smiles & soap.

3:19PM - Survey

(This isn't for a paper or anything, it's just something I'm curious about. It would be best if you come up with your own answer before you look at other people's comments.)

(1) His mother loves John.

Could (1) mean a, b, both, or neither?:

a. John's mother loves John
b. Some other boy's mother loves John

3:49PM - LJ interests meme.

Snagged from lord_codfish. It turns out that a lot of my LJ interests (such as "chocolate" and "moons", but also "running") correspond to fairly offensive pictures. But luckily it let me switch through a few.

( My Interests Collage! )

Create your own! Originally Written By ga_woo, Hosted and ReWritten by darkman424

5:54PM - And now for an _actual_ update.

lwa341 is coming home tonight, after being across the world for six weeks. Yay!

In other news, one of my housemates is transferring to Harvard Law, and we will be getting a new housemate in her place. He makes pancakes on Sundays and throws Don Quixote-themed parties, so he should fit right in. Hee.

Today I got to bug lots of people who are native speakers of interesting languages. (Specifically, interesting languages with long-distance reflexives.) Wheeee! It will be interesting to see if any two people's judgments actually agree. Things look much more certain in papers than they do when you go around asking people. Meanwhile I feel strangely sheepish.

The Williams Syndrome conference went well-- I especially liked getting to meet so many different people with WS. You hear so much about the symptoms of WS that it's good to see that people with it are just as different from one another as any other people are. Also, giving money to children is fun. Less fun is spending that much time in a hotel, since the conference happened there, all the testing happened there, and we were staying there. No reason to ever leave, except to find food.

Also, I think the WS conference made me think really hard about the Responsibilities of Parenthood-- the kids and adults with WS all had really hard-working parents looking out for them and trying to help them lead happy and full lives. Good people. But anyway while I was there, I had weird dreams that I suddenly discovered I was pregnant (just in the dream) and was angsting over having had sake the night before (in RL).
Meh.

Anyhoo. Life is good. My housemates threw me a pirate-themed birthday party. Red velvet cake got all mangled, looked like blood. Yarr. And last weekend I went canoeing on the Potomac. Hurray for the outdoors, and all.

And there will be a TIM again! About time.

5:39PM - book meme

So I guess I better meme. Actual life update coming soon.

1. One book that changed your life
probably Godel Escher Bach, although I never finished reading it, was one of the things that got me into linguistics.
But then so were The Lord of the Rings and Through the Looking Glass.

2. One book you have read more than once
I'm with LBS: only one? But _The Lord of the Rings_ may be the most common one (or three) for me to re-read.

3. One book you would want on a desert island
Hmm maybe the complete works of Shakespeare? It would take a while to read it all.
But like dr_whom I would especially want a book that would help me get off a desert island.

4. One book that made you laugh
Good Omens.

5. One book that made you cry
The Lorax.

6. One book you wish had been written
Aside from, say, the last book of the WoT? (I'm still hoping...)
Maybe the version of Much Ado About Nothing where Hero dumps Claudio for being a jerk who doesn't trust her, instead of marrying him after all.
Only that would make the ending less cheery, and cheer is fun. So I dunno.

7. One book you wish had never been written
Would it be wrong to say Crossroads of Twilight?
I really do want the WoT to finish, so I suppose I can't veto intermediate steps, but that one didn't feel like anyone accomplished a darn thing. In contrast Knife of Dreams was actually pretty good.

8. One book you are currently reading
I just finished Vingt Ans Apres (=Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas) and Son of a Witch (Maguire, the sequel to Wicked). I also just bought A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay so I may start that soon.

9. One book you have been meaning to read
Le Morte D'Arthur. (I started it but then got sidetracked.)

10. Now tag five people!
Hmm, that would involve looking up who has already done it, which I'm too lazy to do.
ephermata, if you haven't already and if you feel like it.
sandmantv, ditto.
lwa341, if you even see this.
Any others who haven't been tagged yet and wanna do this.

12:56PM - Ah, memes.

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

12:29PM

The HRSFA house party was great fun, although (in the great HRSFA house party tradition) there were massive thunderstorms on the fourth of July. This year, at least, the sewers didn't break. However, a large tree was knocked down across a nearby street and it knocked over poles with electric wires: consequently, we haven't had power since Wednesday afternoon. On the up side, this has led to a lot of fun candlelit conversations and games as well as a nice trip to Ten Ren tea house to charge our computers and cell phones. Still, I really hope the power returns soon.

In a few weeks, I'll be going to the Williams Syndrome Association's national convention and professional conference. This should be a very good learning experience-- I've actually only met one person with WS so far, but at the convention we will be able to meet and test lots and lots of them for about three solid days.
(WS is a genetic disorder-- people with it have mild mental retardation as well as cardiovascular problems, unusual facial features, and other traits. It has been held up as an example of the dissociation between linguistic abilities and more general cognitive abilities, because people with WS have relatively good language abilities in spite of mental retardation. But other studies I'm reading have said that the linguistic abilities of WS subjects actually correlate with mental age and other cognitive abilities. Additionally, though, because WS people are often developmentally delayed and do not always acquire the same skills in the same order as others, studying the abilities of WS subjects can be useful to examine how/if certain abilities are related. Also, WS subjects really really like social contact with adults, which means that they tend to enjoy being tested, which is great from a researcher's point of view.)

So I'm excited about that.

Also, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 comes out on Friday: Yarr!

2:03PM - New York, New York

lwa341 and I are now world record holders! Along with almost 1200 others we were part of the world's largest coconut orchestra. (We had been watching Spamalot while in NYC over spring break.)
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/98650.html

Also, NYC is full of tasty food. We stayed with eclectician, who made us dinner-- I recommend this. We also helped make bread, but we helped make the bread about twice as salty as it should have been. :( Ah well. And it was nice to meet up with wolfheart17 and khyros for dinner after Spamalot.

Previously: Ohio.

Next: Work. Sigh.

10:43AM

Happy Ides of March, everyone!

Lego Star Wars is a really funny game, especially in the Ep 3 cut scenes. There's a cut scene where pregnant Lego Padme gives birth to baby Lego Luke and Leia. Wackiness! And the bit where Lego Anakin loses his Lego arms and legs is pretty funny too.

Seriously, I've realized that I will always be fond of Star Wars, even the bad Star Wars. I just can't help it. It has the theme music and the yellow writing and says Star Wars.

Hmm, better go do some work or something.

5:21PM

( Spectrum! )

2:19PM - Whee, kangaroos!

Animals I saw in the WILD in Australia:

kangaroos! including a joey, but it was too big to be in its mom's pouch
an echidna! (an egg-laying mammal, like the platypus)
a goanna! (big lizard.)

Animals I could have seen in the wild in Australia, although I didn't:
penguins!

lwa341 and I visited a friend of his who uses his geek powers for awesome! Specifically, nature-related awesome. He has a fishing boat with various wacky features, including fish radar. And he showed us an island (from a distance) where penguins live. The warm-weather kind. Sadly I saw no penguins. Except at the zoo in Sydney.

Anyway, the rest of the Australia trip was pretty good too. I tried meat pies and vegemite and climbed the Harbour Bridge and ate a lot of good food. Also, I went to a cricket game for 8 hours. That was kind-of interesting because they have member stands where you have to register to be a member and then wait 10 years before you can be one. (lwa341 was apparently registered before he was born even.) And once you're there you have to dress up. Weirdness.
Also, Australians are the best sports I've ever seen. They clapped even when Australia lost a wicket, because the Sri Lankan fielder had made a good catch. It was charming but strange.

Next time I go to Australia, I think I'll go for more than 10 days. Because I spent about 5 of them being jet-lagged and falling asleep annoyingly early. And being back I had trouble falling asleep at all. Ah well. This weekend's VeriCon (hooray!), when it's probably good not to fall asleep til 6am.

In other news, I have my first class for this semester in about 20 minutes. It feels rather incongruous, sandwiched between Australia and VeriCon.

See many of you soon!

Current mood: bouncy

11:51AM - Baltimore!

( Baltimore )

12:25PM - Whee, poll time!

Hello friends. I'm writing a paper and would be very grateful if I could get some judgments from you. Please try to respond before you reading other people's answers.
Thanks so much for your help!

For sentences (1)-(2), could you say if you find (a) and/or (b) to be potentially appropriate responses?

(1) Only John likes himself.
(a) Wrong! Mary likes him too.
(b) Wrong! Mary likes herself too.

(2) Only John thinks that he will win.
(a) Wrong! Mary thinks that John will win too.
(b) Wrong! Mary thinks that she will win too.

Do you think (a) and/or (b) is a possible interpretation of (3)?
(3) John likes him and so does Mary.
(a) John and Mary like John.
(b) John and Mary like another man.

Thanks a lot!

11:52PM - randomosity

My 11th grade English class just called me up. It was surreal.

Whee, semester is done, except for a syntax paper which I'll write over break. Possibly there will be poll-ful wackiness later on. Now I'm with family in RI, but I'll be back home for New Years, and in January I'm visiting San Diego, then Sydney (to see lwa341). Whoopee!

Played Cosmic with haus-mates, Dennis, and Nate on Wednesday night. The anti-truth moon is hilarious! We were trying to figure out whether Tom had won, or whether Nate could use his "prolong" power to keep the challenge going. But the anti-truth moon was occupied, so we had to say the opposite of what we meant, unless we thought the game was over.

Anyway, the conversation went something like:

--Is the game over?
--Yes.
--So can Nate use his, um, "shorten" power?
--No.
--I'm definitely not confused now. Those answers definitely clarified whether the game was over or not.

Also, cimartin gave me juggling beanbags. Now I must learn to juggle.

Current mood: amused

12:20AM - Whee, avatar!

2:37PM - In other news...

For fun (and, so far, profit), I started playing really loose-agressive in poker. It's totally paying off! Last Thursday, I made $57 in a game with a $10 buy-in. Sunday I made $52. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

2:34PM

A few weeks back, Tom made a Firefly-themed dinner, complete with fortune cookies.
Mine said: "Watch out for a sudden yet inevitable betrayal."
That seemed ominous. "Take another one!" says Tom.
Okay. My next one says "Given the right vacuum, the human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds."

All right, which of my friends is secretly a vampire?

2:14PM - Apparently I picked the right place to live.

( City test )

1:14AM - I have an audience.

My department has always been full of toys and candy, but now we moved out most of the toys and got a piano instead. It's electric, with earphones, so in principle I could practice without disturbing anyone or having them strangle me or anything.

I'm pleased. :)

In other news, it turns out that I'm not that original when other people watch me type. Sadness. But I'll try.

In honor of Yom Kippur ending, I got to eat lots and lots of free traif. Yummy squid. And pork. And other Korean goodies.

And Prof. Dan Swingley from Penn regaled us with stories of how migraines can cause temporary aphasia. Scary.

But then I got a cold. Sadness. Ah well.

Also, Australia's beating the Rest of the World in the cricket game in Sydney! Wheeee.

(I came up with this entry all on my own. Really I did. Certainly my keyboard never got hijacked by anyone who, say, knew about cricket scores. Or griped that this game has _only_ lasted 2.5 days so far.) ;)

9:48PM

( I'm Tigger! )

In other news, last weekend was very costume-ful.
We had a regency tea party/croquet game/ball (where I dressed as a boy to make numbers balance), and then we went to the Renaissance Faire dressed as pirates! Yarrr.

In other other news, for a real Abbot & Costello act, try discussing phonetics with an Australian.

6:14PM - Avast!

Sandmantv, Tom and I took I pirate-themed tour of the strip malls of Maryland.

Yarr.

In other news, wolfheart17, I finished Godslayer a while ago. Let's chat!