http://verymarykate.com
Is it wrong that I find this so hilarious? I don't even think she resembles Mary Kate much, but the character is pretty funny as an original.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
What Would Doc Brown Think?
I was watching Back to the Future tonight (ahhhh the joy of sort-of winter holidays!) and in the beginning of the movie Doc Brown wants to go 25 years into the future....
...Which would have landed him in 2010! What would Doc Brown think? In the end, he ends up going ahead 30 years instead, which places him in 2015, not too far off, and when he comes back the DeLorean can fly and it's powered by garbage fuel. While I don't know about 4 and a bit years in the future, but at the moment, while there are some cars that manage to be powered on kinds of waste (there's a car in my hometown that runs on old deep fryer grease) they're sort of still working on the flying car thing. Would Doc have been disappointed? Or would iPhones and the internet be fascinating enough?
...Which would have landed him in 2010! What would Doc Brown think? In the end, he ends up going ahead 30 years instead, which places him in 2015, not too far off, and when he comes back the DeLorean can fly and it's powered by garbage fuel. While I don't know about 4 and a bit years in the future, but at the moment, while there are some cars that manage to be powered on kinds of waste (there's a car in my hometown that runs on old deep fryer grease) they're sort of still working on the flying car thing. Would Doc have been disappointed? Or would iPhones and the internet be fascinating enough?
Texty
I still can't believe that Mathias texted me on Saturday. For those of you that don't know, I dated Mathias in early spring this year. He couldn't commit, and he stopped calling. I haven't heard from him in 8 months, and he thinks he can just text me? Does he think I'm desperate and/or easy? That he can just text after several months of zero contact and that I'll somehow respond positively? I didn't answer, but I was just really tempted to text "You've got to be kidding me" back. Some guys...
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
2010 Resolutions
Ok, I realize that 2010 isn't -quite- over yet, but it's close enough that I think I can post about the progress I made on this year's New Years resolutions.
Before I start, I want to mention that when I make a resolution, it's not really an empty thing I do because it's New Years and everyone else is doing it. When I make them, I intend to stick with them. I don't save goal-setting for New Years as well either...I make goals throughout the year, some of them short-term and some of them long-term; however New Years is a convenient time to set new goals because of the "new start" symbolism that goes with it. Anyway my resolutions were:
-Spend less time on the computer
-Get back to the healthy diet I kept in the summer of 2009.
-Quit buying books on Amazon.
-Save money.
-Learn better housekeeping.
-Practice French.
I did pretty well. I'll list progress in point form:
-I do spend less time on the computer, and the time I do spend is used more wisely (looking up and printing articles for school, doing other research that could be helpful to my studies, such as a growing interest in demographics, blogging, writing other stuff).
-After I made my resolutions post in January, I went on a fat binge that especially got larger after I went to Athens and decided that copious amounts of olive oil makes food taste AWESOME. By the summer, I had gained 15 lbs and didn't fit into any of my "fitted" clothes. I decided to renew my commitment to eating healthy, exercising and losing weight. It was a slow start at first because I had just made progress on the exercise and not the diet to go with it, but after I got sick in September I was able to change my eating habits and moderate my cheese and olive oil intake. Today (yes, TODAY) I weighed myself and I've hit my weight goal! Go me. While weight isn't everything, I also fit into my clothes again, and the mirror is showing me my good work as well. so yep...check!
-While I never -quit- buying books on Amazon, I do buy significantly less of them than in 2009. As a reader I'm always tempted to actually OWN all the books I want to read, but I've learned to just buy some of them and put a halt as I catch up on actually -reading- them and be more content with keeping a wishlist on Amazon should I decide to read more later. I also check my online spending on other products by avoiding impulse purchases and only buying things that fulfill a specific and genuine need, and I still compare prices both on and offline before I make them.
-I've assessed my spending and cut some things, and in the fall I reassessed my budget. Unfortunately this reassessment showed me that even on my basic needs, costs are more than I had originally budgeted. Trying to cut this further is proving difficult. for example, basic food doesn't really do it for me. For one, because of my allergies I have to eat meat at least a few times a week to get enough protein, and I can't seem to curb buying nicer, high quality foods. I do buy seasonally and this saves me money, and gardening in the summer helps. Though, these things don't seem to make a massive enough impact to help my budget all that much. My household costs are also higher than I originally thought. Going into this place being a first-time homeowner, I didn't really think of all the expenses that I'd have for maintenance and such. Things like deck oil every year (3 cans for 2 coats, over 90 Euro) to protect the balcony...stuff like that. As a renter I never had these expenses. Anyway...
-I HAVE learned better housekeeping. I'm still no Martha Stewart (or even as nitpicky as I was in Canada) but my house is cleaner and tidier than it was this time last year and I'm working out better long-term organization solutions for my stuff.
-I enrolled in a French class in the fall. I intend on continuing in January!
So...not half bad!
I have to think of what my resolutions should be for 2011.
Before I start, I want to mention that when I make a resolution, it's not really an empty thing I do because it's New Years and everyone else is doing it. When I make them, I intend to stick with them. I don't save goal-setting for New Years as well either...I make goals throughout the year, some of them short-term and some of them long-term; however New Years is a convenient time to set new goals because of the "new start" symbolism that goes with it. Anyway my resolutions were:
-Spend less time on the computer
-Get back to the healthy diet I kept in the summer of 2009.
-Quit buying books on Amazon.
-Save money.
-Learn better housekeeping.
-Practice French.
I did pretty well. I'll list progress in point form:
-I do spend less time on the computer, and the time I do spend is used more wisely (looking up and printing articles for school, doing other research that could be helpful to my studies, such as a growing interest in demographics, blogging, writing other stuff).
-After I made my resolutions post in January, I went on a fat binge that especially got larger after I went to Athens and decided that copious amounts of olive oil makes food taste AWESOME. By the summer, I had gained 15 lbs and didn't fit into any of my "fitted" clothes. I decided to renew my commitment to eating healthy, exercising and losing weight. It was a slow start at first because I had just made progress on the exercise and not the diet to go with it, but after I got sick in September I was able to change my eating habits and moderate my cheese and olive oil intake. Today (yes, TODAY) I weighed myself and I've hit my weight goal! Go me. While weight isn't everything, I also fit into my clothes again, and the mirror is showing me my good work as well. so yep...check!
-While I never -quit- buying books on Amazon, I do buy significantly less of them than in 2009. As a reader I'm always tempted to actually OWN all the books I want to read, but I've learned to just buy some of them and put a halt as I catch up on actually -reading- them and be more content with keeping a wishlist on Amazon should I decide to read more later. I also check my online spending on other products by avoiding impulse purchases and only buying things that fulfill a specific and genuine need, and I still compare prices both on and offline before I make them.
-I've assessed my spending and cut some things, and in the fall I reassessed my budget. Unfortunately this reassessment showed me that even on my basic needs, costs are more than I had originally budgeted. Trying to cut this further is proving difficult. for example, basic food doesn't really do it for me. For one, because of my allergies I have to eat meat at least a few times a week to get enough protein, and I can't seem to curb buying nicer, high quality foods. I do buy seasonally and this saves me money, and gardening in the summer helps. Though, these things don't seem to make a massive enough impact to help my budget all that much. My household costs are also higher than I originally thought. Going into this place being a first-time homeowner, I didn't really think of all the expenses that I'd have for maintenance and such. Things like deck oil every year (3 cans for 2 coats, over 90 Euro) to protect the balcony...stuff like that. As a renter I never had these expenses. Anyway...
-I HAVE learned better housekeeping. I'm still no Martha Stewart (or even as nitpicky as I was in Canada) but my house is cleaner and tidier than it was this time last year and I'm working out better long-term organization solutions for my stuff.
-I enrolled in a French class in the fall. I intend on continuing in January!
So...not half bad!
I have to think of what my resolutions should be for 2011.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Miss/Ms/Mrs
Dear Germans,
When communitcating/corresponding in English, and you're speaking to a woman who is either unmarried or you don't know her marital status, you use "Ms" not "Mrs." And if I'm talking to you and correct you, don't tell me that in Germany you say "Mrs" and continue calling me "Mrs. Griffin" because we are speaking in English, and that's not how we roll. For a country that's so concerned with English ability, it just amazes me that people wont accept this.
For some reason it bugs me. When we learn German, we learn that "Fraulein" is outdated, and that you just use "Frau" regardless of marital status. It's a cultural difference but sometimes these come to play with language and etiquette. Now, sometimes someone just doesn't know, and that's fair enough....maybe they didn't learn enough English to get the subtle differences with these things. I get that, because I run into it with German still...sometimes the little things count and it might not always be something you learned in class. But I think if someone corrects you and their a native speaker, you shouldn't argue with them because that's what's done in your native language. I've had this happen a few times. And for people using a high level of business English, you should have learned this already. No excuses.
When communitcating/corresponding in English, and you're speaking to a woman who is either unmarried or you don't know her marital status, you use "Ms" not "Mrs." And if I'm talking to you and correct you, don't tell me that in Germany you say "Mrs" and continue calling me "Mrs. Griffin" because we are speaking in English, and that's not how we roll. For a country that's so concerned with English ability, it just amazes me that people wont accept this.
For some reason it bugs me. When we learn German, we learn that "Fraulein" is outdated, and that you just use "Frau" regardless of marital status. It's a cultural difference but sometimes these come to play with language and etiquette. Now, sometimes someone just doesn't know, and that's fair enough....maybe they didn't learn enough English to get the subtle differences with these things. I get that, because I run into it with German still...sometimes the little things count and it might not always be something you learned in class. But I think if someone corrects you and their a native speaker, you shouldn't argue with them because that's what's done in your native language. I've had this happen a few times. And for people using a high level of business English, you should have learned this already. No excuses.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Mondays
Unlike Garfield, I do not hate Mondays.
I kind of like that feeling of starting the week. It's like New Years Day, on a much smaller scale. Whatever went wrong last week has a chance to be redeemed or forgotten, and whatever went right has a chance to grow.
I kind of like that feeling of starting the week. It's like New Years Day, on a much smaller scale. Whatever went wrong last week has a chance to be redeemed or forgotten, and whatever went right has a chance to grow.
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