work stuff

so here are a few things that happened lately at work.

 

- today i was really stressed out. there is a project that is supposed to go live tomorrow and the person in charge of it has been giving me HELL about it. i found out today at around 3 o'clock that 2/3 of it had been done completely wrong. i was so angry, because it was one of the most challenging projects i have ever done. i was so angry and felt so bad that i just started crying. it was really weird. two people were around me and they were sort of shocked but trying to make me feel better. i felt really stupid. shortly before that, i was telling dan about how much i hated this project and he was like "i bet mine is worse. want to trade?" we say that about every day. well, after my episode, he said to me, "elizabeth, i don't want to trade anymore." ha, thanks. anyway, it was weird. i am not sure what it says about me. i doubt too many people have cried at work. however, this guy was really being hard on me. i severely dislike him. and i was getting a million directions from a million people, and they turned out to be different. who would have known? i felt like it was my fault, but i don't think it was.

 

- dan and i had a conversation about pets today, because i was telling him about how i didn't get a cat. i also told him about how ringo snores extremely loudly. he told me about his brother's cat and how "it might be satan." then he wanted to look up what different cats looked like and he typed in "attacking cat" in google images. that was funny. even funnier, a picture of dustin hoffman came up, and we couldn't figure out why.

 

- we also talked about funny ways to die.

 

- when dan got into a car accident last week, he said, "I don't know, it's supposed to change your outlook on life and all that? Nope. Made me a little thirsty, though."

 

- This annoying woman at work was talking on the phone to someone and she got really upset. She was talking about someone else, I gathered that. She said into the phone, "For God's flippin' sake! He's insane!" or something. Then she went, "Oh, sorry! sorry! sorry!" And apologized like 9254 times. Wow, I didn't know people were so sensitive...

 

- The other day our network went down for the 50th time this week. The phone started ringing and we all just started laughing our asses off. Hotline is funny sometimes, esp. times like that.

 

- Someone we work with (who we all dislike) was trying to test something that involved uploading an image. She is notorious for not knowing anything about computers. Well, she was like, "I can't get this picture uploaded!" Pat finally found out that she was trying to upload a Word doc!! HAHA! Dan goes, "I'm surprised she didn't try to upload Yahoo Messenger!" That was hysterical.

 

- Dan gets frustrated a lot, and yesterday his choice saying for frustration was, "If you hear something that sounds like a guy breaking his own neck, that will be me."

 

- Someone called the hotline today complaining that they can't fit all of their text in. Idiots...if there is a text area that stops letting you type, wouldn't you assume that there is a limit to how much you can type? Besides that, there is one of those character count things that shows you how many letters you have left. I couldn't believe it. Dan goes, "Tell them to dumb down the text a little. It's real estate, not the Pulitzer."

 

That's about it.

 

------------------

 

The other day in Madison we (Sarah, Melissa, and I) saw Trina. She was with some friends and immediately started Liz-bashing. Melissa said she heard it, and I could just tell. I've never known someone who has hated me so much for no reason. I felt VERY bad and uncomfortable.

 

I have to find a picture of this horrible statue in Madison. I know Emily will find it hysterical.

Bright Eyes

Sometimes I don't understand why everyone doesn't like Bright Eyes. For instance, here is a song.

Here's a scale, weigh it out and you'll find, easily
More than sufficient doubt that these colors you see
were picked in advance by some careful hand
With an absolute concept of beauty
They are smeared and these blurs come in random order
And they color the eyes of your former lover's
Hers were green like July,
Except when she cried they were red
Now I know a disease that these doctors can’t treat
You contract on the day you accept all you see
Is a mirror, and a mirror is all it can be
A reflection of something we’re missing
And language just happened, it was never planned
And it’s inadequate to describe where I am
In the room of my house where the light's never been
Waiting for this day to end
And these clocks keep on winding and completely ignore
Everything that we hate or adore
Once the page of a calendar is turned it’s no more
So tell me then, what was it for?
Oh tell me, what was it for?

To me that's simply a supreme example of what English can be. It's perfect in so many ways.

I do get that music-wise he probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. However, there are times when I don't really understand that concept. Like right now. I don't really get at the moment how it is that some music is distateful to some people. Until I think of Nickelback. Then I get it.

Tonight I am going to do bills, maybe write in here about a hysterical conversation I had with Dan today and also how I burst into tears at work today, and write a letter. I've descended back into almost complete Tom infatuation. I hate my subconscious for doing this to me. I was making real progress. I wasn't even really sad when I left Madison. Well, I was, but not because of him. AGH! Asshole mind....

Dream

I had a dream about Tom last night.

 

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

Curses!

 

Months and months of trying to feel better, and it's all undone with one rogue act of my subconscious. That thing is powerful.

Marshall Field's

Marshall Field's is a great store. I should go there more often (and spend all of my paycheck, as I astutely remarked to Sarah while we were there yesterday). Weird that it was yesterday, but it was. I bought the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen, a piece that refuses to take any picture, just as I do:







That does not do it any kind of justice, but I've taken approximately 40 pictures of it and that's the best my camera will do. Also, there is no picture online because it is apparently new.

It's a little over an inch in diameter, I think, and is very sparkly. I should not have put it on a brown background because it makes it look more filled in than it is. Anyway, it was well worth the slightly expensive price. It wasn't that expensive as far as fine jewelry goes, but it's more than I'd usually pay.

The find of a lifetime at Pop Deluxe

Every time I go to Pop Deluxe I like it more. I felt bad for Sarah because I made her stay there for a really long time. But anyway, as many of you know I love bags, especially the messenger kind (even though I don't use them that often). And of course, I love London. So check out what I ran across at this store:

















That's right...a messenger bag with a map of London on it. I love it so much that if there is a God and hell I will be sent to hell for worshipping this bag. Okay, that's not true, but I do love it because it is so me. I also purchased a small "sculpture" of Big Ben there.

So those are two of my most fun and lovely purchases of my life, which happened to happen within a day of each other.

Shortly I will put a few pictures on facebook, but I think it's not going to be that many because I got bored doing levels on them (as usual).

Advertising words

Someone else has noticed the use of made up horrible words in advertising. Even better, they used my most favorite one. (this is from The Onion):

Ancient Studies professor Elgin Strudwick begrudgingly accepted te term "crumbelievable" to describe Themistocles' naval strategy at the Battle of Salamis.

The Ireland movie with Cillian Murphy won unanimously at Cannes. I don't really care that much about that, but I thought I'd mention it since Laura and I looked up that movie the other day on imdb.

Stranded in New Lisbon

Oh man. I had a shit afternoon. I went to Madison this weekend sort of on a whim, which I will write about later. On the way back home, surprise! My car broke down. It sort of just went dead electrically as I was driving. It was so fun. Luckily the brakes and acceleration still worked. But I thought I should stop, because the blinkers were not working. I turned it off and it wouldn't start again (so much for my theory of "restarting solves 90% of problems" - haha). I was at a gas station and call my dad, who then left to pick me up. I was 2 hours away from Rochester. Eventually the car was able to start again so when my dad came I tried to drive it as far as possible. That happened to be about 5 miles. That time it was freaking out and eventually went completely dead, even the steering. It was incredibly scary to be driving with a car like this on the interstate. For instance, the speedometer was not working so I didn't know how fast I was going. Lights were flickering on and off and the car was lurching forward at times. And, I couldn't steer. I coasted into the next exit and wrenched it around the corner and there it stopped. My dad said that the alternator is broken, which apparently is the thing that charges the battery. He put in a new battery which allowed us to drive it to a better location (a wayside rest). He thinks it's going to get a ticket anyway.

It's scary how much stuff is controlled by the battery. THANK GOD the gas and brakes aren't. Especially the brakes.

So, now we have to get the part (since nobody was open today, of course), and drive back there, and fix it, and drive back here. I am in Rochester right now. I have to drive back to St. Paul tomorrow morning. This is perhaps the biggest and most annoying hassle of my life. I feel so bad in many ways about the entire thing.

The car was just in for a "checkup" about a month ago. Nice job they did....

i cannot do it

i was thinking of adopting a cat, but i just cannot do it. i even bought cat litter and cat food. and i knew exactly which one i was going to pick, and what name. i just cannot do it, though. blah.

major case of kool-aid saliva going on right now

i just watched the movie sin city and LOVED it. i think that is one of the most interestingly and beautifully done pieces of work i've seen in a long time. there were a couple of overly gory parts, but in general it was great. man. well done.

 

so...not much else to say. it has been freakishly hot this week, but cold inside work and my apartment.

i managed to stretch out my work to 7 hours today

although part of that time was spent doing nothing due to a network outage (AGAIN). we had some hysterical goings-on today at merrill corp. i will write about them sometime. i almost said "right"...isn't weird how you can make those errors in writing? just goes to show you how you (or at least i) write...by thinking of the words in your (my) mind.

 

this morning right around 9:30 the boss rallied the managers for an emergency meeting. i was kind of worried about what they were talking about, and the worry became terror when immediately afterward my manager comes to me and goes, "can i see you in my office, please?" i don't think it will be easy for me to get over the horror of hearing those words, after the different things that happened at the library. anyway, i was like, "shit, i'm going to get fired...maybe they were mad that i was on gmail the other day..."

 

but it turned out to be this special project that i am going to be in charge of. apparently the president of our division wants this store to be created and done extra quickly and they are putting me in charge of it. so i am to do nothing else for the next three weeks or so. i suppose this is one of those moments where i prove my worth, etc etc, blah blah blah. lately my manager has been saying things like "i trust you to be on hotline without anyone around" and "i had you in mind for doing the monday late shift in case you ever want to take a weekend trip, so you can have more of a rest" - it is totally opposite from a while back when i thought she hated me.

 

so it wasn't bad at all. hey, the best news is that i get to drop all my other stuff. so, someone else gets to deal with that crap i was doing yesterday! YAY!

 

i'm going to see l & m tonight, which should be fun. i might try to get home for stargate this evening.

p.s.

i love how right after i said it was cold this year, it was 84 degrees. that's right, it was 84 today, and humid as hell. the uv index was 9, meaning you'd burn in 10 minutes. or, if you're me, you'd burn in 10 seconds. i tried to run back and forth to my car.

today

today has been about 2384729374928374928374 times better than yesterday.

 

1) i went home and went to two stores and still got home again an hour before i usually would.

 

2) i woke up at 8 and did not feel bad all day.

 

3) dan and i had a funny conversation today

 

4) i am watching simpsons

 

on the flip side, i got extremely angry today at something i was working on. it's because these assholes that are in marketing don't know what they're doing. i was so mad at them. it doesn't sound like it right now, and that's because i said to myself, "i have to leave this project or i'm going to flip my lid." so i did, and i cooled off a little.

 

if any of you guys are ever in marketing, please try to understand something about what you tell others to do. try to understand the systems behind your stuff, OR AT LEAST give people everything when you set up a project.

 

we've been so pissed lately because they'll give us a project but then won't give us the item numbers for a month. we can't do anything without item numbers. then they give us the item numbers and say "by the way, we're having a demo tomorrow so we need this done."

 

FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

sorry. anyway, it's been an increasing problem. that's only about 1/3 of the issue i was pissed about today.

 

a guy at best buy today totally wanted to date me. i could tell. ever since i became cool, around two weeks ago, people everywhere have fallen in love with me. i'm just that awesome.

 

i went to target. i really need to avoid that store. it's like, when i go there someone says, "hey, it's elizabeth, get out the vacuum" and then they lug out a giant vacuum with a money-shaped hose, and aim it toward my person. and then my money is gone. good thing i don't have much cash. anyway, i ventured into the jewelry section (bad idea) and found 73458 things on clearance, which every girl knows means "i have to buy it because it's cheap." sneaky buggers! there were some earrings i had had my eye on before and they were $4 now. they were in my basket before i even knew it.

 

p.s. thanks for reminding me about 'undreds of 'em, laura. i totally forgot about that part.

brain II / the longest and most disjointed blog entry of the year

i really, really, really need something to get my mind off of everything. my mind literally feels like it is traveling 1000 miles per minute. i hate it. anyone have any ideas? because i don't.

 

because i want to complain more, i'll do just that. i haven't been feeling well for a while. a long while. i'm consistently exhausted and i am frequently dizzy and headach-y. i can't remember the last time i had any kind of normal energy. i am extremely pissed off at the amount of time i need to sleep. especially since it doesn't really seem to be helping anything. it makes my life a total waste if i only have 3 hours of free time a day. i'm nervous about what working 9-5 is going to do to me. i'll just have to get to bed earlier, I guess. which leaves me the same exact amount of free time per day. there were a couple of days recently where I got 7 or 8 hours of sleep and I thought I was going to die.

 

what else can i complain about? the fact that i am in a bad mood. that annoys me.

 

the fact that i wish there was a person who could stand talking to me every day, since i would love to talk to a person every day. i would love that beyond words.

 

the fact that my brain gets overloaded with crap and it makes me get in a mood like i am in now.

 

the fact that i sort of wish i was nonexistent right now or at least didn't have the capacity to think. maybe i could be a bird. that would be ok. but i would be a quiet one because i am a quiet person and i like quiet things.

 

there is apparently a remake of the omen that is coming out, which is weird because i was just talking about that last night to tom. this is going to be confusing because i was just going to talk about how i kind of miss tom today but i meant tom d. maybe i should call tom d. library tom or something. because they are bound to overlap in at least one blog entry. for instance, this one right here. i wouldn't be sure what to call tom p. cat tom (which is interesting in multiple ways) or music tom, or funny tom. but that makes library tom sound like he's not funny, and he is. i could also call them madison tom and philadelphia tom. that would probably work better. well, the fact is that i mentioned the omen to philadelphia tom yesterday, and today i sort of miss madison tom, but not really that much. only because i'm in a general bad mood and in the past year that has basically been synonymous with missing madison tom. so, i guess i don't really miss him, but it's one of those things that's kind of ingrained into my behaviour.

 

what was the point of that entire last paragraph?

 

well, to go on, i wonder what madison tom is doing. i have many times fought the urge to nonchalantly contact an intermediary, such as jessica. i'm sure she has seen him lately. but, i'd probably kill myself if i found out he was married or something. i am not ready for that type of information. something that would be cool to hear: "he's ok, but he's really depressed, because you are gone." that would be fine. i'd like to think he was at least slightly sad to see me go. one of my biggest dreams is for someone i know to just talk to him and then tell me what he said. especially if said person went and talked to him about me, because i'd be so interested in what he would say. i bet he wouldn't say anything at all. he was never the type of person to talk about others. he would only ever talk about me with me. i wonder if he ever thinks about me. i hope so. god, i wish i could talk to him.

 

what a horrible thing.

 

I WILL GET OVER HIM. someday. hopefully soon.

 

i left the library exactly a year ago, to the day.

 

i can't believe how different my life is now, and how different the world seems in general. for one thing, it's the end of may and it's cold out. a year ago it was friggin' boiling. i remember it being very humid.

 

one thing i would really enjoy is if i went to work tomorrow and had enough work to last me the entire day. is that too much to ask? some days i go there and finish everything in half an hour. those days suck. today i finished everything in about 6 hours. that's about normal. then i wrote email and chatted on gmail for 2 hours. i felt kind of bad, but not really.

 

my manager said she trusts me today. um, thanks. i also made her laugh a lot by doing a weird raising eyebrow motion. i don't know why that was so funny.

 

she said she was going to give lance, the new guy, a "mentor" and i hope she picks me because that would make me feel important.

 

oh man, last friday i made the discovery of a lifetime at work. i can't explain it because it's too involved, but it was a hotline issue that everyone was completely stumped about. i happened to look at it in a certain way where i figured it out pretty quickly. i was very proud of myself. i felt smart at that moment.

 

we're going to get a new person in july and october. please, god, please let them hire a young person. i can see that happening. she's going to start interviewing now. people are graduating, so it looks promising. actually, i started in october, so that might happen as well.

 

something i really love: english language

 

another thing i really love: england

 

something else: ben gibbard

 

do de do...

 

i signed up for netflix yesterday. should be interesting. and more cheap than ordering movies on on demand. it will also be nice to have a selection that's approx. 23403597 bigger than on demand. for instance, my first order is this obscure michael shanks movie from like 1995. called door to door. some other primary selections were other cillian murphy movies and other elijah wood ones i haven't seen yet. i found one that stars elijah wood and charlie hunnam. geeeeeeeee! charlie hunnam. :D i forgot about that kid.

 

hey laura, remember the very first time we saw queer as folk, and the first words out of my mouth were "oh, that's how they do that!"? HA!

 

are you having a starter? i'm not. i never have starters. yes i will. i'm having a starter. blimey! look at all these starters!

 

classic.

 

laura, i got the tickets and they were $12 plus like $13 surcharge. no, it was only $2.50 or something surcharge. a day will come when the surcharge is more than the ticket and i will not be surprised in the least.

 

hey emily, remember when we graduated high school? that was a long time ago. hey, remember mr. wright? do you remember edie something who had a beehive hairdo and won a date with mr. wright? i wonder how that went. remember tying bidisha or melissa to a table with ribbon? remember how i was extremely religious for like 6 months? what's up with that?

 

yes, folks, i was extremely religious for like 6 months. those 6 months overlapped with the time in which i wrote my senior quote in the yearbook so that thing is all religious. i regret that a lot.

 

remember when we worked at target and one time we laughed so hard i thought my guts were going to explode out of my body? because you were making a donkey noise? HAHA! and charlie and angela worked there too.

 

hey, how about when we were at a concert and sarah made some un-sarah-like (at the time) comment about how the song was like an orgasm?

 

how about when on saturdays we'd always be like "are you going to breakfast?" and it would always be a huge deal (for me anyway) to get up and go to breakfast.

 

there was this one time when dan wanted to go to mcdonalds and like 50 people latched on to the idea, and by the time everyone was ready we got there and it was closed, and he was pissed. so we went to big mike's.

 

hey, remember kirk penney's twin? and HATMANDU? hahaha! hatmandu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and omar! and...jason's roommate luke...and darth maul, and mel, who always sang the same song at the talent show.

 

how about peter! and ryan "these boots are made for walkin'" and braden.

 

i miss you guys so much.

 

POD. with a unifying goal to roll a ball across the hallway.

 

brain

my brain has been thinking too much in the past few days. it's pissing me off.

goals this week

this week i am ditching the water goal because it was driving me nuts. my bladder also didn't like it. maybe sometime i can do 32 oz. but 64 is not good. the rest are staying in place except for website because that was a one-time opportunity.

 

i'm happy to say i met all of the goals last week (during the business week at least, not saturday) except for yoga and icelandic on friday because i basically went home and went to sleep. that day sucked. i was inhumanly exhausted. i don't know what's with me never being able to get enough sleep.

 

today at lunch seth and dan got in a car accident. dan claims to almost have lost his arm because it was hanging out the window and the car crashed into his side, the passenger side. seth left work.

 

apparently the new guy started today but i have yet to see him. i think i'll nonchalantly walk by. oh, he's totally not here yet. what the hell?

 

 

weekend

candy came this weekend. we went to lunch at fuddrucker's yesterday and then to mall of america. my favorite store that we visited was sephora. i've been wanting to go there for a while. i spent $70 for 3 things. um...then we went to olive garden for dinner and saw the da vinci code. it was a fun day.

 

i just got really tired of writing in here, but i don't know what else to do. i was trying to install sim city the other day, but realized that i don't have the registration key, because it is on the cd case, which is at home because i don't keep the cases around for software. so it's useless. i was pissed.

 

i watched a movie this morning called wolf creek. it is about these three kids (liked around 18-22 years old) that get stranded in the outback in australia. then they get abducted by this old guy and tortured, molested, and killed. one of them lived. it is apparently a true story. the worst part about the movie was that one of the kids was nailed to a board like jesus christ. then he had to rip his arms off the nails. that was the most disgusting thing i have ever seen. even worse than the body on csi last week. i had to cover my eyes for a few minutes until he quit screaming in pain. another thing that happened was the old guy severed the spine of one of the girls, so that she was still alive but paralyzed.

 

well, i'm going to go be bored somewhere else. i hate this day.

hi

for some reason i had to write about a bunch of news stories i saw today.

 

1. there was a story about how chris moyles of bbc radio 1 had some controversy around him. i used to listen to him every day and he was friggin' hilarious.

2. there was a story about cillian murphy and a movie he is doing about ireland that is supposed to be good. he is one of my fav. actors.

3. there's apparently going to be a cool interview with p. charles, william, and harry [not barrington, mind you. windsor.]. i don't know when or if this interview will ever be shown or heard or read by me, but it exists.

 

william barrington and harry barrington. ha. if you remember what i am talking about, i give you kudos. but not the granola/candy bar. just the abstract idea of doing well at memorization of my idiosyncrasies.

ed harcourt

ed harcourt is great. our relationship has been steady and good since i first met him on a mix cd of british artists that i got for my website back in 2001. through three albums, through many an obscure instrument, through a couple of dalliances with a band called "wild boar," we have weathered the storms. [ok, so he's married, to a really pretty girl named gita harcourt...who's counting?]

 

i have missed ed in concert twice. oh, that pissed me off.

 

one of the things i like most about him is that all of his songs are completely different. i think he's probably one of the most versatile people i've known of in my time. he can play approximately 99458734 instruments, and does play them, in 845384 different ways. and, his voice is gorgeous. a traditional gorgeous voice. he would do well on american idol, or i guess pop idol. whether that's a good thing or not, i don't know. i wonder why he is not more popular. i wonder if he wants to be more popular. who knows. i do know that his song "apple of my eye" was mildly popular because once laura saw the video for it somewhere. where was that, anyway? man, that was a while ago.

there are many things i need to do

instead, i spent the night trying to take a decent picture of myself so i can use something for facebook other than that one from sarah's 23rd birthday party.

the work story that was "long" is way too difficult to try to explain, but i will say this. i had to bring an issue to the attention of my group leader patrick regarding some stuff i was working on that had become difficult to deal with, and he had to get 3 higher up people involved, just because this one guy called peter is an idiot and doesn't want to admit he's wrong. we caught him in a bold-faced lie today. everyone was pissed at him.

the problem is that we have this hierarchical system that people have to go through to get stuff done. sometimes the people who are in marketing try to sidestep the system by directly sending stuff to me or dan or whoever. at times we just do it, but this guy peter sent me a shiteload of crap and i couldn't do it.

anyway.....we have a new guy starting on monday called lance. i cannot help but think of the medieval weapon when i hear that name. thanks, medieval studies certificate. i saw him when he was interviewing. he's like 35 or so. i swear to god they will never hire anyone my age.

also, i "get" to go back to working 9-5. i'm not sure i'm that happy about it, but at least i'll get to watch stargate, and actually get stuff done at night.

Blinking (as in turning)

Another thing: Something that pisses me off to no end is when people don't blink when they need to change lanes or turn somewhere. I HATE it when people just veer over into other lanes randomly, or turn somewhere without blinking. That has to be one of my hugest pet peeves. Gah! Just thinking about it now is irritating me.

 

I have a story to tell about work, but I am not going to tell it now because it is too long.

Speedometer

I was just talking to a coworker about driving, because she got into a car accident and is being sued. She said that they'll probably ask how fast she was going and she'll say she doesn't know "because anyone who knows how fast they're going all the time is lying."

 

I thought to myself, "Uh...I do..." because I look at the speedometer every 5-10 seconds. I'm obsessed with it and I have to go the speed limit or no more than ~3 over. She said she looks at it maybe every 10 minutes. I was shocked at that.

 

Is this weird? Do others of you look at the speedometer really often?

 

I'm now going to be really paranoid about that. I'm realizing at this moment that on my 30 second drive to work I look at the speedometer constantly. It's because there's a gradual decline in the road on the way to work, and if you don't brake you'll speed up quite a bit. So I always brake slightly before the bottom of the curve so as to maintain 32-34 mph.

 

I never realized how obsessive-compulsive I am about this and that it may not be the norm.

 

But, you know, it will do me well in the end. I am sure I'm less likely to get pulled over for speeding since I never do.

today st paul looks like a kodak print from 1973

the trees are way too green and the sky is way too blue. it looks completely fake.

the fact that i didn't do levels on these at all should tell you something.

Question

"Libya to Be Dropped From List of Sponsors of Terror"

 

There is a list of Sponsors of Terror???!?!?

 

I can't even think of anything else to say about that. It's beyond my capability of understanding.

stargate convention

i'm trying to figure out what kind of thing i want to do for the stargate convention. the "gold package" is $370. not bad, really, considering it's 3 days and i think that includes hotel stay (i could be wrong, but if it doesn't that really sucks). michael shanks autographs are $30 and a photo op is $55 (i believe that is extra). i don't think i'll do the photo op because 1) i severely dislike photos, and 2) i'd have the overwhelming urge to jump him, and i can't be completely certain that i'd be able to hold myself down. ahhhhhhh he is cute.

one time when i was younger i thought of writing my memoirs, which i would title "michael." basically because i really liked the word. this is before i knew laura's michael (actually, maybe i knew him, but not well). i just liked the word and i considered it my mantra. i actually wrote the first little bit of it. it was about how words are very powerful, and how you can form them into anything, and crod like that. can you imagine...memoirs at age 16. that would be extremely boring to read.

i can pretty much tell time in icelandic now. which is semi-sad because i've "learned" it at least 3 times. here is 12:45, which is what time it is now:

Klukkan er vantar korter í eitt.

that's really long, isn't it? here is what i found out: as the hour progresses, trying to say what time it is gets longer and longer. saying ___ o'clock is easy.

My favorite number is 8: átta. (you say it like OUT-a).

Also, I laughed today because in the course there's an exercise where you have to match up months with seasons. The months were March, April, July, and September (the word for September is really hard: "september"). March came first so I put it with Spring, but it was actually supposed to be winter. Hehehehe! :D I love the north.

since i have now bumped icelandic-learning up to a high priority on my self-betterment list (which doesn't actually exist anywhere in reality), you may start seeing a lot of it on here. so, feel free to skip it. it helps me to get things done if i write them in here, because the blog has a sort of finality to it. once i write in here, it's out there. so it helps me learn stuff, and do stuff, etc.

And there you have it.

thinking

i need to do something about this constant existential crisis i find myself in about 6 days a week.

 

don't you ever wish you could just do whatever you want? this is really cliche, but life is so short...people should really just be able to do what they want, and not be idiots about things. what's the point of everything we do on a daily basis?

 

and how many times have i said these same words? answer: many.

 

i don't feel like writing about this right now.

 

i'm almost done with my goals for today. i only have 9 oz of water left.

last night...she said...oh baby i something something

did i or did i not already name a blog entry that same exact thing?

last night i was talking to this friend i have in philadelphia (named tom) (he is on facebook but i don't think you guys can see his entire page, but he's there, under drexel). i know him from when i used to go on the coldplay message board. he is one of the coolest people i know, because he just is. he is a lot like a guy version of emily, in a lot of ways.

anyway, he is a music technology major. i asked if i could listen to something, so he sent me something and it's incredible. i was very impressed. someday i will make you guys listen. sarah, you'd like him because one of his influences is brian wilson.

so that's what i did last night, talked to him, and was pleased because he is extremely funny. 'twas a pleasant evening.

i think i'm in love

some stuff on akureyri, which i dreamed about last night. only 17,000 people live there. i am going to go someday. they have cruises that go there. that would be fun. ah! they are premiering my favorite arcade fire song on subterranean! and they said chris martin loves them! and i'm wasting the video time by typing in here!

Weekly goals

I have decided that I am going to have a set of goals this week, and maybe every week. I am writing them in here because that increases the likelihood of success by about 6000%.

- eat at least 1 serving of vegetables a day (which will suck since ones that i like that i can also eat are basically tomatoes, which don't really count, and green beans.

- do yoga every single day, at least up until the end of the standing up part.

- update website TOMORROW (monday may 15).

- do icelandic every single day. this is going to consist of a lesson plan i am going to have to make for myself. any ideas on good language teaching skills, emily? i think that at this point, trying to write down noun charts is useless, so i'm going to wait on that one. verb charts may be slightly useful. i just need some sort of thing i can do that makes me feel like what i'm doing is not completely fruitless. i will probably
a. study a lesson in my book whilst on lunch
and/or b. do the online course for a little bit.

on that subject, i have been trying to look for actual courses that you pay for. i can't find anything online. u of m actually looked promising because they have some kind of affiliation with university of iceland, but it turned out to be an exchange student thing. there was something at the Sigurður Nordal Institute (in reykjavik), but that was in-house. also, there was something in akureyri (which i am apparently now obsessed with) but is also in-house. i was surprised while looking up this stuff how much icelandic education info i had obtained when working on Icelandic Online at the library. for instance, i actually knew what the Sigurður Nordal Institute was and i even sort of know who he was. so, long story short(er), no luck on the online paying classes, which sucks. not enough people speak it. man, there were classes for summer session for swedish, norwegian, finnish, anything that you could take online at a university in manitoba. they even have an icelandic department. but no summer course.

last goal:
- drink 64 oz. of water (which is going to somewhat suck for a while). i've been doing around 32 for a while, which is ok. it's ok if i bring my water bottle to work.

so, to reiterate.
vegetables, yoga, website, icelandic, and water.

now you see my priorities in life, and i give you permission to judge accordingly.

ugh

what a strange day.

if any of you have been to my apartment or have seen a picture, you may recall that the futon was broken. the real deal was that the mattress would not fold. i don't know where my mom got it (she gave it to me), but it's a weird mattress and makes the frame always go flat. so, today i went to ikea, and lo, found a mattress that folds and is the exact right size. i am so proud of myself.

i have been trying to clean and it's taking forever. my back hurts. i am also doing laundry. i think it was a bit much to try to do in one night.

city of god

i just watched city of god, and if that isn't a movie that makes you think about how pointless life is, i don't know what is. it is about drug wars in brazil in the 70s. it's like, various guys would just go around killing people all day and that's what they did. they killed anyone and everyone, pretty much for fun. even women and children. so, whether you think of the tiny kids that got killed or the people who did it, and compare that with your own life, it's weird. what's it all for? what about some kid who was like 7, with no family, and just got killed randomly one day and nobody cared or knew at all? compare that with how we live. going to work every day and doing all this random shit...and then one day we die, and that's it. it's stupid. for instance, i'm thinking i'm going to go to work tomorrow for an hour and a half because i only did 38.5 hours this week, and then i'm going to go try to find a futon mattress. it's just so idiotic. why are we forced by law to work 40 hours a week? why do i have to make it up if i had to leave to see sigurros? i am just in one of those moments now during which i can't fathom society. and it's not like i try really hard to go against the grain...i go right along with it. but that doesn't mean i like it in any way, shape, or form.

 

and one thing that is even more stupid: access hollywood, which just happened to be on. they were discussing rhinestoned baby pacifiers that celebrities buy. illustrates my point to a friggin' T.

Iceland

Last night I had a dream in which I visited Iceland. It was kind of complicated. Here's the deal:

 

Either I dreamed before that I visited Iceland and last night my dream referenced that, or I made up a previous dream of visiting Iceland in my dream. Because in it, I was going to places that I had already visited, and I sort of "knew" in my subcounscious that I had dreamed about these places before (it wasn't just a simple idea that I'd actually visited before--I knew it was a dream). However, I do not know if I actually did dream it before, or if my brain fabricated some deja vu.

 

Anyway, in my "previous" visit I had stayed at a red hotel called the Iceland House Hotel (conveniently titled--in London we stayed at the London House Hotel). :) I also had "previously" visited a train station (because I had taken a train to Iceland from elsewhere in Europe for one night, hehehehe), a government building, and a modern art museum which was very colorful.

 

What else...a girl I knew in childhood lived there, and so did Lucelia. They had kangaroos in Iceland, as well as wild boars who grinned fanatically all the time. Also, it was kind of icy at the museum and people were complaining that other people shouldn't let their kids wear sandals, because they would slip. There was a woman with an unfathomably tiny purple car. She could hardly fit in it. The landscape was extremely pretty and full of lakes. I believe we went to Akureyri.

 

Oh, and I saw "the set of 101 Reykjavik" which was absolutely nothing like anything in the movie. It was apparently just a handy thing for my subconscious to bring up.

 

The whole dream was beautiful. :)

Ode to Laura (and Michael)

Laura and Michael are great. They have been doing a lot of stuff with me since I moved here, and it has been making me feel so much better about being here. I neglected to write about some of our adventures, such as the time we went to a comic book store and found Mexican Comic Book Guy, and bought a train game which Michael is now obsessed with. I have been thinking since Laura and I went to SR that she is one of the coolest people I know, and I think she is a kindred spirit. Not many people would go to SR, and Death Cab, and Coldplay, and be interested as well, and understand things that I say about them, and say that Viðrar vel til Loftárasa is the song-ification of love, and be able to even say the song's name. Or the band's name (as we quickly overheard amidst the throngs). And not many people would say that "Check out that lady's decolleté!" is the Eleventh Commandment. And Michael likes trains a lot and puts dots and lines on &COMP (whatever that means). And they are both two of the most enjoyable people to be around. And I just wanted to say that, and thanks for doing crod with me! Did you ever see Noi?

Oh

We got this new theme card today which beats all others hands-down for the prize of crappiest card ever created. I have to show you the minute I get a jpeg of it. It is friggin' hilarious. It was the talk of the office this afternoon.

I decided to write down the funny incidents now.

Our servers go down all the time, like on average probably a couple of hours a month. They suck. They went down yesterday briefly and Pat goes, "Ok, who opened the virus-laden email?!"

Dan has these things he says all the time, such as "Are you excited!?" which he says at least twice a day. One of his most recent acquisitions is this: "Elizabeth, it's _____, and you are dead to me." He does this after I make a snide comment. For instance, "Elizabeth, it's 2:04, and you are dead to me." And then the next day, "Elizabeth, it's 4:37 and you are dead to me. It took a lot longer today, I'll give you that." He also likes to say, "When you lie, it makes me cry inside."

Yesterday Dan said something was going to make his head implode and I said that would be cool to see. He said, "Well, thanks. Next time your head implodes, I'll be like 'COOL!'" I laughed heartily at the thought that my head could implode more than once. It makes me think of a head that inflates and deflates on command.

I guess that's it. Pretty good couple of days. I'm sick to death of my chair, though. My life is really, really sad-sounding sometimes.

work

we just got new "teams" again and i'm slightly pissed off because "my" store is now dan's. but i nursed it from its childhood! and nobody loves it like i do...and nobody can take care of it like i can...

also, ipod guy and another girl (Nicky) are on our team now. our team is also split into two further teams, Team I and Team II. the word team has lost all meaning to me right now. i am on Team I with Nicky, and IG and Dan are on Team II. Nicky and I get the mortgage/loan stores (kill me now) and NRT stores (which stands for something i can't remember at the moment).

i guess that's it. i have some funny incidents that i don't feel like writing down at the moment.

oh, and there have been a couple of times in recent weeks where i have heard IG's music from my NEW cube. that's how bad it is. He and this other woman have taken to coming over and chatting with me for hours and it's really starting to bother me. Maybe I should act less friendly.

More things about the concert

P.S. I am absolutely loving my living room setup. Yay me...only took me 4 tries.

 

Ok, the concert. We had incredible seats (thanks to Laura). There were three total assholes in front of us but there was one that was worse than the rest. Highlights (or lowlights) of what he did: smoked various things, drank profusely, shouted out "Iceland!" during a quiet part, completely ruined Untitled 4 by shouting out some shit, shouted out some other shit which included profanity, banged his head around intensely the entire time which involved flinging his long hair into the faces/backs of heads of the people in front of him.

 

The worst one of all was this: during Viðrar, the band paused for a couple of minutes during which the audience is SUPPOSED to be silent, and if the audience had any grain of respect they would have been, but no. the guy shouts out a bunch of crap, and the girl with him screams two or three times.

 

Now, ok. I have only been to two of their shows, but I know this. Sigurros concerts are like orchestra concerts. You do not speak. You do not cough. If they pause in the middle of a song, you are silent. If they pause in the middle of Viðrar, considered the single best song ever created by me (and of course I'm the only person that matters), and you talk, it is a mortal sin. And an immortal sin, and a limbo sin, and a poltergeist sin.

 

I felt so bad, inexplicably bad, and ashamed that this person was doing this. I also felt like I nearly could have punched him. And you know it's bad when I want to do that.

 

Later, Laura and I were discussing what we had fantasized about doing. Her ideas involved some sort of mechanism, like brass knuckles but with a knife, that she would use to cut his throat. My ideas involved saying "shut the fuck up" and "did you know you're the largest asshole in history?" and punching him.

 

What else...um...jonsi said "takk" and "takk fyrir" which pleased me to no end. he didn't really say anything in english. he said something to the sound guys in icelandic which i didn't catch. he's incredible. laura and i also discussed what it would like to be in that band. i wouldn't be able to do it. i really enjoyed watching orri (the drummer). he practically leaps off his seat with every beat. georg (the bassist) (the one emily liked) (what's with bassists being attractive to emily?) was cute.

 

I was shocked that they played Viðrar, which I mentioned earlier. I nearly cried during it, but 50% of that was because I was so upset that the guy yelled out during the silence. I did not actually cry, though. I also mentioned before that in my opinion that's the best song ever written. It's unreal. Laura said that she decided it is the song-ification of love. How is it possible that someone wrote that song? During it they were showing tiny bits of its video. Mainly the doll part. The video consists of this: Two boys who fall in love and a doll is involved somehow. One of their dads finds out and decks him and throws the doll in a lake. That sounds so weird but believe me, it's just as increíble as the song. Ok, maybe not that much.

 

Oh, at the end they all came out and took a bow, which was adorable. Laura is right: jonsi looks like a kid when he grins.

 

They had a translucent screen down for the first and last songs.

 

The show was way different than the one we saw in 2001.

 

I liked the lights during Untitled 4. They created this effect that basically made your brain go out of your body. Or at least stop working.

 

Jonsi's voice was really good. It sounded great. I cannot fathom how he can sing so high. And also, his microphone had a great ability to pick up his voice at different distances, which he used to for dynamics. (Gah! Piano terms! No!)

 

During hoppipolla there was some video of feet hopping in puddles. :)

 

During another song there was video of those giant structures that hold wires, near industrial areas. I was contemplating where I had actually seen some, and then this morning I was driving to work and lo, there are a bunch right by work, since I live in the midst of this weird industrial area where there are a lot of trains going by, etc. Sometime you's all should check out a map and see how many train tracks go by where I live. There are at least 5, I think. Trains are going by constantly. But it is not loud in my apartment, thankfully.

 

Jonsi ruined a bunch of bows (at least 3) which prompted some discussion between me & L about how he gets new bows. We decided amongst ourselves that either he has a private person who re-strings them, or he does it himself, or he gets cheap refills, because you can take the horse hair out.

 

georg used a drumstick on his bass once.

 

They had a pipe organ which they used on heysatan. it was also used a lot by the opening band amina. amina was all girls. they played approximately 65 different instruments. including a saw, glasses with water, which they did the thing where you run your finger around the rim, bells which they used a violin bow on, various plucked instruments, and a laptop (ibook).

 

i'm going to go. conan in chicago! i don't think i really missed anything. l & i got the same shirt. it is cool.

songs from last night

here are the songs they played, as far as i can remember, with convenient translations for those who want them, which are kind of weird because Icelandic, especially sigurros Icelandic, is obsessed with compound words that don't make sense in English, such as starálfur (staring elf) - what is that? i'm slightly confused as to why one is glósoli and one is hafssol ( i.e. why one has an -i). i don't know a good answer to that. maybe soli is actually an adjective.

 

glósoli (glowing sun)

hoppipolla (hopping in puddles)

með bloðnasir (sp?) (with a nosebleed)

sæglopur (sea creature)

milanó (milan)

svö hljótt (so quiet)

heysátan (hay wagon)

viðrar vel til loftárasa (which was increíble [that's Spanish]) (good weather for an airstrike)

olsen olsen (olsen olsen)

Untitled 4 (untitled 4)

2 other Untitleds, not sure which ones (2 other Untitleds, not sure which ones)

hafssol (sea's sun)

 

i was greatly pleased because within that list are probably all of my extreme favorites of theirs. the only Untitled one i can really stand for long periods of time is 4, so that was good.

 

i was hoping they'd play heysátan because i thought it would be cool live, and it was. some of the others i would never have expected to hear, such as svö hljótt and milanó.

 

i was also greatly pleased that i could FINALLY figure out some of the lyrics in viðrar vel til loftárasa that have been puzzling me for literally 5 years. i've been having that song in my head all day and it's like a knife is stabbing me in the heart. i need to go now.

Sigur Ros

I don't even know why I'm writing about it...I can't discuss it in words. I will say this: there are people in the world, who take the form of a person who sat in front of us, that are the personification of evil and everything bad in the world.

 

I rearranged my living room last night. I like it and I think I'll keep it this way. I also am going to put some new organizational methods in place which will hopefully help me keep the apartment in shape. My cube at work is always spotless and I think it's because of my organizational methods there.

 

I'm going to go now. Maybe I'll write about the concert later. I don't know.

maybe i have bird flu

i mean, it must be something important if there's a prime time movie about it

Not feeling well again

What is it with me and feeling ill? I have an intense stomach ache and have all day. It's a stabbing pain, in my actual stomach. I might need to leave because I'm getting nauseated.

I may have neglected to mention

SIGUR RÓS IS TODAY!!!

 

woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

yay laura!

the image uploader unnecessarily upsets me.

what is that yellow bar?


i honestly don't care........

sick of pictures

i'm sick of doing pictures. these are the best so sort them out as you will. there were quite a few blurry ones because the damn animals move around so much. i couldn't get a good one of the zebra. there was also a lioness (pregnant, no less) that was inches away from me but wouldn't keep her head still.

agh! i can't upload them all. i hate this blog sometimes. this sucks. now i have to check which ones are here and which aren't.

Day at the park

Today I went to Como Park, where they have a zoo and conservatory (aka botanical gardens). I drove there first and noticed there was no parking, so I drove back and walked there. Christ, it sucked. It only took a half hour to walk there, but after walking around both of those places and walking back, I was about dead. And still am. Here are a few pictures. I have more, but am not posting them yet because I am tired.

Ghost video

Here is the clip of the ghost video. It's only 4 seconds long. I couldn't embed it in my blog for some reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoJ7JBQEUKM

Some pictures, etc.

I'm obsessed with the idea of taking a trip tomorrow. Sarah's busy so I can't go to Madison (well, I could, but I'd be alone). I think I'm going to find a state park to go to.

Last weekend, on my trip home I risked my life to take pictures of the beautiful sky.








































Here are a couple of pictures from the parking lot of Rainbow.

More hijinks

Dan ate uncooked pork today at lunch and got kind of sick. There was much talk around the people that ate with him that "Man, we told you it was uncooked! Dave said it too! You don't just ignore two guys when they say your pork is uncooked." Etc.

 

I made this post-it one time that was supposed to be a temporary reference for the order some things had to go in on a page. It was very hastily written. I feel like I've mentioned this post-it before. Anyway, later the same day Dan had the same problem so I got the post-it out of the trash and lent it to him (and had to do much explaining about what it said, and why it was crumpled). Weirdly enough, he kept it (in a prominent place, I might add). Today Seth had the same problem, so borrowed my post-it, which now has a much longer life than I ever expected it would. He couldn't understand it at all so we had this loud over-the-cube-walls conversation about how my post-it was bad, and well, it was only meant for a temporary reference, and Dan did a horrible job explaining the post-it, etc. He still has it up. Tomorrow I'll try to take a picture of it to show how bad it is. Not only was it hastily and badly written, but it's crumpled, even more so than when I gave it to him. It's practically a relic now. :)

 

Today someone said "yo" to Dan and he returned, "Yo-yo Ma, the greatest cello player who ever lived!" I laughed heartily.

 

Last night I watched Ghost Hunters and it was probably the best episode I've seen. Lately they've been having crappy ones, where they don't get anything. The very first few episodes they showed was really good, and they got a video of a shadowy thing running along a hallway, and some voices on a tape going "They don't want us here" (that one was friggin' weird and scary). They haven't gotten anything like that since. Since I have spent so much time around Brighton, I maintain that they keep good episodes for sweeps ( i.e. now) and season finales. Once I went on the scifi.com message board for that show and mentioned that and they seemed to have no concept of that kind of thing. It makes a lot of sense to me. Anyway, on the one from last night they were at a lighthouse and each one of them (there were 5 of them) saw the ghost and heard the voice of the ghost and footsteps. They even got a little bit of it on the show's cameras, which never happens. They set up their own cameras and voice recorders and they caught the ghost 2 times on video and one time on audio. It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen in my life. The worst one was this: a camera was positioned at the bottom of a spiral staircase that led up to the top of the lighthouse. There was a motion sensor at the top that turns on a light if it senses something, so you know there were no people up there (which they knew anyway). So the camera is looking straight up. Suddenly you see this head and shoulders peek over the railing at the very top, and move over to the right, and disappear. It is incredible.

 

Well, that's all for now. I have to quit thinking about that ghost thing because I'm at work completely alone and it's freaking me out.

Hijinks recently

Here are some hijinks that occurred lately.

Last week we were having a fun time making fun of the things that are written on theme cards. Here are some of our favorite examples.

The first two are from a baseball one:

I'll go to bat for you if you need to sell a home.

Buying or selling a home can be intimidating — whether it's your first home or your fifth home. You need a player who is ready to go to bat for you. That player is me.

As part of the Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage team, I can help find a home and sell your home quickly. When it's time for a change, I hope that you'll remember my dedication and determination and give me a call first.

I'll go to bat for you and hit a home run! Call me when you want the home field advantage

-----

Your home town team is ready to hit a grand slam for you.

Hitting a grand slam is every ball player's dream. And hitting a grand slam for home buyers is every real estate associate's dream. Coming up with the home that has every detail that you're looking for is a great feeling.

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage is your home town team. And I'm the player on your side when it comes to getting everything you want in a home. As part of an international organization, I can offer you global home buying and selling assistance.

Remember to call me first when you want the winning team to work for you!

-----

Here is one from a NASCAR postcard (yes, NASCAR):

Do you want your home to go fast?

If you do, make sure you've got a professional "behind the wheel."

As your Coldwell Banker Real Estate professional, I have the experience and the resources you need to gain a swift victory over the competition. Whether you're buying or selling a home, you'll want someone on your team who has the expertise and negotiating power to get the best deal for you and your specific situation.

When you feel the need for speed, give me a call! I'll get you into Victory Lane — fast!

-----

Here is Dan's personal favorite (and also mine) from a "Celebrate America" postcard (vomit):

The American flag is much more than a banner. It's a symbol of our nation's core values and all that we have accomplished through the centuries.

I love being a real estate professional and assisting individuals and families in achieving lifelong aspirations. Meeting and exceeding your expectations is what I do best, because I take the time to listen to all your hopes and dreams.

Let me assist you with turning your real estate aspirations into a reality. I am proud to be an American and associated with America's premier real estate company.

Dan could not get over the sentence "The American flag is much more than a banner." Hahaha. Now I want to know how many of these have ever been ordered. I'm going to look. Oh, christ! In CB Chicago--2. In CB Burnet (our local one)--5. EVER! Well, at least agents have a little bit of taste. I was going to post a picture of the most ordered product in Burnet, but it's ugly. We always joke that the most ordered product is always the black and white BRC, because it's the cheapest. And it's always the ugliest. So here is the 2nd most ordered in Burnet, with 238 orders, the Standard Postcard with 3 photos.

That 2nd thumbnail looks really crappy. It must be old. If I were doing it, it would look a lot better. Because, you see, we have a graphics person here called Dave, but in the past month or so I have been doing a lot of the product graphics because he has another project. Here is an example of one I did.

See, isn't it pretty? I also have been known to cut out the parts that jut into the pictures, thusly:

Eh? See that, how the balloon juts up and the tan thing goes over the photo? Nice, huh?

The ones like this take friggin' forever:

I think I'll send this and start another...this has taken an entirely different route than I expected.

why must i continually be surrounded by bad grammar and spelling?

yesterday some of my stuff was going through testing and there was a question on whether some piece of text could be changed. it was a part i didn't have control over (i would have done it in an instant). so the person who was in charge of it asked the project manager if we could change it and he said no!!! it was horrible! if you recall, that's what happened with the ads i was working on a while back (the most infamous of which i have immortalized by using for the subtitle of my blog).

 

another one: i'm working on setting up a store with a coworker, christi (the one who i got into a semi-argument with one day about how to set up products). well, she made some TOC (table of contents, aka left-side menu) items and one of them she named "Stationary." it's supposed to be for stationery items, by the way. honest mistake. so one day i went in and changed the spelling to "Stationery." all was good. then, today i looked at it and lo, it was changed back!!!!!!!! that is going to annoy the hell out of me. i looked at our spreadsheet and it said "Stationery." i hope to god that someone catches that in testing because it will piss me off if i have to see it there every time. i know, maybe i can tip them off, and then they can write it up and she'll change it then. aha. i'll try that, maybe.

 

sometimes i change grammar and the testers tell me to change it back because it's not what they got on their proofs (or what we call hard copies). but other times, they tell me to change something, and it's not what's on the proofs. gahhh.

 

there are 4 people in our office from a different department, and every single one annoys me to death. right now, the most annoying one is talking to another one and they have been talking for at least an hour and a half. don't they have work to do? i have silently yelled at this guy at least 5 times this afternoon. i can't even explain how much he pisses me off. this other woman is bad too, but sometimes worse because i sit right next to her. the worst thing about her is when she talks on the phone, because she has a terrible accent and hams it up sometimes. she always, always answers the phone "Alló?" like she's french, in a really loud voice. she also types extremely loudly. the word "types" looks really weird, like it should be "typs" but i don't think "typs" is correct.

 

oh! i thought of the word that is switching from strong to weak (I think): strive. see, you can imagine that strived and striven both seem "correct" as past participles (try using them with "I had _____..."). striven seems more archaic, does it not? both seem weird--probably because you hardly ever use the pp of strive. drive may not be far behind. i can't quite see myself saying "drived," though.

i am not feeling too well

i think i'm getting sick. my skin aches, like it does before i get the flu. i am tired. and, i don't want to go to work tomorrow. i feel like i could sleep for about 39 hours. ughhhhh

a þúsund apologies

sorry to all and sundry for my grouchiness last night. i am still grouchy now, but will try not to exhibit it in my writing. i wish i had some good snack food.

 

Did anyone see in the Online Wisconsin that they're having a trip to Iceland for alumni only (in September)? Argh. I am 95% sure I won't even consider going, but it was there. The main reason is that it's for 12 days. Secondary reason: it is $3700, plus another $700 if you're single. What? Penalizing me AGAIN for being single??? They should really just throw people in a room together. Maybe they do, but make you pay if you insist on being in a single room. The trip is a geology/geophysics trip, not a Scandinavian culture thing, so that sort of tells you what they'd be going to see. They are going to Þingvellir (site of the first Parliament in Europe). That would be cool--I've heard it's a magical place.

 

What else can I talk about...how annoyed I am at the world today? No...I'll just end this entry.

i wish i could die

so, i've been wondering lately: why exactly do i want to learn icelandic so much? let's say one day i become fluent. what then? i have no idea. i have no earthly clue why i want to learn it.

 

it pisses me off because lately i've been working really hard at it, like a couple of hours a day. and it's very difficult. i've been getting really frustrated at it every day. and if there is one thing i despise, besides this fucking keyboard, it's getting frustrated. also an ache in the lumbar region, feeling hungry, feeling tired, having shitty shoes, etc.

 

anyway, as you may be able to tell, i'm frustrated right now. particularly because of nouns. on the online class that i look at, one of the "hints" was "it's important to learn the gender of nouns from the start." UGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!! I HATE YOU!

 

see, the problem is that the online class does nothing to teach you the gender of nouns. and besides that, there are three genders, within that at least 5-7 classes, 2 "persons", 4 cases for each person, and none of them are alike. there is pretty much no way to tell which gender nouns are, as far as i can tell. and the online class doesn't give you any hints on how to tell. can you tell? mynd, borð, what are those? believe it or not, feminine and neuter. they don't conveniently end in -a for feminine and -o for masculine. nope. there is no way except to just know them all. fuck you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i hate you!

 

verbs are easy. they're normal. i fucking hate this keyboard right now, and the fact that you have to "know" nouns. why can't they be easy like in english? you have to know 8 fucking forms for each one, and besides that, you have to know which form it is before you can even start. AUGHHH!!! why am i doing this?

 

FUCK THIS PIECE OF SHIT KEYBOARD. i paid seventy-five dollars for this and it doesn't work and NEITHER DOES THE MOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i am SO ANRGY RIGHT NOW. i need someone to come shoot my brains out.

OE/Icelandic fun

I was reading some verbs today and was delighted to find some fun things between Icelandic and OE as well as Icelandic and Modern English. I shall share now.

The word for "bitten" is bitinn (pronounced the same) - hehehehe!!!
The word for "eaten" is etinn (pronounced like eight-in)
The word for "fallen" is fallinn (pronounced the same)

Verbs with past participles ending in -en in English are known as strong verbs. In OE almost all verbs were strong, and most of them became weak over time (weak pps end in -ed). There is one that is currently in the process of changing, but I don't remember which. I'll have to think about it.

Another piece of info: in linguistics, especially OE, when studying verbs there is a thing called "principal parts." they usually give you certain forms of the verb that are different from each other, so that you know how to inflect it. For instance, for this Icelandic one (bera): ber bar bárum borinn, ber is the present indicative first person singular, bar is, I think, third person singular preterite indicative, bárum is first person plural something or other, and borinn is the past participle. They'll give you 4 if they're all different and 3 if they are less different.

So I was looking at the principal parts for that one I just listed, and noticed it was practically the same as OE. Observe.

Icel: bera (bear) - ber borinn
OE: beran - bær boren (I could not find the rest of them)

Note: þ is a "th" sound and ð is as well.
Icel: þola (suffer) - þoldi þolað
OE: þolian - þolie þoled (couldn't find the rest of those either)
That word was used like a million times in Beowulf. I know it well and laughed when I saw the Icel. one.

þykja (think) - þyki þótti þótt
þencan - þenc þohte þoht

See the similarities? I was shocked. They really are similar in a lot of ways. It's like Icelandic and OE were the same up until like 1000AD and then OE drastically changed, while Icel. stayed basically the same. It's weird, because it's largely unpredictable and uncontrollable. I'm guessing that Iceland is isolated and small enough so that there really wasn't anything coming in that made it change. They don't really have dialects there and no large group of immigrants or settlers have ever been there. So, no reason to change. English, on the other hand, has had innumerable reasons to change.

There's your linguistics lesson for this evening. Hope you enjoyed it.

i hate the phone today

since 4 i have gotten about 10 calls. and at least two of them were people who were pissed off at me. what am i supposed to do?

 

i just wish it was more obvious to people that those who answer the phones, especially at night, don't really have any power to do anything.