and was hoping it was angry sorority girls. :)

I feel cumulatively sleepy from the whole week. I have my oral evaluation in Spanish today. Yergh.

1. Have you ever had braces? Any other teeth trauma? I had braces for... what was it? Four years? Seems like millions.

2. Ever broken any bones? No. I'm kind of disappointed... but not really.

3. Ever had stitches? I am SO BORING. Maybe if I got out from behind my computer (in front of my computer!) I would have some of these exciting motion-related traumas. I am a slug.

4. What are the stories behind some of your [physical] scars? My scars have all disappeared! In elementary school I used to have a mark on my forehead from where I fell off the swings and it made "tire tracks" and looked like a very small truck had run over my face. Then I had one on my leg where I gashed myself shaving and never bothered to think that I might need stitches, but I can't really find it anymore. I am so healy.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Weather-permitting (WHY is it raining on top of the snow? Why do the demons taunt me so? That rhymes and would make a lovely song. Someone write it, please) we leave for our conference at 6pm tomorrow. Then we're staying in a hotel in Wooster that night, having Woosterly activities Saturday morning, afternoon, and evening, sleeping on some Woosterites' floors Saturday night, and driving back to Albion.

It was a conspiracy. A conspiracy, I tell you! The Weakest Link is probably a pretty dangerous game to play on a small college campus. I didn't even know who she was before the game, but for some reason EA was gunning for me the whole time so now I think I'm always going to be rather resentful when I think of her. Not that I hold grudges or anything. *ahem*. Of course not.

Anyway, yes, it was a DG conspiracy, but after I got kicked off (there were four after me, so that makes me... what, the sixth kicked off?), the person who was my favorite of the people left one. So that's good. And I got a free pizza out of the deal. So yay.

But I hate The Weakest Link. It's an evil nasty back-stabbing game.

No wonder sorority girls did so well.