So kidz don't play wit' 2 many knives

Crack Stunt-man gonna save some lives.

I highly suggest you check this out.

I'm totally planning on seeing Blades of Glory, perhaps this weekend. Will Arnet is my superhero... of comedy, who is Canadian....

...and from Arrested Development....

Didn't do much in terms of work today. Marked some homework, stopped b/c I don't have the text book with me to check some answers. I got a Dutch and a Korean phonology grammar from the library (those are two separate books) for my paper. I'm thinking I'll actually crack down on this resyllabification business tomorrow.

Tip: Learn to recognize people by their shoes. It will help when you need to identify them and all you can see is their feet.

Tip: You can tell whether an unmarked door is push or pull by looking at the hinges.

I haven't won anything else from Roll-up-the-win, however, I have learned that I should not be allowed to have coffee. In the past I have been briefly referred to as "Crystal Beth", which should probably tell you that I don't need any extra help being wired and hyperactive.

Ooh, I should totally stay up for the Colbert Report tonight! I've been missing it (and the Daily Show) for a long time now b/c I have to get up early and other ridiculous things. Also our washing machine is broken, and I'm running out of clean clothes. I don't even know where there is a laundromat.

I haven't seen an episode of Smallville since last season. Tragedy, I know.

Crazy Go Nuts.

University.

I took a train from Virginia to Illinois

Busiest 3 days ever, it feels like at least. I spent 7 hours in the library on Saturday, over 8 hours in my office on Sunday and countless other hours elsewhere working on my Syntax paper. But now its 28 pages (with title page and references at 1.5 spacing) and in complete first draft form. I presented on it this morning. That was a really special time. Not only did I turn bright red but I got so red that it started into white blotches, which started to look like whiteface with red blotches. Super attractive, let me tell you. I also talked at lightening speed, but for some reason my prof liked the presentation, so I’ll stop obsessing over it.

I’ve been a little stressed out and tired lately, and if you’ll know that that makes me extra spacey, and wanting to run everywhere because my veins are pumping with adrenaline just to keep me awake. Its not the most stressed out I’ve ever been, that is still exam period of 4^th year, but you know, I’m still a little stressed out.

I saw Reign Over Me with my roommate. She loved it, cried and everything. I thought it was nothing more than mediocre, and no tears were lost over it. If you’re a girly girl or a sensitive guy you’ll probably like it. But I am neither of those things.

New episode of House tonight.

Now that I’m done my presentation, I’m not sure exactly what I should be doing at this moment. Probably should be doing French. Don’t actually feel like it. Wait a second…. I have to reread a super long and complicated article before I meet with BOTH my supervisors tomorrow. Suck. I’m really hoping it will be more them telling me stuff about stuff and less them asking me stuff about stuff. I’m not prepared for that right now.

I smell like garlic-y pizza. Kisses anyone? ;)

Enough of my text-form spaceyness.

Have I ever told you how much I love Phil Collins?

Even models can’t not die is a freak gasoline-fight accident

I know that most of you already knew the news from the last post but I just wanted to announce it for those of you I haven’t told yet. I got the official documentation yesterday, and didn’t really want to tell the world before I was absolutely sure.

K-os is good times, I suggest picking up his new album. Its good, and amazingly clean in the lyrics type area. And its paper season! I’ve got 2 papers under way! I’m still stressed out about it but at least I’m gaining a little momentum, once I get going then every waking thought tends to be about a paper. This is why I figure being a Linguist might work out for me, because that’s what you do, you write papers and try to get them published. It’s easier to write good stuff if you really care about what you’re writing about.

My syntax paper is about noun incorporation in Ojibwa and how its not really head movement because it involves phrasal movement (since the moving elements are syntactically complex) rather than traditional noun incorporation which is head movement and found in languages like Mohawk. For my Phonology paper I’m try to recast resyllabification analyses in terms of derived environment effects. I’m pretty much going with the assumption that there is really no internal structure to the syllable and the only sure thing we know about syllables is that they identify themselves as sonority peaks. It’s good times.

Ooh, I still have to work on my budget proposal to go to Santa Barbara, and then probably one for Saskatoon too…..

I bought the Giller prize book by Vincent Lam from Chapters yesterday. I have no idea when I’ll get to read it since I haven’t even finished Catch 22 yet since I haven’t had a chance to read it in weeks, but I’ll get to it eventually. Actually I have a few books that I was supposed to read first, like 1984 (the best year ever, it has a book, a movie and countless social commentary references) but there’s so many academic articles to read and so little time.

I know my blog has been me with my random unconnected thoughts for probably several months now, and I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do. My brain power is drained in non-blogging operations and it would probably be easier for me to write Linguistics jargon for pages, but no one wants that. So I just throw it in here and there for my own sake and sanity.

Am I tell you the same things over and over again? Probably. But you’ll probably notice that this webpage does not show up on the blogger homepage as “Blogs to check out” or “Fake internet award winning blog” so its not like I’m kidding myself or anything. Keeping it real, perhaps too legit to quit…. Now I’m just delirious and a little bit shocked at myself that I actually just said that. Did I ever tell you about the girl with that tattoo across her shoulders?

This is me procrastinating. I have some Catalan data to get back to, but really I need to go to the library tomorrow and get a good grammar that has sufficient phonological information and paradigms that I can use in my paper. Oh, and if you come up with any snappy title for me I definitely want to hear them. I tidied my room and made my bed and cooked broccoli with brown rice and cheese sauce to further put off my writing today. Its not like I procrastinated all day, but there were plenty of interspersions throughout. I drink a lot of water. I probably drink at least 3 litres a day, and that’s just in the winter. Its more in the summer. Every time I reach for my nalgene it’s almost empty, and I always fill it up full. I like water, I think it tastes good. I have a problem with people who drink bottled water all the time when the tap water is perfectly potable. Excuses like “I don’t like the taste” are complete BS and they’re supporting an unnecessary industry that wastes energy to package and transport a commodity you have readily available already. I think they will find if they start drinking tap water they will very quickly forget their dislike for the taste and save a lot of money, since bottle water is more expensive than gas per volume unit.

Did I tell you I got my hair cut? The last time I did was the day I graduated, ie June. My hair feels much better now I am just a little less schlubb-ish, but still a schlub, which you would know if you’d met me. Me and my hoodies, jeans and running shoes. I hate shoes. I can’t wait till I can wear sandals again. I can’t wait till I can use my bike again, it will be so much faster getting to school and going other random places. I frickin hate the buses here, they don’t go where I want in the fashion I would like them to go there. Is that asking too much? But there’s an awesome subway system in Montreal, so I’ll hang on for the remaining months.

Maybe next I’ll win $1000 from roll up the rim, that would make getting to the conferences less stressful. I wonder if you have to wait a long time, like for them to process your win or something, because I don’t think you can just walk with your cup into Timmy Ho’s and be like “Give me a thousand bucks.” I feel that such a scenario would result in mass cash register emptying and probably end up in some sort of arrest, of you, trying to take money from the doughnut shop.

Alright, I’ll stop. Hmmm, I need a blog title. That’s right, not everything happens in the linear order you receive it in. I hope I come up with something good.

It's Official!

I'm going to McGill!

I got into the Linguistics PhD program and I'm moving to Montreal!

Boo-Ya!!!!

Chocolate milk tastes better when you blow bubbles in it

Big news everybody! For the first time in my ENTIRE LIFE I have won something from Roll-up-the-rim!!! I know! I thought it would never happen! But after 22 long, trying years of coffee, French vanilla and hot chocolate my trusted teeth rolling technique has paid off and I won a free coffee! Obviously I had to get an extra large coffee as my prize, which made me very jittery and fast-talking yesterday, but it wasn’t just a cup of burnt Tim Hortons coffee. No friends, it was a cup of victory. Miracles CAN happen.

So after I had this ginormous portion of caffeine liquid I did a semantics presentation, for which my face was bright red even before I started. I actually was really nervous, but I did my best to slow down the speech speed such that I could at least be partly understood. My prof said I did a good job, and since her opinion is the only one that matters I’ll just run with it.

I also had to teach a first year phonology class on Monday (the class I TA) for. I was really nervous, and again, bright red, but the lighting was semi-dim and more forgiving. Other people try to tell me the whole red bit is ok and they turn red too, but I’m consistent in pointing out that I have no melanin in my skin, therefore the red that I turn is much more intense as it is filtered by nothing but my paper think skin – which also happens to be transparent. But the class went alright, I got to actually meet the people who’s homework I’ve been marking and pretty much none of them were what I imagined them to be. I was imagining short little dorky 18 year-olds who were a little shy and apologetic. But now, wrong, I was completely wrong. They were, well, taller than I imagined (I’m not sure why I thought they were all short) but also super cool and not dorky at all. Clearly I am the dorky one and perhaps I’ve been projecting on them how I saw myself in first year. However I’m not short, and wasn’t short then, so really its just my crazy mind making crap up.

This week has been insane. I mean to post a bunch of times but there was literally no window of opportunity to do so. I’m taking a little break before I get back into it again. I really just want to be writing my final papers now but its so difficult because there’s all the regular class reading and homework still to do. I have to present the first draft of my syntax paper on March 27^th and I haven’t written anything for it yet – at least I have a topic. Freaking out just a little bit at the moment.

Ok then, on I go. Homework time, I suppose.

Hexual Sealing

Big news! New Coldplay album is in the works! I’m excited, they seem to be hyping it too much too early, though, I’d like to decide for myself whether it contains “the best Coldplay song yet”. I’ve got a few contenders in mind.

I get to teach a first year Phonology class on Monday b/c the prof is having surgery on his wrist. Skating on the canal is serious business, those small children are everywhere just waiting to catch you off guard and trip you up. I’m terrified about the class, but I’m getting the “It’s a good experience”/ “It will look good on your CV” type comments. I’m going to do it, but I’m sure I will be bright red and shaking for at least part of it.

I’m starting to freak out about my passport. I sent it in January and they haven’t even charged the fee to my credit card yet. I wasn’t worried about it before until recently when I got accepted to present at a conference (also terrifying) in Santa Barbara. I’m hoping my passport will show up before mid-May such that I can actually enter the US and do this conference business.

Thanks to Mich I have been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately, I think the BBC has more to offer than the average North American TV watcher realizes. It kinda shows you that there’s another part of the world that also considers itself the centre of the universe. Puts things into perspective.

I made quesadillas yesterday, really easy, really awesome. There’s something irresistible about fried onions, I’m not sure what it is. I’ve also taken to calling them “quesa-dill-as”, you know, saying the [l] instead of the palatal glide. It is my ode to Napoleon Dynamate. I didn’t go anywhere today, I’ve been struggling trying to get work done – and did get some done – and I even had a shower, but its been a blah kind of day. I guess its better I didn’t go anywhere since the outside world is currently coated in ice.

Ok.

Cheerleader! So-and-so! Whatsherface! THE UGLY ONE!

Ok, here’s the post I’ve been meaning to write. This weekend was AMAZING. It felt soooo good to be back in Toronto. A couple people asked me if it was weird to be back at U of T and Vic, but honestly it felt completely natural. Really its only been 6 months since I lived there and it felt like being at home, especially since I was staying with Pyweon at Stevie Ho. I’m sure when my parent’s read this (since they’re not taking the hint that I don’t want them to read my blog, or rather my mom doesn’t care) they might be a little disappointed to find that Toronto feels like home to me, but that’s how it goes. I still have friends living in the T dot and not so much in the Sound.

My train from our nation’s capital to our province’s was a little brutal because it was delayed over 2 and a half hours. We had to pull over and let CN freight trains go by a bunch of times, which I find really irritating because the point of the train is that you don’t have to deal with traffic, but now I see the error in my view. Also there was a big freight train derailment between Oshawa and Toronto which they told us would mean a bus ride from Oshawa onwards, but we were so delayed before that that they had cleaned up the track enough to let us go through. Poor Dinah was waiting for me at Union the whole time, she’s such a good friend.

A food recap of the week: Friday night sushi, including bento box and extra sushi – we were really stuffed and, as a result, ditched Pyweon. Saturday brunch was breakfast tacos at this place called Aunties and Uncles near College and Bathurst with my favourite journalist. Then sunch, or lupper at Spring Rolls with Tofu Eggplant Schezwan (sp), who, disappointingly, did not have the irresistibly addictive shanghai noodles that day. Saturday night was nachos and Sunday lunch was veggie Pad Thai from the Friendly Thai on Younge. All very good, all sufficiently cheap.

Ottawa is officially boring, and I know people will be tempted to tell me that I just need to get over Toronto and appreciate the more small town feeling of Ottawa, but if you’re one of those people I’m going to tell you you’re full of it. Toronto is sparkly, and fun, and has way more cheap food and better places to go to and down town even looks more exciting, even if you’re not doing anything. I also know TO a lot better and have more friends there, but even campus is cooler with better ivy covered buildings and that large institutional look. But I’ll deal with Ottawa for now, since I’m moving to Montreal in August…..

And yes, Dinah and I did watch Centre Stage – which was my choice – and we had a fantastic time making fun of the plot holes while loving every second. I have a theory that you will love the awful teen movies from your own teen era and think that all other teen movies (such as current ones, since I am no longer a teenager – shocking, I know) are totally crappy. But really they’re all the same and its just perspective. However I will maintain that 10 Things I Hate About You is a timeless classic that everyone should see.

The best part of the weekend was Saturday night when a bunch of my friends came to O’Grady’s and we ate our bar food and spread the good cheer around. I tried Strongbow for the first time, I’m not a beer person but now we’re actively working on it. Thanks to everyone who came. I love you all.

I think the weekend was particularly awesome because it was all about me. You know, people wanting to see me while I was there and making special plans so that they could hang out with me. It made me think why I ever left Toronto, but then I remembered that if I were still there it wouldn’t be all about me since it wouldn’t be a special occasion to see me. So coming back to visit once in a while has its perks. Not that I need everything to be about me but I can’t say I didn’t appreciate it. (I can’t say that I didn’t not appreciate it?)

Well, for now that is enough about me. Bye.

PS This is my momentous 100^th post.