Thursday 16 September 2010

Stupid thing I did as a child part #1

As a child I was afflicted with shortness. In fact, most children suffer from shortness. But I wasn't going to let it get in the way of something incredibly interesting that was sitting on top of a worktop in the kitchen one day. I can't remember what it is, but I wanted it.


I grabbed the worktop with one hand and reached for the the jar of whatever it was with the other. All of my attention was focused on the jar of enigma.


Until I noticed something on my arm.

I stopped trying to reach the mystery jar and inspected my arm.

It didn't taste like anything and wouldn't come off, so I assumed it was a part of me. If it wasn't originally a part of me, I was willing to accept it. But where did it come from? Why was it brown considering the rest of me was a pasty white colour? I thought and mulled and pondered in a way that was probably an early sign of my impending career in humanities, but I could not figure out what it was. Since I didn't have any idea what melanin is and didn't quite grasp the concept of pigmentation, the nearest conclusion I came to was:

And that was my second ever outburst of political incorrectness. :)

Tuesday 14 September 2010

Troubleshooting

I'm back from doing all of my incredibly important stuff so here's a longer post now :) How are you? I'm ill, but let's move on.

Every single boyfriend (except for a horrific breach of judgement I brought home at the age of 14) I've ever had has been interested in computers. Jukka almost majored in Pharmacy but then he met me and changed over to studying IT. What is this business? I know I usually draw myself with a computer, because I'm usually WITH a computer, but I can't program anything, I fight regularly with hardware and I'm nervous around white text on a black background. That firmly rules me out of being the kind of person I'm talking about. Anyway last night Jukka and I had a conversation that really emphasised the humanities side of my studies.

I've got a cough and a cold, so I was taking cough medicine. The brand name is "Resilar". Suddenly:
Jukka told me afterwards that his brain did something like this:
He was trying to think how perhaps the packaging reminded me of something. Or if it tasted familiar. No!
Turkish really does use the suffix -lar and resilar had reminded me of something I couldn't place for a long time. I'm pretty sure I found out what it was now <3

I've noticed that the humanities student girlfriend and computer studies boyfriend is a common pairing. At my department in university a lot of girls have a boyfriend from the University of Technology. I had one for a while, too. There's some friendly rivalry going on between the two univiersities, but obviously, it's childish and immature because my university is epic win and therefore better.

So to make everyone's life easier I decided to write a troubleshooting guide. You're welcome.

Sometimes your computer science boyfriend may feel like humanities studies aren't very.. concrete. There's a common stereotype of humanities studies being wishy-washy, lots of hippies just thinking and forming dangerous opinions of their own. And yeah, there are a lot of questions "which don't have a right answer, as long as you can argue your case", which is annoying. Yes, literature analysis, I'm talking about YOU. Personally I prefer linguistics, which is more scientific. However, I do seem to spend a lot of my time doing this:
1. Thinking 2: wondering
3. mulling4. In general just HARDCORE PONDERING


Do not be fooled, computer science man! Mulling is deceptive. It's not quite as passive as it looks. I squeezed out 86 pages of master's thesis and handed it into my teacher(s) yesterday. Now it's totally THEIR PROBLEM FOR A WEEK. <3>

If you are lucky you may have some things you like in common. Unfortunately there may be some things that your computer science boyfriend can't quite be as enthusiastic about as you are:
This may happen in the nerd --> humanities direction.


Fear not, there is a solution! Notice that I was sneaky and put this on the internet so even computer science boyfriend can find my ingenous guide. You have to find ANOTHER person who has a computer science boyfriend or humanities student girlfriend and then latch on to this person to stop you from learning how to tell the time in binary or understanding bits of code. Likewise, computer science boyfriends can pass the time complaining about how stupid Windows is (it really is, though) and how their distro of Linux totally pwns yours. This also prevents computer science boyfriend from invading YOUR computer and "seeing what it can do".

Here's something to mull:

1. Why does everything taste like bleach after a cold?

Mum pointed it out today and she was right. It does. Why?

Sunday 5 September 2010

How to tell if your dad is a reptile

The other day I was trying to force my hair into submission with my hair straighteners and some goo when I remembered the time my dad did my hair. I can't remember him ever doing it before, but I'm pretty sure he did. They just don't stick in your mind as much as when you suspect your dad is half reptile. Let me explain.

My dad had come over from Australia to visit and was staying at my nan's house. My mum had taken me to my nan's place to stay for a couple of days with my dad. I remember it was a school day because I loudly announced that my hair had to be put in a ponytail in accordance with school rules. I had really long hair, almost to my knees, and doing it myself usually ended badly.


My dad took the hairbrush, sat me down in front of him and began to brush my hair. It was going fine until he swept my hair away from my eyes and his fingers brushed my face. They RASPED on my face.


I panicked because the only reason that my dad would have such scaly fingers is obviously that he was half reptile. I waited in silent shock until he'd finished my ponytail and then asked him what was wrong with his fingers. He told me that he had callouses on the ends of his fingers from playing guitar. This was obviously the reason for his weird raspy fingers because he played the guitar every day. It was his thing, but you know how 5 year olds think :D

I've often wished I could play the guitar, because dad liked it so much. He was also really good at it. I've tried to plink my way through a few songs, but understandably I don't want to grow callouses on my fingers :D And I'm just not guitar-inclined.


I hope dad wouldn't mind that my thing is obscure Finnish dialects... :D