Dear World,
Putting Holy Week and Passover in the same week has made my job really, really hard. Nobody is taking any of the stuff I send out for the weekend, and all our translators want the week off. Even the Canadians. Particularly the Canadians. I have a 10k job into French for Canada and NOBODY will take it. They're all making quiche, or something. Silly Canadians.
Of course, this would be the perfect week for a big Arabic job, but no, I haven't had one of those since Mubarak resigned and none of my favorite Egyptians (all our best people are Egyptian, I have no idea why) had internet access.
Stop messing with me and current events! Argh.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Oh god please no
AHHHHHHHHH.
So I am in the process of putting together a powerpoint for this research conference I am required to attend on Friday in which I present my thesis. Because I have basically given up caring about anything related to the thesis at all, "putting together a powerpoint" now equates with "screenshotting parts of my .pdf to copy-paste into a powerpoint in lieu of doing actual work, because I honestly could not care less, and yes, I am this lazy."
EXCEPT FOR THE FACT MY SCREENSHOTS HAVE TYPOS. EFF MY LIFE TIMES INFINITY.
Exhibit 1. Note the last sentence.
I normally would just fix it, except I have already submitted this to the department. This version. With the typos. Also, I seriously care so little and am so blasé about the whole thing that I am just keeping this incorrect version in my powerpoint. What the hell ever, man. The day I willingly ignore typos has arrived.
Good god.
So I am in the process of putting together a powerpoint for this research conference I am required to attend on Friday in which I present my thesis. Because I have basically given up caring about anything related to the thesis at all, "putting together a powerpoint" now equates with "screenshotting parts of my .pdf to copy-paste into a powerpoint in lieu of doing actual work, because I honestly could not care less, and yes, I am this lazy."
EXCEPT FOR THE FACT MY SCREENSHOTS HAVE TYPOS. EFF MY LIFE TIMES INFINITY.
Exhibit 1. Note the last sentence.
I normally would just fix it, except I have already submitted this to the department. This version. With the typos. Also, I seriously care so little and am so blasé about the whole thing that I am just keeping this incorrect version in my powerpoint. What the hell ever, man. The day I willingly ignore typos has arrived.
Good god.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
I'm too young for this
Today I bought a French baguette at the Union Square Greenmarket. I wish now I had paid more attention to the stand where I bought it, because - and this is a small miracle - this baguette actually tastes like the French baguettes I remember. I want to go back for more, forever, now that the taste is stuck in my mouth and my brain. There's something very particular about the texture of the crust of a baguette, the slightly dry dusting of flour on the bottom half of the bread, the way it crumbles when you tear off pieces (and, if you're me, the way the breadcrumbs then rain down all over the floor, your shirt, and everything else nearby). It's glorious.
When I was fourteen and then again when I was sixteen, my summers in Paris tasted exactly like this baguette - smeared with nutella, jam or butter for the morning tartine, accompanied by a nice chèvre or fromage bleu at lunch, alongside some bad Beaujolais or cheap rosé in the long light of the evening, or even just plain whenever I got hungry, standing in that sunny Paris kitchen that was even smaller than my Manhattan kitchen is now. I ate bread that tasted like this bread every day during those summers - it's absurd that such a small, daily and unremarkable thing has triggered such a bizarre reaction in me now, years later and an ocean away.
I wish I knew where I could get more bread that tastes like this.
Tu veux du pain? Moi j'en veux.
When I was fourteen and then again when I was sixteen, my summers in Paris tasted exactly like this baguette - smeared with nutella, jam or butter for the morning tartine, accompanied by a nice chèvre or fromage bleu at lunch, alongside some bad Beaujolais or cheap rosé in the long light of the evening, or even just plain whenever I got hungry, standing in that sunny Paris kitchen that was even smaller than my Manhattan kitchen is now. I ate bread that tasted like this bread every day during those summers - it's absurd that such a small, daily and unremarkable thing has triggered such a bizarre reaction in me now, years later and an ocean away.
I wish I knew where I could get more bread that tastes like this.
Tu veux du pain? Moi j'en veux.
Friday, April 8, 2011
To the asshole riding the 6 today
Dear sir,
I know riding the subway is hard. The trains, you know - they move, they stop and start and sometimes the cars move side to side too, sometimes there are lots of people and strollers and grocery bags and crazy people and all sorts of entertaining and distracting things to look at. Welcome to the snapshot of New York, etc. etc., whatever, we've all heard it all. It's always an adventure: it starts the minute you swipe your card and push through the turnstiles, when the artificially-stale air blows your hair back to signal an approaching train, when people lean dangerously out over the tracks to look for the express. I know I know, the subway is awesome, and for a lot of people it's a daily trek.
You want to know what makes my day and my commute even better? Assholes like you. The kind who pretend to be drunk as an excuse to "fall" on me when the car jerks suddenly. I know you're larger and heavier and stronger than I am, I don't need an actual physical reminder of the fact, thanks though. And then you squish yourself next to me, closer than you should - the kind of closeness that's really only permissible on really, really packed trains, and then etiquette dictates that you keep your hands to yourself and your eyes down. You? You did neither of these things, on a half-empty train, and I'm sorry, but your feigned drunkenness fools no one, especially not me. You ignore my cues - I shrink in on myself, pull my purse onto my lap like it'll keep you away from my body, curl in my shoulders and bow my head until the position is almost fetal - all in an effort to move myself away from you, and then I start counting how many stops until I can get off the train. It's a pretty goddamn clear message, I think, but do you get it? No, of course not.
You know what you do instead, of course. You start talking, loudly, to your friend - who's still standing and looking around the car with an embarrassed half-sheepish expression, an unspoken apology for your behavior that does nothing for me - about how much you like women. About how many, you know, fucking hot girls (your words) there are on this train, you know, man? And how you're going to get fucked up tonight (again, your words), and how much you just wanna get some chicks, you get me? (also your words), and several other choice phrases I don't care to repeat, all while you're pressed right up against my side. I don't know what's worse, honestly: either you think I'm stupid enough to have my iPod turned up so loud it blocks the ambient noise around me (of course not, do I look dumb? no, I look fucking hot, in my black pants and black jacket, thanks ever so), or you want me to hear what you're saying. Either way it makes you an asshole, a predator, and it makes you the reason for my pissy mood on an otherwise-alright Friday.
People like you remind me why I appreciate New York in the winter, the fall and the spring. Because for all you rubbed up on me this evening, you never touched my skin - for which I am eternally grateful, because if you had I'd be in the shower right now scrubbing off your touch with steel wool and bleach. You don't even win the award for the biggest pig I've ever encountered on the subway - but you do win the award for the person who most ruined my day today, and that would mean a lot more if you had seen what I was dealing with at work this afternoon. I'm really glad I was permitted to pay $2.25 for the pleasure of being something pretty for you to look at. You asshole.
I always wonder what exactly is the point - do you do it just because you can? Am I supposed to feel flattered, to feel special? Am I supposed to treat it like a come-on and give you my number? Is it supposed to make me feel insignificant and unimportant and downtrodden? It makes me feel none of those things, you realize - it just makes me mad, because this is 2011, I am not a thing, I am in charge of my own body and you can just fuck right off, please. The worst part, of course, is that this encounter is filed under the "not so bad" incidents of my life and the overall female experience. It's truly lovely.
To everyone else on the train - thanks for lowering your eyes and thinking, At least he isn't bothering me. To myself - way to stand up for yourself, maybe one day you'll grow a pair large enough to do something besides make yourself smaller and to not lower your eyes when it happens to someone else; I have no illusions about my hypocrisy here. To American society - what the fuck makes us think something like this is okay?
Love,
me
I know riding the subway is hard. The trains, you know - they move, they stop and start and sometimes the cars move side to side too, sometimes there are lots of people and strollers and grocery bags and crazy people and all sorts of entertaining and distracting things to look at. Welcome to the snapshot of New York, etc. etc., whatever, we've all heard it all. It's always an adventure: it starts the minute you swipe your card and push through the turnstiles, when the artificially-stale air blows your hair back to signal an approaching train, when people lean dangerously out over the tracks to look for the express. I know I know, the subway is awesome, and for a lot of people it's a daily trek.
You want to know what makes my day and my commute even better? Assholes like you. The kind who pretend to be drunk as an excuse to "fall" on me when the car jerks suddenly. I know you're larger and heavier and stronger than I am, I don't need an actual physical reminder of the fact, thanks though. And then you squish yourself next to me, closer than you should - the kind of closeness that's really only permissible on really, really packed trains, and then etiquette dictates that you keep your hands to yourself and your eyes down. You? You did neither of these things, on a half-empty train, and I'm sorry, but your feigned drunkenness fools no one, especially not me. You ignore my cues - I shrink in on myself, pull my purse onto my lap like it'll keep you away from my body, curl in my shoulders and bow my head until the position is almost fetal - all in an effort to move myself away from you, and then I start counting how many stops until I can get off the train. It's a pretty goddamn clear message, I think, but do you get it? No, of course not.
You know what you do instead, of course. You start talking, loudly, to your friend - who's still standing and looking around the car with an embarrassed half-sheepish expression, an unspoken apology for your behavior that does nothing for me - about how much you like women. About how many, you know, fucking hot girls (your words) there are on this train, you know, man? And how you're going to get fucked up tonight (again, your words), and how much you just wanna get some chicks, you get me? (also your words), and several other choice phrases I don't care to repeat, all while you're pressed right up against my side. I don't know what's worse, honestly: either you think I'm stupid enough to have my iPod turned up so loud it blocks the ambient noise around me (of course not, do I look dumb? no, I look fucking hot, in my black pants and black jacket, thanks ever so), or you want me to hear what you're saying. Either way it makes you an asshole, a predator, and it makes you the reason for my pissy mood on an otherwise-alright Friday.
People like you remind me why I appreciate New York in the winter, the fall and the spring. Because for all you rubbed up on me this evening, you never touched my skin - for which I am eternally grateful, because if you had I'd be in the shower right now scrubbing off your touch with steel wool and bleach. You don't even win the award for the biggest pig I've ever encountered on the subway - but you do win the award for the person who most ruined my day today, and that would mean a lot more if you had seen what I was dealing with at work this afternoon. I'm really glad I was permitted to pay $2.25 for the pleasure of being something pretty for you to look at. You asshole.
I always wonder what exactly is the point - do you do it just because you can? Am I supposed to feel flattered, to feel special? Am I supposed to treat it like a come-on and give you my number? Is it supposed to make me feel insignificant and unimportant and downtrodden? It makes me feel none of those things, you realize - it just makes me mad, because this is 2011, I am not a thing, I am in charge of my own body and you can just fuck right off, please. The worst part, of course, is that this encounter is filed under the "not so bad" incidents of my life and the overall female experience. It's truly lovely.
To everyone else on the train - thanks for lowering your eyes and thinking, At least he isn't bothering me. To myself - way to stand up for yourself, maybe one day you'll grow a pair large enough to do something besides make yourself smaller and to not lower your eyes when it happens to someone else; I have no illusions about my hypocrisy here. To American society - what the fuck makes us think something like this is okay?
Love,
me
Saturday, April 2, 2011
So I submitted my thesis
This is the last post I will make on the subject. I promise.
So... yeah. It's done, it's over, lah-dee-fucking-dah. I am moving on with my life. I am still not sure it was worth it, all the angst and sleepless nights and whining and the fact that by all rights I should have no friends. I'm really glad you guys still answer my calls, let's just say. Anyway, so I dedicate it to you all, and even though most of you will never read the actual thesis I want you all to read this. Because I wrote it for all of you. Mostly the last bit.
(If there are typos in here, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOLD YOUR PEACE I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THEM, no I am serious, don't even think about it.)
Anyway. Thank you guys. I truly love you all.
Acknowledgments
I would first and foremost like to extend all my thanks to Dr. [name], who has been my advisor in this project and an invaluable resource and mentor throughout the course of my research. I would further like to recognize Drs. [name] and [name], who served two years each as Director of Undergraduate Studies during my time in the [university] Linguistics Department, for all their sound advice and academic guidance over the past four years.
I am also very grateful for the support, both academic and financial, of [name] and the members of the [scholarship] panel, and I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude for the grant they awarded me to conduct this research. I owe many thanks and much recognition also to my five anonymous speakers for lending me their voices and their time in this unpaid experiment. Without them, after all, this work would not exist.
And of course, all my love and greatest thanks go to my friends and family for the continuous aid and encouragement they provided throughout this project. I have been blessed with the immeasurable patience and unfailing support of my parents and my brother, who endured my jargon-filled discussions of grand linguistic themes and phonetic minutiae with laudable tolerance and humor. And to all my friends, both linguists and others, who encouraged, nagged, praised and berated me - you know who you are - I would be considerably less sane without you. Finally I extend my particular thanks and much love to my mother, who has been and always will be my first and most trusted editor and who is always willing to read my writing, even when it is over fifty pages long and about vowels.
FUCK YEAH I WROTE A THESIS. I am going to go get drunk now.**
**Obviously I leave the determination of whether this last line is included in my Acknowledgments to your imagination.
So... yeah. It's done, it's over, lah-dee-fucking-dah. I am moving on with my life. I am still not sure it was worth it, all the angst and sleepless nights and whining and the fact that by all rights I should have no friends. I'm really glad you guys still answer my calls, let's just say. Anyway, so I dedicate it to you all, and even though most of you will never read the actual thesis I want you all to read this. Because I wrote it for all of you. Mostly the last bit.
(If there are typos in here, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOLD YOUR PEACE I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THEM, no I am serious, don't even think about it.)
Anyway. Thank you guys. I truly love you all.
Acknowledgments
I would first and foremost like to extend all my thanks to Dr. [name], who has been my advisor in this project and an invaluable resource and mentor throughout the course of my research. I would further like to recognize Drs. [name] and [name], who served two years each as Director of Undergraduate Studies during my time in the [university] Linguistics Department, for all their sound advice and academic guidance over the past four years.
I am also very grateful for the support, both academic and financial, of [name] and the members of the [scholarship] panel, and I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude for the grant they awarded me to conduct this research. I owe many thanks and much recognition also to my five anonymous speakers for lending me their voices and their time in this unpaid experiment. Without them, after all, this work would not exist.
And of course, all my love and greatest thanks go to my friends and family for the continuous aid and encouragement they provided throughout this project. I have been blessed with the immeasurable patience and unfailing support of my parents and my brother, who endured my jargon-filled discussions of grand linguistic themes and phonetic minutiae with laudable tolerance and humor. And to all my friends, both linguists and others, who encouraged, nagged, praised and berated me - you know who you are - I would be considerably less sane without you. Finally I extend my particular thanks and much love to my mother, who has been and always will be my first and most trusted editor and who is always willing to read my writing, even when it is over fifty pages long and about vowels.
FUCK YEAH I WROTE A THESIS. I am going to go get drunk now.**
**Obviously I leave the determination of whether this last line is included in my Acknowledgments to your imagination.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Thinkity think think
So a few days ago, I received a package from my university.
Said package was your standard slightly squashy padded envelope, bent in half because our mailman does this thing where he is determined to fit everything into our very small mailbox, even if it involves, like, origami. ANYWAY. In this envelope I discovered two tassels. You know, the kind you wear on your cap when you graduate. From college.
Maybe this is just further proof that I'm actually slowly losing my mind, but ever since I opened that goddamn envelope and pulled out those two (two? why two? do they think I'll lose one?) knots of silken cord, I have not been able to stop thinking about them. I think it's because they are the first tangible proof I have that in a month and a half I will be done with school. I don't have a class ring, after all, or a cap and gown (yet), or a diploma (also yet, you know, in theory) - but those fucking tassels have like invaded my brain. I abandoned them on my desk for a few days, refusing to deal with them - yesterday I hid them away in a drawer of my dresser in the hope I would forget about them, but had dreams about them anyway. Now they're hanging on the corner of the mirror of my makeshift vanity. I still can't stop thinking about them.
They're soft, real silk or something like it, and heavy - not like the crappy ones we wore in high school. In all honesty, they sort of look like they really belong on cushions or curtains - certainly not on something that goes on my head, I mean. Each one has a little purple, white and gold medal on it attached to a metal band that ties all the little strands together. They are so innocuous yet I am so preoccupied by them. I'm sure a psychologist could give you a bullshit reason regarding the fixation; my reason is that my mindset right now is "Eek I'm graduating - better not fuck it up now!" and that's what the tassels represent. Or something.
So, yeah. I have tassels. I'm graduating. The world is increasingly bizarre, and I'm not sure I know how to deal with it.
Said package was your standard slightly squashy padded envelope, bent in half because our mailman does this thing where he is determined to fit everything into our very small mailbox, even if it involves, like, origami. ANYWAY. In this envelope I discovered two tassels. You know, the kind you wear on your cap when you graduate. From college.
Maybe this is just further proof that I'm actually slowly losing my mind, but ever since I opened that goddamn envelope and pulled out those two (two? why two? do they think I'll lose one?) knots of silken cord, I have not been able to stop thinking about them. I think it's because they are the first tangible proof I have that in a month and a half I will be done with school. I don't have a class ring, after all, or a cap and gown (yet), or a diploma (also yet, you know, in theory) - but those fucking tassels have like invaded my brain. I abandoned them on my desk for a few days, refusing to deal with them - yesterday I hid them away in a drawer of my dresser in the hope I would forget about them, but had dreams about them anyway. Now they're hanging on the corner of the mirror of my makeshift vanity. I still can't stop thinking about them.
They're soft, real silk or something like it, and heavy - not like the crappy ones we wore in high school. In all honesty, they sort of look like they really belong on cushions or curtains - certainly not on something that goes on my head, I mean. Each one has a little purple, white and gold medal on it attached to a metal band that ties all the little strands together. They are so innocuous yet I am so preoccupied by them. I'm sure a psychologist could give you a bullshit reason regarding the fixation; my reason is that my mindset right now is "Eek I'm graduating - better not fuck it up now!" and that's what the tassels represent. Or something.
So, yeah. I have tassels. I'm graduating. The world is increasingly bizarre, and I'm not sure I know how to deal with it.
T-minus five days, oh my godddddd
This is me doing the dance of I-never-have-to-devote-another-weekend-to-this.
Sunday:
Finish all my stats/math stuff, update my paper accordingly
Write an extra section about the maintained distinction
Monday:
Screw with my numbers in Excel in an attempt to make plots of them
Write an abstract, apparently I need one (oops)
Tuesday:
Meet with my adviser for his comments
Make any changes he wants
Wednesday-Thursday:
Print off a draft, carry it around compulsively for editing purposes
Friday:
SUBMIT IT and rejoice.
Sunday:
Write an extra section about the maintained distinction
Monday:
Write an abstract, apparently I need one (oops)
Tuesday:
Meet with my adviser for his comments
Make any changes he wants
Wednesday-Thursday:
Print off a draft, carry it around compulsively for editing purposes
Friday:
SUBMIT IT and rejoice.
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