I'm sore...it must be spring

I started running almost two weeks ago, and I now have this bizarre mixture of exhaustion and energy...two things that don't SEEM like they should be able to co-exist. My legs are super tired and rather sore, and yet I feel like I want to go run some more...stupid endorphins.

Every year I get all excited about the warm weather and I start exercising and by the end of the summer I'm typically in great shape (well..decent) and down 15-20 lbs or so from where I started, and then it starts to get cold again and I lose all motivation, so by the next summer I'm once again dreadfully out of shape and pretty much back where I was before the previous summer.

At the end of last summer my typical morning/evening run was a two mile trip that took me about 20 minutes (6 mph on average...not terrible). I've been doing the 2 mile thing again this year, and each time so far it's taken me closer to 30 minutes (4 mph...bleh). This is, of course, to be expected considering the majority of my exercise in the past 8 months has consisted of getting up from my computer to grab a soda. Still annoying, though.

Today I lifted weights for the first time since this exercise kick started. Oh man...I'm not sore yet, but I am SO MUCH going to be so tomorrow.

This just in: Work of Fiction May Not Represent the Truth

With the West Virginia democratic primaries, the massive earthquake in China, the deadly cyclones in the southern U.S., and the relief effort in Myanmar, one wonders how reporters with the AP/CNN had any time to research such a ground-breaking report as is found on CNN.com today in their article (I am not making this up):
Experts: 'Indiana Jones' pure fiction

That's right! The folks over at CNN have unraveled Steven Spielberg's greatest hoax: Indiana Jones is not a documentary!!

I know!! I was just as shocked as all of you!!

I, for one, am really hoping that this is the first in a series of 'outings' to be done by CNN...think of the possibilities!

Rocky Balboa...not a real boxer?

Yosemite Sam...not a real cowboy?

Luke Skywalker...not a real Jedi?


I shudder to think of what shocking investigative journalism CNN will undoubtedly dazzle us with tomorrow!

Yea-Yay-Yeah

I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!!! The American public school system has failed us so thoroughly on this topic that I've decided that I have to make a little lesson about it myself. C'mon, guys...."Yea", "Yay", and "Yeah" are not the same word! I'm SHOCKED at the number of times I see these words incorrectly spelled. Be it in emails, letters, blog posts, or whatever, I'm constantly seeing the wrong Y-word used. Let's start off with some formal definitions...

Yea - \ˈyā\ (adverb, noun) : 1.'Yes' - used in oral voting. 2. indeed - formally. 3. 'Not only this but even'.

Yay - \ˈyā\ (interj.) : An exclamation of pleasure, approval, elation, or victory.

Yeah - \ˈyeə, ˈyaə\ (adverb) : 'Yes' - casually.


I know, I know. Typos happen. But this isn't strictly a typo issue. I see it ALL the time in print (mostly, I theorize, because that's MOSTLY what's available to read), but I've seen these same mistakes occur at approximately the same frequency in pen-to-paper writing, so it's not just a simple muscle-memory typo; people, as a majority, seem not to know this.

'Yea'. Now what I see ALL THE TIME is people inappropriately writing/typing 'Yea' when they mean one of the other two. I don't think I've ever seen (or at least noticed) the other spellings used incorrectly. The funny thing, however, is that "yea" should almost NEVER be used!! It's used in voting and in scripture-formal language to express 'indeed' or 'not only this but even...' and that's really about it!! (Ex. "How does the representative from Utah vote that the improper use of 'yea' should be allowed to continue, 'yea' or 'nay'?" "We vote 'nay', yea, we vote 'nay' whole-heartedly.")

'Yay' is our celebratory exclamation. Write this word when you're happy about something (or unhappy but feel like being sarcastic). (Ex. "We're all going to stop mis-using the word 'yea' all the time! Yay!!!")

'Yeah' is probably the most frequently USED word of the three, and yet, the most frequently written as 'yea'. That extra 'h' at the end makes all the difference in the world by changing our 'yeah' from an affirmative vote to a casual 'yes'. (Ex. "Yeah, I'm kinda anal about this whole 'Yea-Yay-Yeah stuff', but it's driving me crazy!")


Help make this a success!! ...It may end up being the first in my adult education series. Next on the docket: How right-of-way works at 4-Way-Stop Intersections.

End of Semester School Dream

****** Dreamt April 22-23, 2008 ******

I was in class in the Geology building on campus. I've had a couple classes in that building, so nothing was particularly striking about that. I'm not sure what class was being taught, but the teacher was Dean Mathias - the guy who's teaching the game development class I'm currently taking. Dean went around the room passing back an assignment, on which I scored "+15". What that meant in my dream, was that this was an on-going assignment where we turn it in, he scores it, gives it back, then we do some more work on it and he scores it again, adding points...this, apparently, would go on several times.

At the end of class he called for the assignment to be turned back in so he could score it again, but I hadn't done anything new on it! I panicked. I rushed up and asked him what were the new things we were supposed to have done on it, and he said we were supposed to have been filling in several answers about how to use Secants and Cosecants as he was lecturing about them during class. I was really worried, 'cuz I hadn't been paying attention in class, so I asked if I could turn it in late. He told me that if I brought it to his house no later than that night, I could still receive full credit. I was SO relieved!!

I then proceeded out of the building, which seemed to lead into the HPER building, and I headed to some class I had there. I think it was supposed to be a theater class, but when I looked in, everybody was doing yoga. I kinda sneaked in and watched for a few minutes, then decided it was too weird and left.

Suddenly it was the next morning and I was going to class when I realized I'd forgotten to bring my assignment to my teacher's house!!! I was stressing big time. I figured he'd probably be out street racing, 'cuz my teacher (in my dream) was a really big car guy. I headed to a neighborhood in Syracuse where a friend of mine used to live and, sure enough, there was a whole ton of tricked-out cars getting ready to do some street racing, but I couldn't find Dean! I asked some people if they knew where he was, or where he lived (something I probably should have found out before I agreed to bring my assignment to his home the night before), but nobody seemed to know. I woke up right about then, quite panicked about needing to bring that assignment to my teacher, I started to get out of bed in a rush when reality set in.

****** ******

I HAVE CREATED PHYSICS!!

After several weeks of plugging away at it, I have created Physics!! And yesterday another member of my group created rain!! ...We feel we're dangerously close to becoming supreme beings.

For the utterly confused, I'm in a Game Development class, and these are components for the game we're working on. It's a physics-based side scroller, and I'm not really sure how fun it'll end up being in the end, but it'll be kinda cool, at least.

The final version of the game doesn't need to be finished until NEXT Friday, but we have a major milestone that NEEDS to be reached by this Friday, so we've been working overtime lately. Yesterday I was up at 4:30am to work on it, I continued working on it until 11:30am when I went to work, I stayed there until a little after 5:00pm when I went home grabbed a bite to eat and headed back up to the school, and I was there until 11:30pm. But right at the end, my physics started fully working, so it was all worth it!! I now have fully working gravity, collisions, and joints...if you'd like a real-world example of these three things in action, simply run into a wall and then go limp. Actually, it'd be difficult for you to observe these if you're the one running...maybe get a friend to do it. Better yet, set up a video camera and record yourself doing the experiement...then send me a copy.

'80s Bash at Harry & David

Here's another dream for the "Whaaa??" category...

**** Dreamt April 14-15 2008 ****

I was at the Harry & David store in Park City, but the store was MUCH larger than it really is. In real life, the store is quite small, but in my dream it was pretty huge and also, a restaurant. For those who may not know, Harry & David is a store that specialized in fruits, nuts, and chocolate-covered fruits & nuts. Yes, it's kindof an odd concept, but if you're ever in the Park City area, bored out of your mind while the women-folk you're with are shopping at the outlet malls, let me recommend swinging by Harry & David...they give free samples!!

ANYWAY, so I was at Harry & David, and there was a big '80s party going on. Everybody was dressed up with huge hair, tons of bracelets, leg warmers, and jackets with far too many zippers on them. The lights were dimmed and there was a projector showing classic '80s music videos. I was having a great time with all of my friends (none of whom I recognized as ACTUAL friends in real life). We were talking about how much fun the party was and how it was JUST like high school, when suddenly I realized, "Wait! This isn't just like High School at all! I wasn't in high school in the '80s...I wasn't even in Jr High in the '80s! And since WHEN has Harry & David been a restaurant?!?"

Very rapidly the acceptance of the ridiculous that seems so natural in dreams faded and I awoke to find Olivia Newton John's "Let's Get Physical" playing on my clock radio. How my radio got tuned to an '80s rock station is beyond me!

******

Interpretations welcome!

"Halt Die Klappe!"

So last night my trying-to-sleep roommate texted me to "Halt Die Klappe!". I, of course, don't speak German, so it seemed like an absurd thing to text me, because if it was instructions of some kind, I sure wasn't going to be able to follow. Luckily another roommate was in the room who claims to know some German, and he told me it meant "Shut up!". I thought surely that can't be right...if anything my roommate would have just said, "be quiet", right? Nope, I looked it up today on multiple sites and all of them interpretted it as a harsh way of telling a German to shut up (several of the interpretations included swear words to define its more precise English meaning).

Now I don't take offense to my arian roomie, because - as stated before - I don't speak German so a harsh phrase in it just sounds like gibberish to me (although I was a tad annoyed that he didn't just open his door and say something, as it was several people being loud). But it got me thinking about curse words. Now language itself is a very odd phenomenon if you think about it...this odd collection of sounds which somehow have meaning to us, but swearing is extra-odd. The concept that certain sound combinations OFFEND us is really kindof mind-boggling. What is it about these words that offend us anyway? It's obviously not the actual meaning behind the word, 'cuz there's a non-swearing way to say the same true meaning behind every curse word I can think of.

Is it bad to swear in another language? I guess it's the same bad-ness that is if you swear when you're by yourself. I've heard it said that the reason it's "bad" to swear is that the offender is exhibiting a loss of self control...but what if you say a swear word NOT in a moment of anger with no malice AND it's in another language...it's completely meaningless to you and your audience...that's not really bad, is it? But then if that's the case is it bad to simply SAY a swear word in your native tounge if you're by yourself (so as not to offend anyone) if you're not saying it in anger and are just saying it for fun? lol. Anyway, just some random thoughts that came from an evening of keeping my poor, sleepy roommate awake. ^^