Three videos, one singer, one song.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BG2NL72DhqA
David Byrne on BBC four, with orchestral backup in Holland, 2004.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=u50KlJxCWpg&feature=related
David Byrne backed up by the Arcade fire. Terrible sound quality, good energy.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=68KLZCVFDQI
More or less original video. Famous scene of David Byrne dancing with a lamp near the end.
I don't have a favorite of the three. Excellent song though.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sick as Hell!
I'm lethargic, prone to extreme cold and heat, and generally uncomfortable. I stayed home from school and work today.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Sick! Angry! Laughing!!!
I'm sick. I'm going to the doctor this afternoon to hopefully deal with this cold-like thing thats been on me for days. I fear bronchitis and the flu. I feel like their is a tough slime guarding the back of my throat. Also I feel minor chills, minor aches, and a sense of crappiness. Plus, a nyquil hangover.
I'm angry, as someone decided to smash the mirror on my car while it was parked on the street. This sucks, as it makes turning more difficult. I can see out the mirror still, but only half of it works as well as I need.
I'm laughing, as I saw Bush dance awkwardly on BBC today.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jZnpCzitmUA
Here he is dancing in Liberia. Clapping, shaking, etc. Pretty sweet.
I'm angry, as someone decided to smash the mirror on my car while it was parked on the street. This sucks, as it makes turning more difficult. I can see out the mirror still, but only half of it works as well as I need.
I'm laughing, as I saw Bush dance awkwardly on BBC today.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jZnpCzitmUA
Here he is dancing in Liberia. Clapping, shaking, etc. Pretty sweet.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Life's a test Paula
Many people will tell you that life, in general is a test. Its a test of our ability to cope, our reasoning, our ability to get on with others, and a number of other, definitely important factors.That said, I've had a number of tests in the past couple of weeks. Not just regular academic tests, but also tests of communication and clarity.
For instance, I've been trying to begin tutoring an international grad student with their English. One thing I've learned from the experience is that emailing must be done at the first oppurtunity. If it isn't, valuable time is wasted. When time is wasted, projects fall out of schedule, and life careens off it's simple tracks. Wei and I had very flawed communication, and when I eventually found out that we would not be able to work together, it was already crunch time. So, I'm now scrambling to set something else up, sending a bunch of emails, and generally fretting.
Waking up with one's alarm and going to class is another important test. It's a test of caring. "Do I really care enough to go to school and endure this minor boredom for some time so that I can succeed?" It's also a test of ambition and endurance. I failed that test twice this week, sleeping in and missing Syntax. This puts me in a worrying position with the course, and makes me feel lazy and out of it. I was feeling quite ill though.
Also, I've had two real academic tests. One in Historical linguistics, and one in Teaching English as a Second Language. Both of them I prepared for moderately. Both of them I did well on until the essay portion. Essays are normally my best part of any given test, as I have fair talent for putting shit together into something coherent and lovely. That falls apart completely when I have major gaps in my knowledge of the subject matter. I feel that on both essays I showed a bit of understanding, but just not enough.
My understanding of the Germanic Consonant Shift is lacking. I think I'm also a bit mixed up on the various names of theories of language teaching.
Tevs
song of the day: Y-control- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
For instance, I've been trying to begin tutoring an international grad student with their English. One thing I've learned from the experience is that emailing must be done at the first oppurtunity. If it isn't, valuable time is wasted. When time is wasted, projects fall out of schedule, and life careens off it's simple tracks. Wei and I had very flawed communication, and when I eventually found out that we would not be able to work together, it was already crunch time. So, I'm now scrambling to set something else up, sending a bunch of emails, and generally fretting.
Waking up with one's alarm and going to class is another important test. It's a test of caring. "Do I really care enough to go to school and endure this minor boredom for some time so that I can succeed?" It's also a test of ambition and endurance. I failed that test twice this week, sleeping in and missing Syntax. This puts me in a worrying position with the course, and makes me feel lazy and out of it. I was feeling quite ill though.
Also, I've had two real academic tests. One in Historical linguistics, and one in Teaching English as a Second Language. Both of them I prepared for moderately. Both of them I did well on until the essay portion. Essays are normally my best part of any given test, as I have fair talent for putting shit together into something coherent and lovely. That falls apart completely when I have major gaps in my knowledge of the subject matter. I feel that on both essays I showed a bit of understanding, but just not enough.
My understanding of the Germanic Consonant Shift is lacking. I think I'm also a bit mixed up on the various names of theories of language teaching.
Tevs
song of the day: Y-control- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Graduation
I'm in a good mood right now. I'm listening to pleasant music, and know when I will graduate from the University of Minnesota. I just spoke to my academic advisor about it. I've been working on Semantics in a computer lab, trying to establish that sentences that are necessarily true are all equivalent (because they are meaningless and give no new information)
I have class shortly. Syntax. Boredom, people asking questions that are profoundly stupid, and the professor humoring them by spending 1/4 of class time trying to answer them. This is all in good fun though, and it's a great little bond that you can build with who-ever is sitting nearby.
Also, I saw a student who looked vaguely porcine (not because of being fat, but because of his nose and boarish stubble) walking along the mall. He was wearing a t-shirt in spite of the fairly cold weather. People who were walking near him kept their distance, like he was rabid. I saw looks of concern and bemusement, and a glare of disgust. And then I watched him dissapear
Song of the day: "Cape Cod Kwassa"- Vampire Weekend
I have class shortly. Syntax. Boredom, people asking questions that are profoundly stupid, and the professor humoring them by spending 1/4 of class time trying to answer them. This is all in good fun though, and it's a great little bond that you can build with who-ever is sitting nearby.
Also, I saw a student who looked vaguely porcine (not because of being fat, but because of his nose and boarish stubble) walking along the mall. He was wearing a t-shirt in spite of the fairly cold weather. People who were walking near him kept their distance, like he was rabid. I saw looks of concern and bemusement, and a glare of disgust. And then I watched him dissapear
Song of the day: "Cape Cod Kwassa"- Vampire Weekend
Friday, February 8, 2008
Yiddish!!
I'm at the Dental school today. I'm at work until noon or a bit before. I've been sniffly, slightly lazy and tired, as I had trouble getting to sleep, and my allergies are flaring up. So, as of a half hour ago, I was wading through jello being awake. I was bored, worried about class, and generally irritable. I was thinking alot about people who I don't like in the dental school. For instance, certain Dental assistants seem to think the world revolves around them, will call in things that need not be called in, and are of the opinion that whatever issue they notice should be highest priority. I hate to generalize, but these people are like clucking chickens, gossiping meanly, hating anyone in power over them, without any sort of big-picture view of the world.
I tend to lie to them when they give me these supposedly urgent tasks, telling them I will deal with it soon, and usually waiting upwards of 2 hours at least, or until another day. But that's not really the reason I'm posting. My petty dislikes of people are only slightly funny.
Even better was my experience with Yiddish today. I had to go to the 4th floor, the newest of the new the training grounds for the pre-clinical students. The lab uses many cameras, computer screens, ergonomic chairs, and is generally thought of as the Dean's gem. It gets shown off pretty often.
Today when I was up there it was in the process of being shown off. There were Dental professionals from all over the (mostly affluent) world. There was a lady from Dubai, a group of Russians, a woman from Belgium and a group of three people I immediately assumed were German. I came to this assumption because I heard many German words, but thought their accent was quite strange. Also, every sentence or two there was a word that felt distinctly not-german.
I took more time than I needed to changing out a machine part near them, and listened/looked upon their badges. They were from Israel. This came as a surprise to me because I had forgotten that Yiddish would be spoken at all in Israel. This is of course because of the official languages not including Yiddish. But how stupid to forget that many many Israelis are Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe and Germany who fled during the Holocaust (or if they were lucky, before) or after. The lingua franca of European Jews is Yiddish, and thusly it must be spoken in Israel as colloquial by some.
What this makes me wonder is, what sort of semantic shifts have their been in the Israeli Yiddish dialect. Would it be difficult for an Israeli Jew to speak Yiddish with a New-Yorker? How bout a Berliner? Hmmm
I tend to lie to them when they give me these supposedly urgent tasks, telling them I will deal with it soon, and usually waiting upwards of 2 hours at least, or until another day. But that's not really the reason I'm posting. My petty dislikes of people are only slightly funny.
Even better was my experience with Yiddish today. I had to go to the 4th floor, the newest of the new the training grounds for the pre-clinical students. The lab uses many cameras, computer screens, ergonomic chairs, and is generally thought of as the Dean's gem. It gets shown off pretty often.
Today when I was up there it was in the process of being shown off. There were Dental professionals from all over the (mostly affluent) world. There was a lady from Dubai, a group of Russians, a woman from Belgium and a group of three people I immediately assumed were German. I came to this assumption because I heard many German words, but thought their accent was quite strange. Also, every sentence or two there was a word that felt distinctly not-german.
I took more time than I needed to changing out a machine part near them, and listened/looked upon their badges. They were from Israel. This came as a surprise to me because I had forgotten that Yiddish would be spoken at all in Israel. This is of course because of the official languages not including Yiddish. But how stupid to forget that many many Israelis are Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe and Germany who fled during the Holocaust (or if they were lucky, before) or after. The lingua franca of European Jews is Yiddish, and thusly it must be spoken in Israel as colloquial by some.
What this makes me wonder is, what sort of semantic shifts have their been in the Israeli Yiddish dialect. Would it be difficult for an Israeli Jew to speak Yiddish with a New-Yorker? How bout a Berliner? Hmmm
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Magical thinking!
Waiting for the elevator at work today I thought about something that has been plaguing my thoughts lately. I've been playing a guessing game with myself regarding the elevators. Every time I wait for the elevators outside our office, I wait a little bit, and then stare at one of the elevators. There are three elevators, so it stands to reason that I would guess correctly maybe one third of the time or slightly less. I've been guessing correctly 4 out of 5 times or so. Of course, the first thing that jumps into mind with such a streak of guessing is ESP. (or at least for anyone who's listened to a lot of coast to coast am and read a fair amount on ESP studies) So, thinking at the elevator, I realized that as a person generally opposed to magical thinking, this was not the simplest or most feasible hypothesis.
So, the fallacy of magical thinking put to the side I began to consider other alternatives. The first and probably most likely possibility seems to be measurement error, erring on the side of the fantastic and interesting. It could easily be that I have selectively not paid attention to the many many times that my elevator staring has come up dead-wrong, and that any that were correct were completely normal based on simple statistics. Also, it's possible that I could be a lucky guesser. It's completely possible for someone to guess correctly dozens of times in a row, as each time I guess there is a 1 in 3 chance of success. It's not the most likely, but it certainly is more likely than any kind of solution that calls for the blatantly supernatural or quasi-supernatural, like ESP phenomenon. If there was more causative proof or biological backing to ESP, it would not be fallacious to posit this, but without a solid physical backing, the chances are infinitely less than a good stream of guesses.
The last possibility that came to mind is by no means extra-sensory perception, but depends on the idea of subconscious perception. A person experiences far more in any given day or moment of time than they ever are aware of on the surface. Suppose I could actually hear the elevator, but it was below the threshold of conscious knowledge? Then I would be bound to guess better than if I had no cues at all. This is the solution that makes the most sense to me.
song of the day: "Kapitulation"-Tocotronic
So, the fallacy of magical thinking put to the side I began to consider other alternatives. The first and probably most likely possibility seems to be measurement error, erring on the side of the fantastic and interesting. It could easily be that I have selectively not paid attention to the many many times that my elevator staring has come up dead-wrong, and that any that were correct were completely normal based on simple statistics. Also, it's possible that I could be a lucky guesser. It's completely possible for someone to guess correctly dozens of times in a row, as each time I guess there is a 1 in 3 chance of success. It's not the most likely, but it certainly is more likely than any kind of solution that calls for the blatantly supernatural or quasi-supernatural, like ESP phenomenon. If there was more causative proof or biological backing to ESP, it would not be fallacious to posit this, but without a solid physical backing, the chances are infinitely less than a good stream of guesses.
The last possibility that came to mind is by no means extra-sensory perception, but depends on the idea of subconscious perception. A person experiences far more in any given day or moment of time than they ever are aware of on the surface. Suppose I could actually hear the elevator, but it was below the threshold of conscious knowledge? Then I would be bound to guess better than if I had no cues at all. This is the solution that makes the most sense to me.
song of the day: "Kapitulation"-Tocotronic
Monday, February 4, 2008
On edge
At work today, and for some part of the weekend I've been on edge. It's like I'm on high-alert, full of piss and full of vinegar. Every little annoyance that I would normally shrug off at work is becoming a mountain of anger and hate. I'm irritated over minor things from my house, like the fact that my ethernet cable can not be plugged in at the same time that my door is closed. Internet or privacy, just like the days of using my family's computer as a teenager.
I'm a private person, and any assault to that privacy is an affront to me in general. I'm annoyed at work because one of my coworkers insists on annoying me with minor jobs he thinks I ought to do. Since he is not my boss, I don't mind finding out things that I should look at from him, but his view that when he brings something to my attention it should automatically become top-priority is at best idiotic, controlling and single-minded, and at worst the kind of thing a developmentally disabled toddler might do regarding special things they show their parents.
So, when he had the gall to, only an hour after mentioning this problem, ask me if I had completed it yet, (I had dealt with it already,) I decided not to talk to him for the rest of the day, and maybe all day tomorrow as well. I don't need to deal with nearly retired bullies.
I want to deal with myself though. Obviously I'm being belligerent, irritable and stupid. But why?
I'm a private person, and any assault to that privacy is an affront to me in general. I'm annoyed at work because one of my coworkers insists on annoying me with minor jobs he thinks I ought to do. Since he is not my boss, I don't mind finding out things that I should look at from him, but his view that when he brings something to my attention it should automatically become top-priority is at best idiotic, controlling and single-minded, and at worst the kind of thing a developmentally disabled toddler might do regarding special things they show their parents.
So, when he had the gall to, only an hour after mentioning this problem, ask me if I had completed it yet, (I had dealt with it already,) I decided not to talk to him for the rest of the day, and maybe all day tomorrow as well. I don't need to deal with nearly retired bullies.
I want to deal with myself though. Obviously I'm being belligerent, irritable and stupid. But why?
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