I started today off by accidentally hitting my face off the door on the way out due to a poorly timed sneeze.

Boy did that hurt.

 

 

 

NOTE: For the purposes of this entry “awesome” means “douchey”.

 

Where was I off to, you ask?

To present at my very first conference.

Did I get a black eye?

Not yet, but I suspect it is around the corner.

 

 

When did I realize my shirt was on inside out?

About ½ an hour before I had to present.

 

 

How did it go?

Umm…I have no memory of anything I said or the degree to which I was stumbling over my words. Leaving felt good. To help me slip into denial mode, I tossed on my ipod (playlist: “This is what it would sound like if the 90s threw up”) and walked home reflecting on my presentation…

Come on come on
Feel it feel it
Feel the vibration

I remember feeling nauseated…

It’s such a good vibration
It’s such a sweet sensation

slightly light-headed…

It’s such a good vibration
It’s such a sweet sensation

and that it was awesome that my co-presenter cut me off everytime I was making a point to make that point “better”.

Yo! It’s about that time
To bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme
I’m a get mine so get yours
I wanna see sweat comin’ out your pores

Then I hit up the grocery store, nearly having a nervous breakdown when phylis – 1 L 1 S – accidently put the cherries in as fucking avacados and proceeded to discuss how the difference was only a couple of cents so it didn’t matter. You know what Phylis? It does matter. That’s how the fucking grocery store orders in food. Now there are going to be like, way way too many avacadoes and far too few cherries to go around. And some kid with diabetes who likes cherries is going to die when his insulin is low and all he can reach for are some unrippened avacadoes. How do you feel about having that on your head, Phylis?

On the house tip is how I’m swingin’ this
Strictly Hip-Hop boy, I ain’t singin’ this
Bringing this to the entire nation
Black, white, red, brown
Feel the vibration

Anyways, overall I think it went OK.

And that I may or may not have an ulcer.

Sumoology

Although the suffix “ology” tends to denote a field of study or academic discipline, “Sumoology” [pronounced. SSS – EW- MO – OLOGY] surprisingly does not just speak to the study of sumo wrestling in general – it also concerns a means of academic debate.

This week at work, we discussed having two academics from diametrically opposed disciplines come into the department to present and elucidate opposing sides to an ongoing argument: does deterrence work?

Unfortunately, the disciplines are at an impasse.

Fortunately, sumoology allows academics to push through the impasses – old school style – via a trial by ordeal.

As we are no longer allowed to test the viability of knowledge through the clash of steel upon steel (sword fights and what not) sumoology was developed to permit academics stuck at an impasse to decide who is, indeed, right.

Basically, each academic is placed in a giant sumo suit, and permitted to go at it until one is the clear victor, as per the rules of this ancient, and respected Japanese tradition.

 

Shout out to Channz who coined “Sumoology” on this auspicious day.

Emoting Marks 101

Have a stack of awful first year papers to mark?

I have just the thing for you!

It’s the EMOTER 500!

That right folks, instead of providing your TA’s with an actual marking rubric or needless guidelines, just tell yours slaves, I mean TAs, to just emote the marks!

Emote the waaa?

The Marks!

Under the Emoter 500 grading isn’t so much about the content, but the mark you feel the content deserves!

But, what if the TA is in a bad mood, a bitch, or has a bout of bad gas and is emoting bad vibes generally?

Too bad!

Oh.

So, how does the EMOTER 500 work?

Well, basically you point your Care Bear Stare at the assignment in question, and you will feel a mark, down in the very cockles of your soul!

It’s easy, affordable, and way way less time consuming than making actual marking guidelines!

EMOTER 500: Helping grades get appealed since 2006.

Osmosis is Bullshit.

Main Entry: os·mo·sis
Pronunciation: äz-'mO-s&s, äs-
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural os·mo·ses /-"sEz/
: movement of a solvent through a semipermeable membrane (as of a living cell) into a solution of higher solute concentration that tends to equalize the concentrations of solute on the two sides of the membrane
“osmosis.” Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 13 Oct. 2006. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/osmosis>

“Scientists” have been spreading rumours. They say there is a tendency for high concentrations of a substance (i.e. the information in my textbooks) to travel through a semipermeable membrane (i.e. my eyes) to try to equalize the concentration in a lower saturated area (i.e. my brain).

I have been staring at my books for hours and haven’t learned a thing.

THAT’s why I am in the social sciences.

Make Mine The Iron Stomach

What do you think of a good name of a guy whose superpowers include the ability to battle a mean hang over?

Hair-of-the-Dog Man!

The Iron Stomach (can also withstand being hit in the stomach with nearly anything, and spicey food)

The Advilizer!

Major Motrin

Tylenolesaurus Rex (powers also include transmutation into a T-Rex)

Gravolinater

Basic Reflux (also can hypnotize onlookers through the power of break dancing – a seemingly unrelated paranormal ability)

why there are not shows about 20 somethings

I don’t wear Monolo Blahnicks. I can’t even spell it. I’m not 30 and I can’t go out every night to some new club opening in town:

a) Because I don’t live in New York, and there aren’t a whole lot of new places opening on a fucking Wednesday;

b) Because going out every night costs a fuckload of money that only rich sniveling bastards have and/or;

c) I’m either too tired from working or actually at work to go to the theoretical club/bar opening. Even on Weekends.

d) All of the above.

(Multiple choice format was used in the above fictional exam because multiple choice exams save the university money insofar as they can go ahead and employ less Teaching Assistants, making it less likely for students to get jobs)

The whole “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend” bullshit doesn’t apply to those 20 somethings who pay for their own livelihoods. A yuppie definitely wrote that. (Sure I don’t even know or care who wrote that song or the proper name for it, but I’m ranting and am not going to wiki it.) We 20-somethings are working on the fucking weekends so that we can eat food and/or pay our rent. And possibly our tuition. Oh and we don’t get “benefits” or “paid sick days” or anything like that because we do temp, part-time, or casual work.

You know why there aren’t any television programs about 20 year olds? It’s not because we aren’t interesting or don’t have quirky, laugh-track-worthy lifestyles—it’s because we don’t have any money. We can’t hang out in a coffee shop constantly because we would be fined and ticketed for loitering.

Coffee costs money.

So do muffins.

We especially can’t hang out in shmancy places that sell organic, shade-grown, didn’t-kill-the-whales, libido-enhancing, acne-removing, no-fat fucking lattes.

Maybe, MAYBE we could go to like TimmyHo’s to get a tea one time every other month or so (they totally started serving “steeped” tea so they could up the price on tea—I’m on to you bastards).

All sitcoms are about 30+ somethings. What the shit is that about? Fuck that shit. The only students who make it to the Big Fucking Screen or the Idiot Box are those who go out and party all the time, or take like European vacations where they endure a variety of trials and tribulations and in the end the Boy gets the Girl and they live happily fucking after. And then there’s the ubiquitous college student horror/thriller film that was so overdone that making fun of the “genre” somehow became a new, more pathetic genre (sub-genre?).

I can’t relate to that bullshit.

I wouldn’t want to.

The douches that go on the European Vacation on Daddy’s Visa, or send their liquor bill home to Mommy, were and will always be the assholes that no one ever liked in highschool yet everyone feared and thought was cool.

I never thought you were cool.

I still think you’re an asshole.

So why the shit are you on my fucking television?

Fuck off – I’m trying to procrastinate.

an exercise in derivativity

Thus far today I have watched one movie, alphabetized by comic books (and placed them in chronological order), made several unanswered telephone calls, and cleaned my kitchen. I seriously considered washing the dish soap bottle when I realized Danny Tanner had done that once before.

It is important to be original.

I should probably just write my thesis proposal but starting a blog seems incredibly important right now. (A half a ninja told me I had to, or my head would be chopped off. Not actually, but that seems like something a ninja might say. I’m really just copying her starting-a-blog-as-a-procrastination-device-that-I-legitimize-to-myself-as-an-

excercise-in-writing idea.)

I just left to start the chicken, which I am cooking in chicken broth, garlic, and basil. I am going to add white onion, green pepper and broccoli – not because I believe these items will taste good together, but because this is what is in my fridge and the food will otherwise go rotten.

If you brown beef, do you white chicken?

I fucking cut myself and got onion juices in it which both stings and smells. I’m not even hungry. I should probably just write.

Why can’t my neighbours shut up? I think I prefer the 10-year-old floutist to the yuppie-hipster types that are now residing in the apartment next door. I bet they are having granola cosmopolitans over a game of Trivial Pursuit 1990’s edition – so they can actually acquire a few pieces of the pie and finish in time for some curried channa rotis and a thirty- or forty-dollar bottle of red wine. I hear red wine compliments bullshit vegetarian dinners very nicely.