i'm really feelin' frustrated

dear students that supply the material i grade for my paycheck,

i would like to thank you for opening my eyes to the reason that so many of my professors have dropped writing assignments from the syllabus only after we all submitted them. to be honest, i've been harboring a little petty grudge against quite a few of my professors who had us write reports with promises of comments that would show us the exact way to change our own personal styles of writing into forensic report style only to say two weeks later that the assignment would be dropped from the syllabus and the class would now be graded out of 90 instead of 100. i thought them lazy and irresponsible and a slew of other adjectives that made them unfit to teach. but now i understand that they were just trying to save themselves. like a person escaping an abusive relationship, they were finally willing to say that they had had enough and that they deserve so much better. and i applaud their strength and self-preservation. i'm a little jealous that i cannot do the same.

students, i would like to thank you for cementing in my mind forever the importance of writing. you have shown me that the ability to write well is a gift not to be taken for granted. you taught me that knowledge of basic grammar can not only save my academic and professional careers, but also my life. because i know i, for one, would love nothing more than to strangle both you and myself after getting halfway through some of your papers. i understand that for a lot of you, english is not your first language, so i am willing to overlook the your/you're confusion and the use of the wrong "its" that grates on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. but there are some things that i just cannot and will not overlook. to the student that thought not using the first person in a paper meant to take out all sentence subjects completely, i hope your favorite brand of cereal gets discontinued. to the student that put together a list of random nouns that lasted for two lines and ended it with a period, as if it was some sort of new-age sentence, i hope every time you think you find a parking spot on campus, it turns out that the space is occupied by a car pulled in a little too far. and to the student that refuses to believe in any form of agreement - subject-verb, tense, etc - and puts quotes around half of the paper without actually quoting anything, i hope a monkey claws out your eyes.

but above all, i would like to thank you for teaching me that, no matter how old you get, grad student or not, you are never too old to be completely lazy and moronic and underestimate the intelligence of everyone around you. i confess, i never read the slides of the professor i work with. but that didn't stop me from noticing that nine out seventeen students copied his slides word for word. i'm not sure if it was the fact that every single one of you had the same bullet pointed list, in the same order, with the same typos, and the same extra spaces added in that tipped me off or the fact that you all decided to ignore what the assignment wanted and give me the exact same answers to questions nobody asked, but somehow, i figured it out. and by the way, i don't know how many times the professor and i have to repeat it, but bullet points are not allowed.

and to the students that write papers that flow, that know the difference between their, there, and they're, that answer the questions asked and fill their papers with insightful findings and helpful conclusions, i would like to thank you for being the light in an otherwise dreary existence. you are the voice of reason that keeps me from jumping out of my windows. you are the ones that help me make it through.

sincerely,
your much abused TA

P.S. a lot of you start every sentence with "this examiner," and it took me forever to pinpoint exactly which memory that was tugging at. i finally figured out that it was somehow causing memories of cadet kelly (the disney channel movie) to resurface. this TA now wishes that she could send half of you to some form of literary boot camp where someone will call you a maggot to humiliate you into writing better.

*Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You) - Shania Twain

what did you say

so yesterday i took an online personality quiz because, really, does a better way for a potential-maybe-phd-grad-but-probably-not to spend her time exist? i think probably not. of course, i was expecting to get cast as my typical you like this but you also like that and sometimes you get sad but you get happy too and if you were an animal you'd be a cat answer. instead, the quiz tells me that i am a troubled individual with unique abilities. now, i'm not one hundred percent sure about this, but i am pretty certain that that is the first time i've been called a troubled individual. at least to my face. it then went on to tell me that:

Unlike most people, you have a strong — at times destructive — independent streak. Routine tasks are frustrating and often impossible to complete, unless you’ve created them for yourself.
At the moment, you are under substantial stress and anxiety. This is caused by the unshakable feeling that you’re not fully in control of your own life. An existing relationship in your life, either romantic or business-related, is currently unsatisfactory. You’re presently contemplating the possibility of escape. This can make you irritable or uncomfortable at times, even around the people you love.
However, when you are in control, you’re capable and even excited to make difficult decisions. This occasionally leaves you feeling isolated or alone. You are willing to make this trade-off, if it means being in charge of your own life.
The darker emotions inside you — those underlying urges that all humans have — are very strong. And yet, you have the ability to harness that energy to achieve your goals. This makes you unique among our testing population. You can focus your energy, both positive and negative.

and you know what? i'll take it. i never really felt like i was a cat anyway.

on a completely unrelated note, a couple of weeks ago someone mentioned that they hated when people said "fustrated" instead of "frustrated." i had no idea what she was talking about because ew did people really say fustrated? i had never heard that. and then i'm talking with my brother and he says that the fact that his teacher has a really heavy accent that no one understands is fustrating. and then in class a kid says that bosses can be fustrating. and in the meeting i had yesterday the guy said that people get very fustrated in a phd degree. and oh my god i cannot for the life of me understand what happened. suddenly i'm hearing this everywhere and i hate it. it makes me want to punch the "fustrated" person in the face. at least with my brother i could correct him. it's typically considered unacceptable to correct a person's pronunciation in a lot of social and academic settings. but where did people get fustrated from? how long has this been going on? is it possible for me to go back to a time when i didn't know this happened? because i would like that very much.

*Anthem for the Unwanted - New Found Glory

just always talking about changing

so i've been reading harry potter and the order of the phoenix in arabic (result of an impromptu saudi bookstore trip and them not stocking the entire series). i'm only about halfway through it right now, but i thought i should still come here and point out the mistakes/changes in translation that have been slowing down my reading. (disclaimer: i probably wouldn't have even noticed most of these if not for the fact that i've read the series enough time in english to have it practically memorized.)

first of all, in the english series, there is a troll-leg umbrella stand in 12 grimauld place that tonks keeps tripping over. in the arabic series, it's just an umbrella stand. not a big deal except the added detail makes the image in my head change from a house that the banks (a la mary poppins) would live in to a house that dark wizards would live in. maybe it's just me.

when harry gets detention from umbridge, the english mcgonagall offers him a ginger newt. the arabic mcgonagall just offers him cookies. again, not a huge thing, but i loved how much detail went into the harry potter world. she could have just offered him a cookie, but she's a wizard and she keeps a tin of ginger newts on hand instead. along these same lines, butterbeer is translated into juice. (i kind of understand this one, but still.)

aside from the lack of details, some sentences are just translated wrong. for example, "harry's a free man" was translated into "harry's free, man." and "are you talking about lupin?" was translated into "did you talk to lupin?" once again, not major, but still enough to make me pause in my reading to say, "no. that's wrong."

i think my favorite thing about reading the translation are the little footnotes from the translator that come every few pages. when mcgonagall called students to be sorted last name, first name and then they went to sit down as first name, last name; or when a professor was suddenly called by his/her first name; or when someone refers to someone/thing with a nickname; or someones mixes up two words, there are lines and lines from the translator explaining how english people are weird and he swears he didn't make a mistake and he really did mean to write it like that and this is what everything would have been like if they were arab.

anyway, i realize that i'm probably being obnoxious and anal about this whole thing, but there it is.

*Changing - The Airborne Toxic Event

where have you gone?

i am on a mission to save adverbs.

it seems like adverbs are all but disappearing from the english language. i, for one, blame the writers, or, more accurately, the people giving the writers advice. do you know how many times i have read "advice" telling me to avoid adverbs while writing? that falling prey to them puts you in the category of writers that tell instead of show? i can't even count the number of people who have given the editing advice of, "take out all the adverbs." but what i want to know is why? why should we take out the adverbs but leave the adjectives? how is describing a noun any better than describing a verb?

you may have noticed the outcome of all this advice. adjectives have gotten too cocky. they are making plans to take over the world... or at least the english language. there is no more time to waste. we must stop them.

how long has it taken us to realize that 'fast', an adjective, killed 'quickly', an adverb, and is now recognized as an adjective and an adverb? exactly when did people first start championing good over well? why are we now okay with eating healthier instead of eating more healthily (besides the fact that the second one now sounds weird)? we no longer shop smartly, we now shop smarter. how many adverbs do we have to lose before we put an end to this? i mean, sure, adjectives are usually shorter, but have we really gotten so lazy that we can't add a few syllables to every sentence?

do the right thing. use adverbs regularly, proudly, and well.

*Mrs. Robinson - Simon and Garfunkel

thinking to myself

as we were driving back to the hotel from epcot a little less than an hour ago, i thought to myself, "i know! i'll write a blog post when we get back," and my mind filled with all sorts of exciting and interesting things to write about. but when i got back, i decided to check my mail first, and then change my clothes, and then respond to commenters, and by the time i actually got around to starting a new post, my mind was empty. i'm sure that i have something great to tell all of you, and i will write a trip recap post with all of the highlights when i get back up to virginia, but for the moment, i may as well have spent the last few days trapped in a basement watching infomercials for all of the stories i have to write. though, come to think of it, being trapped in a basement watching infomercials might actually make a pretty interesting post.

anyway, as i was writing the first line of this post, it occurred to me how stupid the phrase "i thought to myself" is. i mean, by nature of the action, thinking is something you do silently in your mind or brain or head or whatever. by that definition, who else would you be thinking to? why do people feel the need to specify that they are the sole audience to their thinking? are there other people hanging out in their heads that they sometimes think to instead? are there times when they do not think to themselves? can they ignore their own thoughts? can they teach me how to do this? did it take a lot of practice? do they actually leave their heads? where do they go? i just have so many questions.

i was supposed to leave to go to my cousin and his family's house at six, which is in four minutes, but i don't know if i want to stand up. i have done oh so much standing this week already, and laying on this bed hanging out in the blogosphere sounds too nice to pass up. the thing is, i haven't seen my cousin since i got here, and the rest of my family has. and he and his family were like super excited for all of us to come and kept telling me to call, but do you know how hard it is to find the time to call someone when you're spending all day in a theme park? six a.m. is too early and at night i'm too tired and during the day is too crazy. and to be perfectly honest, i'm on vacation and i just don't feel like it. i sound like a jerk, don't i? i should stop being lazy and go do my cousinly duties shouldn't i? i'm probably going to regret this decision.

*You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

don't tell me you don't know

i can't remember which class it was, or even if it was high school or undergrad, but i remember once learning about the origins/meanings behind nursery rhymes and finding them fascinating. i recently came across the meaning behind "peter, peter, pumpkin eater" and my interest was rekindled. my interpretation growing up of some of them was so off base it's ridiculous. here are a few rhymes, what i thought they meant, and what they really mean.

baa baa black sheep,
have you any wool?
yes sir, yes sir, three bags full:
one for my master, one for my dame, 
one for the little boy who lives down the lane

growing up, i thought with full conviction that this was just about a talking black sheep who had three bags of wool to give to specific people. 

i was originally taught that this rhyme was about the taxes people were suffering from in 1275 to the fifteenth century when they had to give, roughly, one third to the king and one third to the church and only keep one third for themselves. apparently now people are arguing this origin, but being the first one i ever learned, i thought i'd put it here anyway. 

fun fact: baa baa black sheep was one of the first songs ever to be digitally recorded and played on a computer in 1951.

jack sprat could eat no fat,

his wife could eat no lean,

and so between the two of them

they licked the platter clean.

growing up, i thought this was about a married couple with digestion problems. jack could eat nothing fatty and his wife only like fatty things. they were a perfect match because they could perfectly finish a plate between them.

instead, jack sprat is reputed to be king charles the first, and his wife henrietta maria. king charles apparently wanted to wage war on spain, but parliament wouldn't finance it (so he was lean). he dismembered parliament and his wife imposed an illegal war tax (to get some fat). 

jack and jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.

jack fell down and broke his crown,

and jill came tumbling after.

this of course was about two kids who went to a well on the top of the hill. i always believed that jack fell own, broke his head, and died which made jill faint and she tumbled down the hill too. she didn't die, though.

the roots of this rhyme lay in france, and the title characters refer to king louis xvi and queen marie antoinette. during the reign of terror, he was beheaded first (lost his crown) and she followed. 

peter, peter, pumpkin eater

had a wife but couldn't keep her.

he put her in a pumpkin shell,

and there he kept her very well.

i always (up until recently) thought this was about a dude named peter that couldn't keep his wife. (my reasons for this ranged from he didn't have a house to it was a secret marriage.) anyway, he sticks her in a huge pumpkin house, and they live happily every after.

this rhyme was started in america to warn young girls away from infidelity. apparently, peter's wife wasn't the most faithful. his way to deal with this was to kill her and hide her body in a pumpkin shell. after that, he could make sure she never betrayed him. 

*Over It - Relient K

you want thingamabobs? i've got twenty! but who cares? no big deal

it feels like, as a society, we are taught to value nouns. we are constantly striving to obtain the nouns in life. people, places, things. money, love, happiness. we like to collect things and judge others on the size of their collections. i'm better than her because of the clothes i'm wearing. i'm jealous of him because he lives in a bigger house.

verbs are only accepted as the necessary way to get to a noun. the more verbs you go through, the better the noun, but the verbs are otherwise disposable. happiness is better than being happy. we go around looking for the love of our life, forgetting to actually be in love. we strive for knowledge, but the act of learning is something we do grudgingly. we want peace but don't want to get along. actions are too common. they are the things that are better hidden under the rug, pushed into the shadow of the trophy we can put on display.

your verb is only accepted if you have the nouns to back it up. a person who writes is not a writer until s/he has a book to prove it. a person who cooks is not chef without a restaurant to cook in. we need a ribbon at the end of a race to validate running around the track.

why can't we just be content with verbs? why does the end have to justify the means to make the journey worthwhile? why can't we just enjoy the journey itself?

when we value life more than living, it's easy to fear death and forget that every minute we are dying.

*Part of Your World - The Little Mermaid Soundtrack

can i say that there's something wrong with this place?

the winner of the next food network star, jeff something or other, has his first show coming up, so obviously the channel is flooded with commercials about it. he's a sandwich guy and his new show is called the sandwich king. i'm sure it will be an awesome show, but i hate watching the commercial. see, jeff is one of those people that says "samwich" instead of "sandwich" and it absolutely kills me. i was slightly surprised by this because a few people close to me say samwich and while it can bug me once and a while, it doesn't annoy me anywhere near the way it does when jeff says it. maybe because it's on tv? maybe because i hear it repeatedly? i dunno... but if he ever mentions sandwiches in his show - which, being a sandwich show is pretty likely - i dunno if i could watch it.

in other news, i applied for graduation the other day and then for some reason decided to check graduation evaluation or whatever it's called when i looked at which classes i've taken and how many credits i have left. technically, it should say that i have everything completed. only, it didn't. it's a new program and is still changing, but for some reason they replace the old catalog instead of adding a new one. so when i started there was a class that was a requirement that switched to an elective and an elective that switched to a requirement. so that is missing. there is also a class that switched its course number. they were supposed to deal with this, but they didn't, so that class is missing too. my advisor said to fill out these forms and get them submitted asap to get the paperwork done before my application for graduation is processed and rejected. i try, and the person that i'm supposed to give them to is not going to be in the office until at least next week. this may not seem like a long time, but i have heard horror stories about my school's ability to process stuff close to graduation. i know of several people who had to push back their graduation. i really don't want to do that. i cannot drag out this master's degree longer than i have. i want it over with. 

*Do It Alone - Sugarcult

be patient i am getting to the point

today was the first day back at school. i get to campus early (and by that i mean 6:45 pm) and go to the bookstore to try to get the book i need for my monday class that i was supposed to order three weeks ago. the bookstore is located in the JC, which also holds the main food court, a library, a computer lab, and a bunch of couches and stuff. it's basically the main hangout for most people on campus. i get there during feeding time and mobs of hungry college students are not fun to navigate through, let me tell you that.

but this is not a post about my return to school for my last semester of master's as a full-time student. (next semester i'll only take one class.) this is one of the posts where i swamp you with links to things that caught my attention.

random off topic side note: sometimes i really wish i could just ctrl+f my room to find what i need. 

first, a link telling you when the best time to sleep is. you know the feeling when you wake up completely rested, realize you still have half an hour before you have to get up, go back to sleep, and wake up again feeling like you haven't slept in years? apparently that's because the first time you woke up was between sleep cycles and the second was in the middle of a sleep cycle. waking up mid-cycle makes you feel groggy and tired for the rest of the day. this site will tell you the optimal times for you to sleep so that your alarm will catch you between cycles.

second, with our wonderful generation of people that have the vocabulary of mimes, words are dying. people don't want to spell words with more than one letter and can barely manage to pronounce multi-syllable words as it is, so the more obscure words are falling right through the cracks of all the hearts that are breaking over our ignorance. what can you, awesome reader, do to help these poor words? well, you can mosey on over to here and adopt one to use regularly and return it to the common vocabulary. i did. actually, i adopted three. they sit there yelling "choose me!" "pick me!" "over here!" in these high voices that broke my heart because i knew the ones not picked were close to death, and even my sister couldn't narrow my list down to less than three. so my words are: vacivity (emptiness), cosmogyral (whirling round the universe), and sevidical (speaking cruel and harsh words). aren't they beautiful? let it be known that chrome does not recognize any of my words as belonging to the dictionary.

while scrolling through blogs of pretty things, the list of things that i don't need, would never use, but reallyreallyreally want has grown to include: a calendar that would let me look back and know my overall mood for every day of the year, pillow cases with stories on them (this actually looks like a really fun thing to make), a mini car jumper thing (if you only knew how many times we've all forgotten the lights of the car on in my family, you'd realize how useful this would be), lightbulb planters, a usb typewriter, an awesome recycled suitcase chair, a moleskine kindle cover, a mural on a wall papered by book pages (though i probably couldn't destroy a book), these old fashioned telephones, this office in a trunk, socks for chair legs, and this nesting bookcase (though my mind changes about this one from like to not like every time i look at it). i would put pictures but this post is already too long, and i'm too lazy.

also, if you like to write but can never manage to just sit down and do it, this is a kind of cool site. you basically go and write one page per day into it (just plain writing with no formatting or anything). you can write more if you want, and they'll send you gentle reminders if you miss a day. after a while, go back and read what you've written. it may just be the next great american novel.

oh, and have you noticed that it is still january? is it just me or have four months already passed this month?

*Spinning - Jack's Mannequin

man, that's awesome

wow have you noticed that all my posts lately have been thesis-length long? you probably have as you are the ones that have been reading/skipping over them. i really dont notice how much i ramble until i take a look at my blog and think, wow thats a megalong post. so, here's my attempt at a short one:

i was told a while back that the word 'awesome' is really only used on the east coast of the US, or at least only used excessively here. i use the word awesome a billion and one times a day, and kind of just thought everyone else did too. i dunno how i feel about finally becoming an east coaster after like twelve years of living here. i never thought it would happen.

if anyone not living on the east coast could clarify this, i'd be forever grateful. where else do people use awesome for everything?

*Bee Your Man - Relient K

i dig you 'cause your grammar is so good

okay, so i'm not sure who exactly said that it was okay to let idiocy flourish in cyberspace, but that person should be shot. repeatedly. i absolutely abhor reading bad spelling and grammar online. the only thing worse is the moronic response of "calm down, we're online." i'm sorry, did you have to give your brain away to get internet connection? if it is not okay for you to speak like a moron in person, it is not okay to do it through a computer. i understand that some people are just bad spellers. i have nothing against those people. really, i dont. but writing "like" as "lyke" is not being a bad speller. it is throwing your brain cells away with both hands. everyone is allowed to go through a phase of idiocy, but that phase should stop in eighth grade (and even that is pushing it). i don't care if what you say online is not being graded, stop being stupid.

yes, i realize that i dont follow grammar online as well as i should. i have a problem with the shift and apostrophe buttons, but i know the right way to write.

here are some basic things to remember to avoid being labeled as stupid:

>> your is not an abbreviated form of you're. the first is possessive while the second is a contraction. if you are confusing the two, maybe it's time for you to turn off the computer and crack open a book. i may not always use apostrophes, but i always write youre when it is needed.

>> their, there, and they're are also three completely different words. they are not interchangeable. they are not variations of each other. a sentence to show the three uses: they're at their table over there. see how each one has its own special meaning?

>> affect and effect are also not interchangeable. affect is a verb. effect is a noun. remember that a comes before e in the alphabet. something has to affect something else before the effect is seen.

>> it's and its is another commonly misused pair of words. its is possessive and it's stands for it is. it's really not that hard to remember. this is the one time that i never neglect the apostrophes. you should do the same.

>> quotation marks should not be used for emphasis. saying something is "important" does not make me recognize its significance. in fact, it makes me think that it is unimportant. or that your definition of importance is a bit off. parentheses shouldn't be used for emphasis either, for that matter.

>> teh is not a cool way to write the. it is a typo. people who emulate mistakes because they think it makes them look/sound cooler need to die.

>> you can't italicize your entire speech. italics should be used for emphasis, much like those " " you've been throwing around. contrary to what you might believe, every word that comes out of your mouth - or uh hand - does not need to be emphasized. try talking like that and you'll realize how stupid you sound to me.

>> could of, should of, and would of are not grammatically correct phrases. they dont even make sense. if you don't want to write the contractions (could've, should've, would've) then at least write out what they really stand for... which is could have, should have, and would have if you didnt know. it'll make you sound a little less like a completely uneducated idiot.

*Bad Grammar - The Hippos

what does this guy do that i can't do?

i's are presumptuous, and the english language preaches conceit.

is it fair that 'i' get(s) capitalization when you, her, and him are denied it? what do(es) 'i' have that 'it' doesnt??

if 'a' can stand alone without taking growth hormones, what could 'i' possibly use them for??

we were taught that proper nouns are capitalized and everything else... isnt. but 'i' is not a proper noun. it's not even a noun. it's a pronoun. and pronouns are never capitalized in the middle of the sentence. not even if they refer back to a proper noun. because they lack the pompous awesomeness that real nouns get. they are the stand-ins for the actors that never get credited at the end of the movie.

and then i come(s) along with a hammer and break(s) all the rules to pieces. because what are rules where vanity is concerned?

and then, to make matters worse, 'i' cant even follow those rules. why doesnt 'me' get a capital 'm'? it's referring to the most wonderful and glorious person that is myself just as much as 'i' is. is it not??

this is why no sleep, exams, and way too much free time should not be mixed... at least not for me. i start to personify letters and hate on the english language.

*Take Me Away - Plain White T's

love that could've been, if i'd only thought of something charming to say

nanowrimo has this procrastination station where they put random stuff for you to procrastinate writing with - 2 a day. these can be forum topics or outside links. anyways, this morning they had a link to the forum topic of weird words. i'm not going to get into all of them, but i thought i'd mention one.

esprit d'escalier: thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit

i hate when this happens... absolutely abhor it. and it seems to happen so so much. if i had a time machine, i would use it to rewind the few minutes that pass before that amazingly witty thing pops into my head. the thing that is so perfectly funny and clever that people will remember it forever. it will be immortalized in books and written on gravestones. it will be tattooed on bodies and quoted in everyday conversation by anyone who's anyone.

just in case this post makes me seem like im really dimwitted, i promise you i'm not. i can think up witty things on the spot, too.

i dunno if you have heard this song before or not, but i love it. when i read this word, it popped into my head. after listening to it, i realize the lyrics don't exactly fit, but whatever, it's still awesome:

*The Sound of Settling - Death Cab for Cutie

the words i couldn't say

being bi-lingualish (it's more like lingual and a half most of the year... lingual and three quarters during the summer when my arabic unrusts) i have this problem with words from one language being said in the other. english words said in arabic like computer, pepsi, panda, hot dog... i can't do them. arabic words in english, mostly names, are impossible too. i cant butcher the pronunciation on purpose, even when i try to. my brain knows the right way to say the word and by golly it will say it right. i won't change my p's to b's or my "ح"'s to h's. i refuse. of course, my stubborness can lead to frustrating conversations and time wasted trying to be understood. much like this recent instance:

aunt: so A (remember her?) works at the holiday inn, right?

me: actually, no. she works at the hilton.

aunt: where?

me: umm... the hilton?

aunt: sheraton?

me: no, hilton.

aunt: weston?

me: hilton.

aunt: where?

me: hilton.

aunt: *blank stare*

me: hilton... hilton... hilton...

aunt: *continues with the stare. starts to think i'm making up names to confuse her*

i turn to me sister for help.

sister: the hilton.

aunt: ohh weston.

me and sister: hilton.

my two cousins finally take pity on us and, trying to hold back laughter and smiles, say: hilton (with an arab accent)

aunt: ohh

she then let us know that she thinks we are stupid, even though they were the ones saying it wrong. and really, how different are the two words?? but people have not understood the american way of pronouncing hot dog or panda (a supermarket) either. i dont get it.

*Words I Couldn't Say - Rascal Flatts

somebody told me that you had a boyfriend that looked like a girlfriend

before i left, someone asked me to check on something and make it the first post i write when i get here. sorry, rashad, i forgot. so i guess we're even.


anyways, remember when rumors that ciara used to a man were circulating the internet and high schools?? well, just in case you still didnt know, they are completely false. that's a link back to the snopes article debunking the rumor in case you dont believe me.

talking about that whole thing, though, made me realize that people were using the words transvestite, transsexual, and transgender interchangably. so here's a quick english lesson. first of all, everyone should know the difference between a person's gender and their sex. no, they are not the same thing. a person's sex is their physical appearance: male or female. their gender is what they psychologically identify themselves with or what society defines them as. for example, in a society where only males go hunting, a female hunter would be considered part of the male gender although she would still be considered part of the female sex. so, on to the other words. a transvestite is "a person who dresses or acts in a style or manner generally associated with the opposite sex." a transsexual is someone who undergoes surgery and hormone treatment to become a member of the opposite sex. a transgender is when a person's gender does not maatch their sex, like the female hunter in that proverbial tribe. so transvestites are transgenders who act on their difference in gender. and transsexuals are transvestites who make the change physically.


*Somebody Told Me - The Killers

i wonder what will it take for you to call me?

technology has allowed for many advances in our lives. doctors can perform surgery on someone across the world. you can video chat with someone on a different continent. you can buy food, clothes, music, and videos all from the comfort of your living room couch. but as amazing as technology is, we still have to acknowledge that it is destroying an entire lifestyle.

telephone conversations are gradually going out of style. i'm not saying that no one calls anyone anymore. while landline phones are starting to die off, cell phones are booming. but if you just want one thing from a friend, to ask one question, to remind them of a specific point, most people will just text them. because of that, you dont get the hours of pointless conversation that result from calling for that one thing. you get your answer and thats it. you'll call them when you have a story to tell that can't be done online, or when you're bored and need to kill time, or every once and a while just to make sure they're still a live.

another dying art form is the written letter. when was the last time you opened your mailbox and got something other than magazines and junk mail?? i used to have a bunch of pen pals, and the greatest feeling in the world is flipping through the mail at the end of the day and seeing a letter addressed to you. to know that someone thought of you and took the time out of their day to sit down and write out - not type - a letter just for you. whoever said that emails are the same as letters had some serious problems.yes, it's great getting emails too, but letters are so much more personal... you have to sit down and think more, choose the stationary, address the envelope, take it to the mailbox. you cant send out a mass letter. you can't copy and paste. each one is unique. and writing takes longer than typing anyways. sure, it costs a little more than an email, but 40 cents is totally worth it in my opinion. i think i'll find myself a new penpal over the summer for next year.

another thing that's happened since technology... when was the last time you bought a cd - like a real tangible one - and then never listened to it?? never for me. when you go to the store and pick out which ones to buy and stand in line and then buy it, you listen to it. but i have downloaded tons of songs and entire albums that i never listen to. ever. i download them, get busy, forget about them, and then months later realize that i never even played the beginning of any of them. this would never happen when i bought the cds at stores.

i mentioned the ability to buy everything online as a benefit of technology. it can be seen as a bad thing too. without ever having to leave your house, you're losing essential social contact. you're also losing the opportunities to build up your tolerance for obnoxious people. when you had to wait in traffic to get to the store to buy stuff, you were forced to wait in never ending lines behind that mom with the child that just wont shut up. you built up a tolerance for that kind of stuff. now, you can bypass all of that. great, right?? well, yeah, until you're in a situation when you have to deal with a crying child or a long line and you're so unused to it that it seems so much worse than it really is. you also lose all the small talk that people used to have while waiting for a bus or whatever. you just whip out your cell phone or your ipod and never have to talk to anyone about the weather.

i mentioned in an earlier post how playing video game sports is now super popular. well, that's great except for the fact that you're losing most of the health benefits of the sport and the fresh air and the social contact with teammates. so while you're enjoying yourself playing baseball on your couch, you're also developing your couch potato skills.

technology has also created a whole new language. a language where omg, lol, thru, u, wtf, etc are all not only acceptable but common words and spellings. we got into an argument in a class last spring because a girl (overly pretentious) who was a self-proclaimed linguist refused to even recognize this "internet talk" as part of the english language. like it or not, though, it is. a big part. it's the only language most of the younger generation speaks. sad, but true.

*Birds of a Feather - The Rosenbergs

so this is great britain, and welcome aboard

apparently being a day for decisions, i have decided that i love the british language. okay so this was a decision made forever ago, but whatever. i'm not talking about the accent, though that's great too, i'm talking about the actual language itself. while all the uk versions of american words are awesome, i think the "bad words" are hilariously my favorite. for some reason it doesnt seem as base and crude to me when every other word out of a british person's mouth is a cuss word than it does when the speaker is american. for example, take the television series skins (awesome series by the way... only thing i follow religiously besides lost). i dont think any of the characters in that show are capable of getting out a sentence completely devoid of bad words, okay jal hardly swore and neither did jj but thats not the point. everyone else from 5 year olds to 85 year olds swore like sailors on leave, but it was okay. and when they used british cuss words, it was hilarious. my favorite british cuss words are probably wanker and tosser. seeing as i dont really cuss i'll probly never use them, but theyre still my favorite. bollocks is also cool cuz you can use it for like a zillion different meanings. sodding, bloddy, bugger... all awesome. the word gobsmacked is genius.

what i hate, though, are americans who try to be british and try to use all the words but they dont really flow. like there's that half second pause before each word as they think of what to say, and then when they do get the word it doesnt exactly fit in the context. i hate it when people do this with "big words" too. if you have to think too hard on a word, it's probably safe to say that you should use a different one.

*So This Is Great Britain - The Holloways