Would a Spain by Any Other Name Sound as Sweet?

You've probably already heard me say this. I think it would be a good idea to call all countries by the same name that the people who live in that country call it. For instance, Sweden should be Sverige. The United States should be that (not États Unís nor Estados Unidos). The beautiful land of bullfighters, castillos y leones should be called España, not Spain.

It's a weird situation with countries like Chile. We say "chilly," but they say "chee-lay." Even though we spell it the same, we pronounce it differently. I guess it could be difficult for countries that have a different alphabet than you're used to (like Algeria, China, Russia, etc).

I would like to own a map with each country's name appearing as it would on their official documents. Google maps has something like this...check out other countries on it.

Superpowers

If I could have any superpower, I would be able to get a girl off just by looking at her right. BUT, if I was forced to have only one, it would be the ability to function normally without needing sleep.

I like sleep. I enjoy dreaming. I enjoy being able to escape reality for a little while (although the only manufactured mind-altering substance I use is alcohol). I also need my sleep. I can go for a night without much sleep and make it through the next day, but the following day is rough. I can't run a sleep deficit for more than about 8 days without boosting my chance of getting sick about 450%.

There are many things I enjoy doing besides sleeping. Any economist will tell you that there are trade-offs. I am using a scarce resource (time) to sleep and my opportunity cost is whatever else I would have been doing instead (my next-best alternative). Imagine what I could accomplish. I could be much more well-read. Maybe I would have seen that movie that you're talking about. Perhaps I could have learned how to juggle or crochet. Maybe I would make all kinds of origami. Currently, I think I would learn how to play the piano and learn Swahili...but in a few months, who knows what I would be doing with that extra time. I bet my house would be cleaner. I bet I would have better grades (or a deeper understanding of the material we cover in class).

I have a list of things I want to do before I die. Maybe I'll share it one day. And while it's impossible to run the Boston Marathon [item on the list] while I could have been sleeping, it is NOT impossible to train for the Boston Marathon during that same time interval.

I think that there are those who, if they received this power, would squander their power on video games, dope, watching paint dry, daydreaming, and promoting feminism; I would be sure to use at least half of this newfound time further developing my skillz as a person (or making money and saving it up to go on trips). **Sidenote: imagine how much punch you could pack into a week-long trip somewhere if you didn't have to sleep...I mean, you could almost not miss a beat if you could do work remotely at night.**

Overall, I can't think of a better superpower...even after living with Nick for a few months.

Another Blog

Chances are that if you are reading my blog, you might be interested in Sarah's current blog. She's doing a cross-country road trip with her sister in a biodiesel Jetta.

Pick #30

Cristian Castro - Lloviendo estrellas de su album Azul.

I recently burned a Cristian Castro mix cd and have deffly enjoyed it.

'07 Glasses

'07 Glasses

The above is a link to the music video that a couple VBHS kids did as a "class song." I heard it at the graduation ceremony when I went to watch my brother walk. I think the song might be better without the video, but I love the scene with Mr. Humphrey chasing that kid. And the girl at the end dusting her shoulders off makes me laugh.

This is some serious school spirit, going above and beyond the usual "put (insert year of graduation) of your fingers up in the air and taunt other classes" approach so prevalent in my days (and probably in track teams everywhere).

Stripper Pole

Nick had an idea to have a "porn cliché" party to celebrate his birthday/4th of July. It's going down next Friday. I wasn't really into it until I put up the stripper pole tonight. Since Neil isn't living in his bedroom, we're using that for the stripper pole room. I took down the fan and secured the pole in the fan box. It's sturdy enough to support my entire body weight. Nobody heavier than me should be on that thing...

The party will also have "themed" drinks: Red Headed Slut, Sex on the Beach, Red Cock, Nyphomaniac, Just Do Me, Bluewater Hummer...

I guess this means I've got to study really hard this upcoming week...

Abacoa Greenway

I only took my camera out to the greenway once or twice...I miss having trails to run on.

Enamorado otra vez

Esta mañana, vi Carne tremula de Pedro Almodóvar (Live Flesh in English). La trama tiene que ver con un Víctor quien nació en un autobus de Madrid. Vive en la misma ciudad. Puedes ver uno de los dos edificios increíbles de la Plaza Castilla en el fondo (desde su habitación). A España, le echo de menos.

Más tarde, en vez de estudiar, estaba leyendo un folleto/libro de FSU International Programs. Hay un programa en Valencia. Si lo crees, cuando estaba en la página de Valencia, mi tocadiscos tocó "O Valencia" de The Decemberists. Que casualidad.

Recuerdo los males de España como humo por todos lados, pero por alguna razón hala las partes más sensitivas de mi corazón. Tal vez pudiera ser porque fue mi primer país extranjero que he visitado en mi vida. Advino que se recuerda muchos de los "primeros" con cariño. También hoy, hable con mi primera novia quien de hecho amaba (sigo amándola, pero no creo que se puede dejar de amar una vez empezada...). Sé que hemos cambiado mucho (yo, ella, tal vez España), pero existe una conección. A lo mejor cuando regrese a dicho extranjero, faltaría su mágico. Sé que no puedo recrear exactamente lo que tenía con esa mujer tampoco...
Esto quiere decir que España la segunda vez será diferente. Así como un nuevo ligo con una pareja del pasado. Pero no sé nada de nada. La segunda vez puede ser mejor. Puede que conozca más de la ciudad (o país o personalidad). ¡Ay! ¡Comó siente mi corazón!

Same Words, Different Situation (or vice versa)

I guess it's spontaneous order that leads to the sort of linguistic discrepancies presented below. Such natural formation is my guess for the reason that we don't have a 1:1 (bijective) mapping of words and meanings.

There are words that when used by certain groups of people mean something other than what you're used to? e.g. white person says "freak" they mean "goth" or "weird/strange person"...black person says "freak," they mean "promiscuous" or "slutty."

Nick pointed out that the Humanities has stolen words used in common parlance and given them ENTIRELY different meanings. e.g. ?????????. (you guys help me out here, I can't think of any).

This phenomenon is different than the one where people from different groups (usually geographically separated) use different words to refer to the same object. e.g. "coke" vs. "soda" vs. "pop" vs. "soda-pop." Personally, I laugh every time I hear someone refer to a "shopping cart" as a "buggy."

I'm sure these sorts of things happen in most other languages. I am fairly good at the recognizing the latter in Spanish. Por ejemplo, los cubanos no dicen "papaya" para referir a la fruta porque "papaya" significa la vagina. En su lugar, dice "la fruta bomba."

I have also noticed a little bit of the former in Spanish...En el Ecuador, "guagua" significa "bebé" cuando en las islas del mar caribe se usa "guagua" para un "autobús. Pero "autobús" se coloca entre el otro grupo también...algunos (como mexicanos) dicen "omnibus." España tiene sus propias palabras para bastante..."zumo" "ordenedor" "servicios," más.

I don't know nearly enough Swahili for examples, but I think there may be different words with the same meaning in Kiswahili. 1) Swahili is a second language learned by native speakers of many different languages so that they can communicate outside their native tongue. I would think this would bring many different words to mean the same thing. However, these different words may not be obvious to Swahili-speakers of different linguistic backgrounds (which may keep development of these slow). So far in my exploration of this language (which is cursory at best), the only word I know with 2 meanings is "ndege" which means "bird" and "plane."

Weird Uncle Mark Dream

Last night, I had a crazy dream about my Uncle Mark. I was at my Vero house and my parents came home with Uncle Mark...he was dead, but mobile. He could look at you and move around, but couldn't talk. He couldn't really respond to you, I guess b/c he was dead. It was kinda cool to have him around, though. I think that if I had a life-size-embalmed-dead-uncleMark hanging out, I'd put him in a spot where he would always be in the presence of fine women (or images of them). No doubt about it, he loved the hotties.

This walking-dead-guy (in a non-zombie sort of way) is even a little weirder since he was cremated. I told Whitney about my dream and she said that she's had a strikingly similar dream about her grandmother. Dude.

Pick #29

8stops7 - Question Everything. Throwback to the '90s alternative format.

No More Teaching

I gave my final exam today. I was lucky enough to get the scantrons to the testing center soon enough to get them back by 3:30 (which ended up being about 3:50). Anyhow, I graded all the short answers and got the scantron results back...I decided not to leave school until all my grades were in. I got everyone's grade posted to Blackboard and so that it shows up on their transcript. Overall, my class was pretty good. I had a few students express warm sentiments at the end of their exam today. That was nice to hear.

I'm glad that teaching's over. I have a midterm on Monday (damn, I need to study more for it) and a project proposal due Friday. I need to work on those things, sure, but I REALLY need to get back into this prelim studying thing. I would like to take about 3 hours a day to set aside for that purpose and hopefully end up using some of my non-allocated time to study for prelims. I need to pass those things on the first go-round. I hope that I'll just use the time that I was teaching to study. That's the plan. Let's hope it works.

Pick #28

London Calling by the Clash. Title track of their 1979 album.

Pick #27

"Monument" by A Day to Remember from For Those Who Have Heart

I heard this band in Neil's car one day. I stole this CD. He didn't beat me up, but he made me give it back.