"Classy" is an interesting word, because it seems that we're more likely to
use it to discuss the absence of classiness than its presence. People are
likely to use it when saying that something is not very classy, or use a
sarcastic "Oh, that's classy." But people very rarely describe something as
classy, and when they do it's most likely something that falls into a
category that is generally considered not at all classy.

Also, the word "classy" is starting to look really weird right now.

Twelve straight hours of MASH is a MASH marathon. Two straight hours of Family Guy is a Family Guy mini-marathon. So somewhere between two and twelve is the borderline between a marathon and a mini-marathon.

Everyone should be very proud of me because I opened one of the vents in my
wall and looked inside to check the status of the filter. And I was alone
in the apartment at the time!

(If you're reading this and thinking, "Why would people be proud of her over
something simple like that?" then this message isn't directed at you.)

I finally figured out what U of T means by an "activity code". Turns out
it's just the course code. I was thrown off because York had course codes,
and then another code that you had to type in to register. So I thought the
"activity code" was something different (because if they meant course code
they'd just say course code, no?) and was going through all my U of T
propaganda to find activity codes until the correct answer occurred to me in
the shower this morning.

So then, correct code in hand, I go to register. It won't let me. I look
to see if the course is full. It says the course doesn't exist. I look to
see if the course has been cancelled. It hasn't been. Turns out that at U
of T you aren't allowed to register for anything at all between August 16
and 23. Who ever heard of a random week of non-registration in the middle
of August? It's bad enough that ROSI closes down overnight, but to not
accept registrations just for the sake of it, and make it so students can't
even see if there's room left in a class?

I'm so glad that this course does not matter in the grand scheme of things,
or I would be seriously stressed!

Emma Brown by Clare Boylan and The Snow Fox by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

I loved both these books because of the pure escapism they provided. Emma
Brown, which is based on an unfinished novel by Charlotte Bronte, is set in
Victorian England, and The Snow Fox takes the reader into the samurai
culture of medieval Japan. Both authors adopted narrative voices appropriate
to the era in which the novel was set. Clare Boylan seamlessly picked up
where the first few chapters of Bronte's work left off, and Susan Fromberg
Schaeffer's narration is reminiscent of the Tale of Genji. The two disparate
cultures are both characterized by an elegant, refined facade with a strict
and prescriptive etiquette under which lurk all manner of unsavoury things.
However, the unsavoury elements are handled in the discreet, oblique manner
in which they would have been referred to during the eras in which each
novel is set, so the result is two novels that deal with quite unpleasant
topics in a way that is not at all disturbing to even a slightly squeamish
adult reader. (The only reason I'm not mentioning what the unpleasant
topics are is because they don't come up right away, so it would be a bit of
a spoiler).

The only thing that does require a bit of a warning is that the cover of The
Snow Fox features a painting of full rear-view female nudity, so you might
not want to read it in public. However, I highly recommend both novels, and
will likely be reading them both again.

"They just want to get a reaction from you", as an explanation for
everything from teasing to bullying to sexual harassment.

Is that true? Are there really people wandering around going "Ha ha, I got
someone to react to something annoying I did!"? What on earth leads to that
sort of behaviour? Or is that just an explanation perpetuated by the
Asshole Cabal so that their victims will be sufficiently cowed and NOT react
to their behaviour, so they can get away with whatever they want.

I wish I was acquainted with a bully who could stop bullying me for long
enough to answer a few questions, and answer those questions honestly. I'm
really curious about what motivates them, but I find the standard
explanations that parents/teachers/anti-bullying websites give rather
difficult to believe.

So far I've seen commercials by McDonald's and Home Depot gloating about how
many of their employees are Olympic contenders. Is that really in any way
an accomplishment of the corporation? Wouldn't it be disheartening to be
one of the most elite athletes in the world but have to put up with the shit
that fast-food and retail employees have to deal with daily?

I just got evangalized to! Right outside my apartment building! This lady, who looked to be about 100, (and I'm not just using 100 as a youthful substitute for "old", she looked about as old as my late centenarian great-grandmother did, and she looked significantly older than my living 80-something grandmother), pulled me aside and kept talking to me about "the good news" and tried to give me something that looked like a chick tract, except it was in colour and had panda bears on it.

Theory: Dog breeders keep breeding various poodle crosses so they can have
lots of dogs with silly breed names.

I wonder how customizable Olympic athletes' competition uniforms are. I know they all have to dress the same (that's the point of uniforms), but I wonder if they can be custom-made or altered. I noticed a couple of athletes whose outfits didn't seem to fit them as well or as comfortably as they could, and that doesn't seem to be the ideal situation when competing in the Olympics. I wonder if they can wear their own shoes? I wonder if there are rules about how they wear their hair? I wonder if there are Olympic-wide rules about what team uniforms can be like?

Someone should make a movie where all the actors can only see the script for scenes in which their characters appear, and the actors don't get to know anything more about the plot than their characters do.

I have a bump in the corner of my eye. It's either a painless zit or sty, or some sort of calcium deposit. It's really weird. My mother would tell me to put a warm compress on it, but it doesn't seem pore-ish and I don't want ooze oozing out of my eyelid. It isn't painful or uncomfortable, it just looks funny.

You know how if you look at a light and then close your eyes you see a sort of ghost/image of the light you were looking at? Anyone know what that's called?

On MASH, there's a circle of stones in the middle of the compound. I wonder why?

Also, it's interesting how little time passed between when the Globe and Mail did their giant expose on trans fat and when snack manufacturers started making trans-free snacks.

Why are burqas always blue?

Handbook on Introductory Harmony by Mary H. Fraser is very good for introductory work. It approaches concepts slowly, one idea at a time, so it isn't at all overwhelming, quite unlike the Vandendool, and things are explained clearly enough that I'm confident working without a teacher (although the terminology is different, so I would want a teacher to help establish the correct terminology if I were taking the exams).

However, I have one HUGE peeve: the exercise book often sets exercises and doesn't provide staves in which to do them! If I have to buy a separate textbook and exercise book, I shouldn't also have to buy staff paper! The end result is, of course that I only do the exercises for which staves are provided, and my learning suffers for that. It would be an ideal book if only they provided staves for every exercise.

From the "Situations I Don't Know How To Handle" file: I was just groped by a 9-year-old autistic boy. I have no idea whether it was intentional or accidental.

I'm rather frustrated with my work lately. Translating requires very very intense concentration from part of my brain, but the rest of my brain is left with nothing to do. This unbalance makes it very hard for me to sustain my focus, and I often find my attention wandering as the part of my brain that is not occupied with translating goes off on new and exciting adventures. I know that when I take Dayquil the non-translation part of my brain ends up contentedly floating in happy land, but this isn't the way to get through the day, now is it?

Seen in my local Hasty Market: an older man wearing what appeared to be lederhosen, humming the Monty Python theme as he browsed through the produce section.