Pejig, Nìj, Niswi……

NOTE TO THE READER: If my sentence structure and vocabulary usage seems stranger than usual, please bear with me. I have been reading my linguistics book all night and I have managed become even more confused about the English language.


So I gave up on my search for a Little Red Ridinghood costume that didn’t expose 90% of my total cutaneous membrane and its accessory structures. I opted for a conservative version of a native maiden from Frankbee’s. Of course as a social studies teacher, I should know whether or not the features and prints of my costume are historically correct, but I didn’t really have time to research the Powhatan, although I did try to brush up a bit on my Algonquian. I am also straying a bit from traditional native footwear, since I’m wearing a platform wedge with a crossed vamp. (see fig. 1.1) ……he he


Fig. 1.1

I have officially proclaimed myself a sleep deprived Pocahontas this Halloween (or “Character Day, as my principal calls it). I didn’t have to buy a wig for obvious reasons, but I did actually comb my hair in order to be able to braid it. I’ve already worn the costume to last Saturday’s surreal experience my friends called a party. Most people seemed to able to tell I was supposed to be Pocahontas, which a good sign.

It is now Tuesday .... Halloween day....today after work I will be going trick-or-treating with Duke, Nao and Briana. Duke will be Jackie Robinson, a costume created by yours truly, at the request of my baseball craze offspring. I’m not sure what Nao will be, and Briana will be a vampire, I think….After that, I’ll go fail my linguistics midterm, for which I’ve been studying all night.
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On a totally unrelated subject, I went to see Slava’s Snow Show last night at the Union Square Theater and I have to say I was impressed with this off-Broadway thing. I am not much of a theater enthusiast, so I was expecting to be lightly amused by it, but this was very different than anything I have ever seen. Duke and had to spin the wheel of adjectives to be able to describe it accurately and it landed on phenomenal (yes we are a little obsessed with sprint commercials).

I absolutely recommend anyone that has a taste for interactive theater to go and see this show before its final performances in New York in January. Some of my favorite parts were the extraordinarily realistic paper snow storm and the gigantic ball tossing in which the entire audience participated. There is also a wide range of emotions evoked and portrayed which was interesting since the entire play is basically wordless, although the music is amazing (especially the samba

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme, I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.
---Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947

For the non-readers

There are only 4 confirmed readers of this blog and you know who you are (thanx for the loyalty and sorry for the grammatical torture)... For all the other posers that assure me that they do read it....seriously, don't lie. There's no need for that. I won't be mad at you. It's ok. Don't claim to be interesting. I only write this to distract myself from things I SHOULD be doing, like homework, lesson planning, etc....

mdl

friday the 13th.....

I'm looking forward to digitallife tomorrow. Maybe spending my Sunday being amazed by new gadget and video games will help me forget this week, well more like this Friday the 13...

this is how my Friday went....

.....kid gets sick when I’m already late for work so I have to make a light speed decision to keep him out of school... then I have a series of mini-misfortunes including my MP3 player going MIA... eventually leading to a night of half-cancelled plans, being stood up, then unstood up, eventually left watching 40 days and 40 nights by myself because i was the only person awake.....

so Nao get ready to hit the Javits center tomorrow and don’t you dare complain about being tired...he he

MDL

Baby Elias is finally born !!

My dear nephew Elias was finally born . After about 20 episodes of false labor, he was finally born at about 1 am this morning ....7lbs 11oz.....


Happy Birthday Mom.

a weekend to remember

this weekend was OK except for:

-losig my jacket at payless because nao decides to buy shoes at the last minute
-having teenagers laugh at me on the train...again...
-catching a cold because I lost my jacket at payless
-participating in a facial party (which turned out to be ok, still to girlish for me)
-being yelled at by drunken people upset about a yankee game ( as if I cared about baseball)


other than that,a few lessons learned:

-starbucks vanilla frappuccino tastes a lot better with bailey's and disaronno (I still hate coffee)
-archades are still fun (as long as it's not chuckie cheeses)
-there is such thing as too much DayQuil
-must have a talk with Duke about putting down the yankees while riding a bus in the bronx wearing a mets hat.

more random stuff

This morning I woke up with wierd sensation. For starters, I slept for nearly 12 hours, which is highly unusual for me. I also remembered my dreams, which is also highly infrequent. I had a sequence of really strange dreams that began with my nephew Elias being born [this dream doesn't need explaining, since my sis-in-law has gone into false labor a few times within the past week]. The next dream had something to do with a big yellow balloon and walking the rain, well more like drizzle (a little Santiago Nazarish, yet not quite bird shit and hopefully without his fate) …finally in the last dream I was really upset because I ran out of dishwashing detergent…[ha ha as if]. I can't quite figure out what the symbolism is here. maybe I just overslept :)



Anyway, I have also been a little more aware of my surrounding than usual. By this I mean I've been unintentionally eavesdropping. See, I'm not usually the kind of person that purposely listens to other people's conversations, but lately I have caught myself actually interested in what strangers have to say. For example the following is a fragment of a conversation between two guys sitting on the steps in front of a building in my neighborhood:

Listen man! The longer I live, the more I think about life as foil paper… you know how you hear that people are born a blank slate…nah, I think people are just born like a fresh piece of foil paper, when you first get it out of the box. As we meet people and have experiences we start to crease and then just wrinkle…...

[Note: this guy was talking loud enough for anyone to hear within a 2 block radius so it was almost impossible not to hear him]



Totally unrelated….. I went to the Wired NextFest with Duke yesterday and we were amazed with some of what we saw. Some things more useful and practical than others….some just too classic to resist, like pong from an interactive projector, he he…. I will put up pictures on the flicker when I get around to it:



Noteworthy things ===========>

> Brainball
> Virtuesphere
> International children's digital library
> GM Hy-wire
> Acceleglove
> Solar powered communication
> Dandelion and blower interactive screen
> Media mirror
> Pixelroller
> Leaf personal light
> Power-aware cord
> Archouse
> Polimars from orange and other green materials
> Ragbag
> DIGIWALL
> Lifestraw
> Bacteria Photographs
> VeinViewer
> Xerox thermal imaging
> Juke Bots
> Clay animation booth



Just too Creepy for my taste ======>

> Atari Rabbit Therater
> Asian robot chick
> Alex Hubo (weird Einstein robot)
> Paro
> Shadow Dextrous hand
> Partner Ballroom Dance Robots



There was also a ball throwing competition with robot built by high school students…among the schools competing were Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science…why am I not surprised…anyway…..Feeling that my life seems a bit more random than usual….. goodbye for now