The Horror of Linguistics

I didn't go into my Linguistics classes expecting very much. Study of language and what-not. 101 is how we pronounce things. 102 is how we develop language. In all honestly 102 doesn't sound all that different than Child Developmental Psychology (and so far, it isn't).

But things started to sound, odd. It felt odd learning about consonants and vowels. Everyone sat in class making different noises with varying tongue placements and lip shapes. And then the lecturer (who is actually just a grad student) shows us this gem to better teach us the sound of things:

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/ipa/consonants.html

I'm sorry, I can't listen to these without thinking of Nigel Thornberry.

SMASHING.

Not entirely convinced? Don't know who Nigel Thornberry is? Watch a few videos of the man talk, imagine the above link in his accent (and with some consonants you don't need to) and don't tell me you don't hear the same thing.

It could very well be that I'm going crazy, and hearing things I shouldn't be. I wouldn't doubt it if that was a side effect of sleep deprivation. But this isn't so bad, until you realize that in order to study for exams I need to practice making these noises. It'll help me write words in their phonetic form or something.

So imagine you're a parent. It's the middle of the night and you wake up because you hear this nonsensical gibberish coming from your kid's room. You open the door and he's hunched over a book with weird symbols. And he's writing out those weird symbols too.

As if my parents don't think I'm crazy enough already.

But Ling 101 isn't even the worst offender. I'd rather sit in class and listen to Nigel Thornberry all day then listen to the videos we watch in Linguistics 102. I have to ask a question, when did babies become so horrifying? I know they're little poop machine but listening to one try and talk is disturbing.

All the women (aka 95%) of the class were cooing and giggling at this video. I sat rigid in my desk, more disturbed than I had ever been in years. I'm not sure what my female readers will think of this video but maybe it's a gender thing? Maybe I'm just crazy and I hate small children more than I originally thought?

And then we watched another similar video. And another. And then a video of a mother cooing over her baby.

This class is way worse than Child Developmental psychology. At least I learned something in that course. To be fair, a lot of the stuff we've learned so far is mostly review for me but still, I didn't pay a couple thousand dollars to watch videos of babies drooling over themselves.

Money not well spent.

I hope the course gets better. If not, I hope it's an easy A. Maybe then I can justify sitting around and listening to weird noises for several hours a day.

Why I don't play poker

I am not good at gambling nor am I a guy blessed by Lady Luck. I don't like leaving things to chance because more often than not things will not go in my favor, especially with gambling. I mean, does any remember when I visited Macau, aka, Chinese-imitation Vegas? Well long story short, my sister and I tried the slots for half an hour and lost nearly everytime.

I know we only spent like $10 CAD but that's thanks to the exchange rate. Could you imagine how much I would have lost if I was playing slots back home in Canada?

Good thing I don't play poker.

DURR. JUST TAKE ALL MY MONEY.

Seriously, do you want to know how I learned to play poker? I learned to play poker via a game that I bought off of Steam. A poker game that I didn't even really want. Let's be honest here, I bought this poker game so I could get exclusive in-game items for another game.

Yeah, I bought a game so I could get stuff for another game. I was a Team Fortress 2 addict, what can I say? I'm so cool right? For anyone who's interested, it's Poker Night at the Inventory. And surprisingly I did learn how to play the game of poker. The character have fun bits of dialogue and are interesting to listen to.

Even if the characters I played against were a bit questionable. 1 is semi-based on a real person, 2 are from famous web series, 3 are homicidal maniacs, and all 4 are idiots.

Guess who is who!

Still, playing poker with rules off a game on Steam may not have been accurate. I have been informed that it is but I wouldn't wander into a casino based off what I learned playing against computers who folded everytime I went all-in.

So in my curiosity, I decided to learn a bit more about poker, poker techniques, etc. etc.. I'm not sure what to make of this really. I didn't even know there was a thing called Chinese poker, with it's own unique set of rules. Since when did Texas hold-em have probability imbalances involved?

Maybe that's why I'll never be a poker legend. I don't have the time (or desire) to learn all the nuances and variations. And despite my Asian heritage I'm sick of math and math related things.

And maybe that's why I won't be a Starcraft legend either.

Actually, it's probably a good thing I don't play poker. Given my pigheaded stubborn tenacious personality I'd probably wouldn't know when to call it quits and lose all my money.

And don't worry, none of my projects involve learning how to play online poker. I have such little money as it is, can't risk losing anymore of it.

Speaking of which, I probably should get back to work instead of researching poker tips. I'll leave you with my favorite clip from Poker Night at the Inventory.

EDIT: After this post I spent the next few hours playing Poker Night at the Inventory. So much for being productive.

The Projects

I used to be one of those people who would see something and think to myself "It be pretty neat if I could do that". The problem was that I would never go beyond the thinking stage and keep telling myself how interesting it be but I'll do it tomorrow.

Well to be honest, I still do that, but a lot less so. Over the last few years I've been working to fix this and actually get up and do something. Over the Christmas break I finally pushed myself to initiate several projects at the same time and progress and speeds unseen before have occurred.

I don't want to go into to much detail about them until they've reached a point where I'm successful. Mostly because I want to do posts on them if I'm was successful. And if I fail, I can sweep the failure under the metaphorical rug, never to be seen again.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Project Pitch

I'm certain that I'm a good writer. Unfortunately this has only been proven within the bounds of academic sorts of writing. So to see if I can write for other sources this project involves me writing elsewhere. I'm going to test and hone my skills hopefully.

I've wanted to write for these guys for quite some time so I've finally gotten off my butt and thrown some ideas at them, I'm averaging one a week. One proposal has been rejected (but has the option of being rewritten in another way), one has been moved up to consideration (second editorial), and one is currently waiting to be moved into the editorial.

Oh and if I actually get something published, they'll pay me. It's not much but I'm not complaining. If I'm successful I'll link my writing on the site from my blog. Fingers crossed.

Project Derp

Project Derp is what I would consider a 3-phase project. My blog was actually phase 1 and I would consider it to be a resounding success. Work on phase 2 started back last summer but unfortunately, things got busy, I got lazy and distracted, traveled to China, and things were pretty much at a standstill during the school term.

Fortunately, I got motivated again during the Christmas break and things are looking good. The project is moving along, I'm seeing significant signs of improvement and hints that we can move onto phase 3 by the end of the month if things continue like this.

And of course, there's monetary gain if this project is at least moderately successful. Am I motivated too much by money? Maybe. Do you blame the University student with debt in the thousands? I hope not.

:(

Project Vegas

This project doesn't involve making any money but rather, saving money for a rather expensive thing. I was particularly excited when I started this one because I met all the requirements for it to be successful.

Well, all the requirements except one.

For whatever reason, it's extremely easy for Americans to abuse this loophole. Canadians? Not so much. So right now I'm hunting down the Canadian equivalents in hopes of attaining something close to the benefits an American would get.

'Murrica!

Rejected/Backburner projects

Project Cold is on indefinite hiatus. I'm going to have to learn and practice various skills before I try this again. It was actually kind of embarrassing for both parties when it became painfully obvious I didn't know what I was doing. I'd also be hesitant to admit success with this one because some people would definitely consider it morally questionable.

Project Pandering is on hiatus as well. I lack hardware that produces results that I'm satisfied with. Plus, I'm going to have to relearn a few computer skills if I want to create anything worth showing.

And if it wasn't obvious by this point, all of these projects are being done online. Because I love my computer, and internet, and I don't like going outside. If I can find a way to live a sedentary lifestyle, I'll be happy.

Wish me luck.

Update on Theresa

For those unaware, my girlfriend Theresa was recently admitted to the hospital for gallstones. Yeah, she's young, like early twenties but I guess she was pre-dispositioned for this stuff? Genetic or something? That's my best explanation because this woman eats a lot healthier than me.

I mean, I don't eat a lot, but when I do it tends to be fatty, high-cholesterol garbage. I should probably eat more salads, and get more fiber. Cut down on my meat. I've seen what Theresa eats for lunch, it's homemade stuff, rice and vegetables. Generic Chinese food.

Opposite of this.

Regardless, a gallstone blocked something. And because she has bad genes, they decided to remove the gallbladder entirely to prevent another incident from happening in the future. Also, I might be crazy, but because Theresa's a med student, I think that's why they started operating on her so quickly.

As in, she was admitted on Sunday, and they did the operations on Tuesday and Wednesday of the same week. Keep in mind that when she was admitted, she was told that her surgery was considered elective (aka, not important) and she might have to wait until next year for an opening, maybe sometime in the summer at the earliest.

I know Canada is renown for its universal healthcare. What it's not known for is it's ridiculously long waiting times.

A doctor will come see me soon, I know it.

So, the first surgery on Tuesday was to remove the gallstone blockage that was initially causing her pain. No problem, simple incision, remove stone, no problem.

NOPE. Theresa is a super, special snowflake who somehow managed to have a stone that was larger than predicted so when the surgeons tried to pull it out, it tore something, and she bled where she wasn't supposed to.

Yay, complications.

Oops.

Ok fine, no big deal. They go onto to remove her gallbladder the next day. And it goes perfectly fine with no problems.

Ha, I'm just kidding. Something with the anesthetics messed up. I don't know the details, the only that something went wrong, another complication, so they had to hold her in the hospital for another day to monitor her.

You're a special one Theresa, I'm not sure how you do it.

Just for you.

She's fine now though. Released from the hospital on Thursday she now she studying like crazy. Yep, typical med student mentality. People who have gall bladder removals are supposed to have 3 weeks off to recover, I wouldn't be surprised if she dragged herself back to class on Monday.

Best of luck to her, I'm just glad she's alright.

Back to classes

Welp, the break could only last so long. And now we're back. Back to the school. Yay. No, really. I'm exploding with enthusiasm here. There's nothing I enjoy than pulling all-nighters and then falling asleep at the front of the class and then drooling on myself.

Not exactly my finest moment.

If you were Asian and male maybe you could be me.

I'm technically done. You know, now that I've got my degree and everything. Unfortunately, these days an undergraduate degree doesn't get you anywhere because nearly everyone has one. So that means we have to upgrade to a graduate degree.

And to do that, I need to do various per-requisite courses to even qualify for some of them. I need at least 4 more courses for Speech and Language Pathology. But taking into consideration what my prof said, maybe I should start looking into Marketing as well.

Which means taking some Economics courses.

This is my understanding of Economics.

I've also been looking into jumping provinces for grad school. But because my grades hover around the B level (as opposed to people with As who can go anywhere) I might have to go to Saskatchewan. For people who don't know the run-downs of the provinces of Canada, it's basically this:

British Columbia: Asians and the ocean.

Alberta: Oil and Canada's rednecks.

Saskatchewan: Flat lands and Native Americans.

Manitoba: Lakes or something?

Ontario: Capital of Canada and Niagra falls.

Quebec: Crazy French people.

Nova Scotia: Fish.

Prince Edward Island: Funny accents and potatoes.

Newfoundland: Fish and funny accents.

New Brunswick: More funny accents.

Yukon/Northwest Territories/Nunavut: Native Americans and cold.

Fellow Canadians may have deduced my home province based on these partially incorrect stereotypes.

In the meantime, I'll be taking Linguistics courses and a friend of mine looped me into a MWF Sociology course which killed my 4 day weekend. I don't even need this course, I really wanted a lax term but my parents kept hounding me claiming that unless my schedule was fuller I'd be wasting my time and my life. And so I caved in and added another course to my schedule.

Ian, this course better be the GPA booster you claim it is. I gave up my 4-day weekend for this.

Quite the beginning to the New Year

I'm the kind of person who would prefers the bad news before the good news. Get it over with and get on with things. So that's why I'm seriously hoping that everything that has happened in the few week of the new year is reflective of this.

It's been kind of a disaster, and relates to the problems mentioned here.

So, where to begin?

Bluh.

So Theresa got in a fight over something stupid during the Christmas break. Petty, couple stuff, you know what I mean. Fine, so we're both frustrated, fuming at the other person and ignoring one another. Plenty of time to spend with each other if only we both weren't pouting and not talking.

I'm doing fine, I have my projects to work on. I catch on some much needed sleep and spend time with other friends. I don't feel bad or guilty about the fight because I "know" I was in the right. I feel a bit lonely but oh well.

And then I find out that somehow within the week we didn't speak with one another, Theresa ended up in the emergency room several times.

 

So now I feel like a jerk.

Yeah, she's been complaining of stomach pain a lot within the last few months and turns out she has a gall stone that's nearly 2cm large. It's blocking something I don't know the details? Do I look like a doctor to you? So she's going to be going for surgery sometime in the next few months (hopefully) or next year (hopefully not) to get her gall bladder removed.

Yeah, something about knowing the person you recently fought with has gone to the hospital just makes you feel bad. Very, bitter taste in the mouth if you know what I mean. I'll make it up to her somehow.

Here's a corgi driving a car.

But it doesn't end there my friends no. I'm also a bit of an idiot. I drive down to go work my shift at my fast food job. And normal day, nothing out of the ordinary. And then as I close up shop and head back to my car to begin the cold drive home I notice something odd.

Why is the driver's side door unlocked?

And why is the glove compartment open with stuff littered all over the place?

Insert colorful expletives here

I don't know if I completely failed to lock the door, maybe I didn't fully lock the car? Either way, someone got in, stole a bunch of stuff, and got out. They also were not smart people, stealing a dash cam, sunglasses, charging cord for the GPS (but not the GPS itself), a remote control, and volunteer IDs for the Humane society. None of the money in the car was taken and the insurance was untouched.

We've filed a police report, security for the area where I parked unfortunately did not have cameras within range of my car, vandals made off with about $400 worth of things but at least they didn't break a window doing it.

So uh, Happy new week I guess. I hope things can only go uphill from here. I guess I live up to my blog name, I have been a massive derp this week.

Where has everyone gone?

I didn't have the good fortune to be invited to any exciting New Year's parties this year. So I spent it alone. I also was out of my favorite beer, Innis and Gunn, so I also spent my New Year's sober. And I spent it in front of the dull glow of my computer screen.

And I was perfectly fine with that.

Though a good beer to accompany you never hurts.

I decided to go and revisit all the commenters who left comments on my blog last New Years. It's was a bit of a humbling experience. So many bloggers gone, disappeared, or forever on hiatus. It's hard to believe that at one point, I was getting almost 100 comments per post, now I struggle to hit 30.

But it's not the quantity of the comments that matter, but the quality. It's really true because I find that bloggers who do take the time to actually read what you've wrote and write something meaningful back tend to have better blogs to read as well. Most of the dead blogs left generic and lazy comments.

So thank you for everyone who still stops by to say hi. It's nice to know I have a small core group of readers out there.

But another reason why I wasn't too disappointed was because I spent the entire time in front of the computer working on various projects. I was the kind of guy who would go "That's a really neat thing to do, I should go do it" and then never get around to doing anything.

I still sort of am like that, but I'm working on changing that. This blog is an example of a project that I would consider a success. If anything else becomes successful, you'll hear of it. Some are a bit ambitious, some people would consider them frivolous or a waste of time, but I think these are things worth looking into.

Meanwhile my parents think I'm just playing games.

Thanks for having so much faith in your son.

Seriously, the only computer game I'm touching until my computer gets upgraded is Starcraft. Which I hate by the way, I hate this game. Like I've said before, I can control my emotions fairly well, but nothing, NOTHING, makes me as mad as this game. I have an abusive relationship with Starcraft and I admit it.

In the meantime, it's back to work. More research, more typing, more thinking and planning. I have less than a week left before classes resume so I want to see how many of these things I can successfully get off the ground before then.

Hopefully they don't go something like this: