You don't! Wanna mess with Darnell!

2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest entries that made me chuckle:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor'east and the dogs are howlin; for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davy Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screamin' contests.
-David McKenzie

She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.
-Eric Rice

Detective Pierson mentally reviewed the group of suspects milling around the recent crime scene - two young siblings eating gingerbread, a young girl in a red hoodie, a beautiful girl with narcolepsy, and seven little people with the profession of miners - then gave his statement of "It's a grim tale" to the press.
-Shannon Gray

Darnell knew he was getting hung out to dry when the D.A. made him come clean by airing other people's dirty laundry; the plea deal was a new wrinkle and there were still issues to iron out, but he hoped it would all come out in the wash - otherwise he had folded like a cheap suit for nothing.
-Lynn Lamousin

A quest is not to be undertaken lightly--or at all!--pondered Hlothgar, Thrag of the Western Boglands, son of Glothar, nephew of Garthol, known far and wide as Skull Dunker, as he wielded his chesty stallion Hralgoth through the ever-darkening Thlargwood, beyond which, if he survived its horrors and if Hroglath the royal spittle reader spoke true, his destiny awaited--all this though his years numbered but fourteen.
-Stuart Greenman

The Cunard "Carinthia" glided through the starry waters of the Bering Sea, 843 passengers aboard, including Harriet Dobbs, resignedly single for over a decade, while a nautical mile due west slunk the K-18 submarine, under the command of lonely Ukrainian Captain First Rank Nikolai Shevchenko: ships that passed in the night (although the second technically a boat).
-Dr. Sarah Cockram

The serrated butter knife tossed capriciously onto the 38th Street sidewalk amid the detritus of Salem cigarette butts and a Mentos box was devoid of zero trans fat margarine, but glinted invitingly in the sun nonetheless, poised for the opportunity to be repurposed to cut up a Snuggie, and Vladimir took it.
-Amy E Gross

Using the flint knife to gut the two amphibians, Kreega the Neanderthal woman created the first pair of open-toad sandals.
-Greg Homer

On a lovely day during one of the finest Indian summers anyone could remember--a season Germans call "old wive's summer," obviously never having had Native Americans to name things after, but plenty of old wives, and "Indian summer" in German would refer to the natives of India in any case, which would make even less sense than the current naming system--on such a day, however named, John Baxter fell in the creek and drowned.
-Deanna Stewart

I entered the bedroom again, looking for anything the killer might have missed in his obvious attempt to clean the crime scene, when it hit me, the victim hadn't been eating just any potato salad, it was German potato salad, the kind usually served warm, with bacon and although most people prefer the traditional American potato salad, it was clear that this victim didn't, oh no, he didn't prefer it at all.
-Lisa Lindquist-Perez

Elsewhere...

I was just in the kitchen visiting with my mom. She's making rice krispie squares, and measuring the rice krispies, and she says "*gasp* Oh no! That's too much. Hmm, no, too little? Actually, maybe is it the right amount?"

The extremes in this house are intense :)

Why Jenna is Awesome

Email conversation today, one of the many reasons I love my sister

Megan:
I got my essay finished last night/this morning :) now I just have to wait to hear back from my prof/fix the mistakes and I'm done

Jenna:
Yay! Did you find out about convocating yet?

Megan:
No, I just emailed one of the registrars like 20 minutes ago though so maybe I'll hear back by the end of the week? That's being hopeful

Jenna:
Ugh, I know, they're so irresponsible. I emailed my advisor and when she finally emailed me back she said it wasn't a good time for her (I asked to meet with her to discuss my options) and she asked if we could do it in a couple of weeks so very GRACIOUSLY I said yes. She has not since contacted me or responded.

Megan:
That's so dumb. The only way I've gotten them to talk to me successfully in the past is to go there and lurk outside their door.
Once, I emailed Luther to find out what their office hours were because I had an essay to hand in (they didn't have them on the web site, which is like the dumbest thing ever), and I didn't hear back from them so the next day I just went there to hand in my essay. Then two weeks later I got an email back with their hours. So useless.
I can't believe she hasn't gotten back to you, it seems kind of important you know? They suck at this stuff, and it's stupid because that's what they're there for, to help :P

Jenna:
I know. I've been to her before and she's pretty good. Although once I went in to complain because they wouldn't move one of my exams that conflicted with army, and she sent me to the dean without telling me who he was. Which is slightly embarrassing. Not that I was rude or anything but I basically went in there and told him how it was, then he was like "Hi, I'm the dean." I probably wouldn't have had the guts if I had known. He was really nice though.

Megan:
Nice, I've never met a dean. He let you move your exam?

Jenna:
Oh of course. I was pretty mad about the whole thing. That weekend was our shooting exams so you can't miss it, and when I told my professor that I needed to reschedule my exam because I would have no time to study she said that she didn't reschedule exams for anyone for any reason. She said "lots of people have jobs, everyone's busy" and I totally blacked on her. I said everyone wasn't busy fucking defending their country and this was not a normal circumstance, the army isn't just a job. She said she wasn't going to reconsider and I got so angry I actually became calm. I just looked at her and said, watch this. Then I went straight to the advisor and via her, the dean. I said I found it hard to believe that since I know for a fact professors make their own policies on those issues that there was no way she could reschedule. She said that she wasn't allowed I knew that was a lie and I told the dean I found it hard to believe there was nothing that the university could do for a serving member of the forces who was trying to get an education. Worked like a charm. She emailed me that night with a sudden dean-inspired streak of generosity and let me reschedule.

God Went to India

To see the elephants.

God adores elephants.

He thinks they are

the best thing

He ever made.

They do everything

He hoped for:

They love their children,

they don't kill,

they mourn their dead.

This last thing is

especially important

to God.
Elephants visit the graves

of those they loved.

They spend hours there.

They fondle the dry bones.

They mourn.

God understands mourning

better than any other emotion,

better even than love.

Because He has lost

everything He has

ever made.

You make life,

you make death.

The things God makes

always turn into

something else and

He does find this good.

But He can't help missing all the originals.

-Cynthia Rylant

I'm not sure why I like that so much. Maybe because elephants are awesome.

Two updates in one day, hooray!

Hello! The previous post was a little depressing so I thought I'd spruce things up with a little Life is Average awesomeness (alright, LIA okayness).

I got so much essay writing done today, so I'm feeling on top of the world now. It's a pretty great place to be, albeit a little overwhelming still. I'm handing in my paper on Saturday, if I can manage to get it printed in the right format at the school computers. If not, then I will unfortunately have to hand it in on Monday. I wish it weren't so finicky to print, but at least that is the most of my problems.

I will mention that this LIA is funniest if you've already seen the previous two that I already posted, although I will still readily admit that I may be the only person in the world to find these funny.

Your report is the crap that crap craps!

Yesterday I was having a pretty good day at work. It was a nice Tuesday following two, almost three straight weeks of having to work overtime every night, so at the end of the day it was really nice to get to leave on time. I was leaving work feeling great because I had the next day (today) off, so I was free. Free! Until I got a phone call from my boss at around 5:00 telling me that I had gotten my days wrong and I don't actually have the day off until March 31st.

Normally this would really suck, and it did, but normally it also wouldn't matter and I'd suck it up and just take my day off when it was actually assigned. This was not a normal circumstance though. I have my paper due this weekend, and I so very desperately needed today off so I could work on it. So I asked if I could have Thursday off instead, because then at least I would still have one solid day off this week in which to work on my paper. That was also a no-go.

At this point in the conversation, everything seemed to hit me at once. I really don't ask a lot of my workplace when it comes to days off. In fact, in the year and a half I've worked there, I haven't taken one day off, except for the day I had a dentist appointment to remove a couple wisdom teeth (and I came in to work the next day, miserable sore swollen face and all), and once I left after an hour of coming in to work because I was sick, so it really didn't seem like too much to ask to have this day off, especially when it's typically our slowest work day of the week. And so when I was told that I wasn't able to have this day off, I'm ashamed to admit that I burst in to tears and couldn't keep it together. I actually begged my boss to give me the day off. Yup. I felt exactly like how Marshall Eriksen felt in HIMYM when his boss yells at him about the ninja report, even though my boss was not yelling and was and is actually quite nice. She then said that she would get in touch with the other managers and get back to me.

I spent the rest of the evening feeling sorry for myself and being miserable, which is very embarrassing. Being around Chris helped a lot though, because he's willing to do almost anything to make me laugh, including eating about a quarter of a purple onion (which he would've done had I not practically pried it from his fingers). Wackiness is appreciated. Around 9:00 that night I got a call from her stating that, after discussion, I was able to have the day off. The immediate sense of relief was also immediately overtaken by guilt and...shame? Is shame the right word? It'll do.

I remained feeling weepy for the remainder of the evening, and I found myself asking why. I got exactly what I needed, so why did I still feel like this? I then found my thoughts wandering and they stopped on something I remembered Paul Antrobus saying in class: what you see depends on what you're looking for. So I asked myself again, why did I feel this way?

I think I was mostly mad that the situation itself actually occurred, and these emotions were just residual after-feelings of what I felt to be a completely unfair circumstance. So even after I got the day off (even if I do still feel a little guilty about it), I was still angry that it happened in the first place. So after I managed to see it like that, I was able to let it go.

Thank you day off, you make everything better.

Won't you take me by the hand, take me somewhere new?

I want to write about how awesome last weekend was. To pre-preface this, if you could combine the good feelings you get when you walk into a used bookstore, remember the way candy tasted when you were young, walk through the park in the summer, and experience the best hug you've ever had, it would come pretty close to how awesome last weekend was. To preface this, nothing of huge significance happened last weekend, it was more of one of those magical occasions that can only really happen with certain people on certain days, and I was lucky enough to have that already this year.


Highlights:

On Thursday I asked the bf if he wanted to go see The Princess and the Frog sometime on the weekend, and with a facepalm and a sigh he begrudgingly said yes :) So Saturday afternoon we braved the massive crowd of children at the Rainbow Theatre and I was thrilled to see a new animated Disney film.

After the show we walked to Old Fashioned foods, which is very close to the theatre. After buying a few items (including a bag of rice, which has its own story in and unto itself, later) we continued walking in the direction of downtown. It was a slushy day outside, so the cuffs on my pants were pretty wet at this point.

We decided to walk to Darke Hall, and along the way we stopped to explore the legislative building, which happens to have some lovely window sills and hidden benches to climb and sit on.

When we got to Darke Hall we climbed the stairs as high as they would go to a very large empty room, where we sang and danced, and it seems silly now but at the time is was completely wonderful. It was very retro, all of the windows (and there were a lot of windows) stretched to the ceiling and all of the lights (of which there were also a lot) hung down low. The room was also way overheated, so by the time we left it my pants cuffs had dried a wee bit. Other parts of the building we covered: lots of old stairs, lots of old windows, lots of old corridors, and the creepy basement (which I'm told was even creepier about a year ago). Overall I think this was my favourite building in my day, it felt like a secret and forbidden place and I hope to go back.

For supper we went to the Copper Kettle. The restaurant was absolutely packed so they led us up some spiral stairs to what I would describe as their storage room for broken and forgotten things. There we shared food and wine and company.


Like I said, it wasn't a weekend where anything spectacular happened, but I think I'll always remember it as one of my favourites.

How does a linguist to go into a coma from deciphering a Native American language?

That's what I'd like to know, Lex Luthor.

I'm working on my paper again, and instead of driving me crazy, it's driving me comatose. I'm really terrible with essays, I'm really not that great of a writer and words often escape me, as do paragraph transitions and a general appealing flow.

I want cookies.

I'm hoping that blogging will maybe make me better with words; practice makes perfect, right? But for now I know that writing in here will not help my essay, it is too distracting. Much more fun though.

My blog is simple
But sometimes it won't make sense
I heart Chuck Norris

So my paper...yeah. It's going not so smoothly. It's much harder to write about the Nakota language than I thought. I mean, a year ago I wrote a shorter form of this very essay that will be my honours paper, but it was much less intense and involved. I guess that's the point though right? I don't know. I feel like, let's see, I feel like I should know more than I know, you know? I got my linguistics degree but where did my knowledge go? It's all very strange. And for someone who majored in linguistics you'd think I'd be better with words. I also majored in psychology so you'd think I'd be better able to answer these questions I have, but I can't, I feel unable to. Again, it's a strange place for me to be.

Oh well, time for me to try and rise above :) this post is starting to sound emo so it's best I let these thoughts trail off here. As Paul Antrobus would probably say, it's how you look at the world that matters.

I think he'd also say that it's time for me to have a cookie.

IRRELEVANT QUESTION

I feel incredibly busy. (How busy?) So busy that I can't even find the time to update my blog. Nope. No time. Clearly.

This Life is Average (or LIA) is not the strongest, in fact I think it's the weakest, but I think I'll include it here anyway for the sake of it.

Hope you have a great night!

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

At the beginning of 2010, my workplace initiated this wonderful idea, Fitness at Work. This initiative has several different components, like "fitness breaks" where we use our two fifteen-minute breaks each day to be active (e.g. taking a 1.5 km indoor walk, strength-training sessions, stair climbing, etc) and monthly challenges. I love taking part in the fitness breaks, they break up my day beautifully and I honestly can't imagine going to work now without taking the time each day to destress like this. I was also really enjoying February's challenge, stair climbing, until people started lying about their totals.

The way the challenge worked was this: each day you would count how many flights of stairs you climbed (twelve stairs=one flight) and at the end of the week you would send your daily totals to the person in charge, who in turn would send out an email to the floor the next day stating who had the highest total for that week. There was a 50/50 raffle held at the beginning of the month, where half the money went to the ticket holder selected and the other half would go to the person who had climbed the most flights at the end of February.

In week one I climbed 590ish flights, and the email sent out stated that the highest number of flights climbed was 630ish. I thought "Fine, that just means I have to work a little harder."

In week two I had climbed 1160ish flights, but the person in first had climbed 1300ish. And I thought "Fine, that just means I have to work a little harder."

In week three I had climbed 1900ish flights, but the person in first had climbed 2300ish. And I thought "Wow, I have no chance in winning this." and I resigned myself to losing. This in itself was fine, because in the end, even if I had won the money, I would have gained something even more important than that (not to go all campy and everything ha).

At the end of week four I had climbed 2700ish flights. Here's the part that makes me mad though: the person with the highest number of flights climbed had a total of 4200ish flights. What the, where did that come from?! As IF you doubled your stair count in the last week! Honestly, I really feel like the person who won the money was lying. If it took this person three weeks to climb 2300 flights, do you really expect me to believe that he climbed 1900+ flights in one week? Please.

Let me tell you, I averaged almost 99 flights of stairs a day (with lowest day 10, highest day 201), and that was extremely difficult to fit into my schedule. It's not like my life is super busy or particularely complicated, but I'm at work from 8:15-after 5:00 most days, and to incorporate that many stairs into my day is a real challenge. A large portion of my stair climbing total came from the fitness breaks, where the regular participants (myself included) had decided to include more stair climbing in support of the challenge. This person who won with 4200 flights has never, to this date, come on a fitness break, or come on one of the lunchtime stair-climb/walks, and I'm expected to just take it at face value that he found the time to average 150 flights per day? Not happening. Even if he went to the gym either before or after work every day I would find it a little hard to believe. Actually that's not completely true, I would have found this to be a completely believable total if not for the discrepancy between the first three weeks and the last. In the last week he would have had to have climbed 271+ flights per day, which is an absolutely amazing amount of stairs to be climbing, given a full work day.

What really gets me is that he would have won anyway without that tremendous lie.

But let's say that he isn't lying, and that he really did do just a tremendous amount of stairs in a small amount of time. I can accept that maybe I'm being a bit of a sore loser. I really do believe that his total was stretched, but I also believe that what I gained from this challenge far outways the fact that I didn't win the pot of money.
1. my calves got beefy and sexy.
2. my cardio has increased slightly.
3. it takes me longer to work up a sweat.
4. I now have the stamina to sprint up at least 12 flights of stairs without feeling completely killed, which is a farcry from the 6 flights I could manage at the beginning of the month before I would have to stop to dry-heave for 30 seconds.
5. I learned that I still have the ability to push myself for the better, which was something that, until now, I really thought I had lost.

In conclusion, yes I am still kind of mad, but I think the change in myself as a result of this challenge is stronger than that. I'm amazed that it took a silly competition for me to step up and take better control of my physical well-being, but I think that that's the case for a lot of people. That makes me feel like I'm more connected to the world around me, but at the same time it makes me want to rise above these conditions that I feel tied to. Does that make sense?

Slackers Unite! Tomorrow.

Something I've noticed is that the internet isn't nearly as fun unless I'm procrastinating. When I'm completely free as a bird I could almost care less about it (almost), but when I'm actually doing something, say, writing my honours paper, it becomes this amazing Wonderland that I can't stay away from. Just like Alice, I always lose the path that leads back because that stupid broom-dog has erased it. Or something like that.

Unfortunately for me, my paper is fastly becoming due, and I feel the pangs of guilt coming on. How is it that I spend a couple hours most nights on the computer, but only get about half an hour's worth of essay done, if that? This is kind of pathetic. I always thought that eventually the procrastication thing would maybe just weed it's way out of my system, but no, it turns out I've just been fine-tuning it all these years. Now I find it hard to even study for a test unless I have the "night before" stress of it to motivate me.

This paper is going to kill me.

The biggest thing I'm afraid of right now? A typo.

Life is Average

So I'm not the biggest promoter of the Carillon, but in the 07/08 semesters there was a comic published called Life is Average, and once I got past the horrible grammar and semi-bad drawings (it's not really like I could do any better!) I found most of them quite enjoyable. I don't really know why I saved them, I had no use for them, but I'm a little happy I did now.

Here for your (okay, mostly my) viewing pleasure: