Damn. I hate being here alone.

European Romanticism is not as great as it sounds.

This is the first time my homework has kept me up because it's creepy, and not only because there's a lot of it.

Yeah, the book is a very popular children's book, and it's only about nine lines, I believe, so they added in an amazing amount of material to make it into a movie, meaning they added in just about everything, because there isn't a whole lot in the book. What was in the movie could have all happened and we were just not told about it, though.
Something about the characters was very dark. It's almost like they were all emotionally disturbed or insane in some dangerous way, and it was a little frightening.

Athena wrote:

I'm ashamed of being totally out of the loop, but what is Where the Wild Things Are about? I heard the critics are wetting their pants for it, but what's the general plotline?

The book itself is very short, only a few lines. It involves a boy named Max who misbehaves and is sent to his room without dinner. The boy is dressed in a wolf costume and creates a fantasy world for himself in his own room where he goes to the land of the Wild Things, and makes himself their king.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I imagine they must have added a ton of new material to bring that story to movie length.

I'm ashamed of being totally out of the loop, but what is Where the Wild Things Are about? I heard the critics are wetting their pants for it, but what's the general plotline?

Howl wrote:

Cerese wrote:

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are. I feel very disoriented and a little creeped out, but at the same time I don't think it was a bad movie. It's definitely not for kids though, like I thought it was.

A friend of mine saw Where the Wild Things Are today, and she said the same thing about it; how it wasn't for kids.

Was it really that creepy?

I remember reading this book to my kids when they were younger, and I remember having a copy of this book myself when I was that age. I don't know if it was the animation or what, but I remember the book creeping me out just a bit when I was younger.

Cerese wrote:

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are. I feel very disoriented and a little creeped out, but at the same time I don't think it was a bad movie. It's definitely not for kids though, like I thought it was.

A friend of mine saw Where the Wild Things Are today, and she said the same thing about it; how it wasn't for kids.

Was it really that creepy?

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are. I feel very disoriented and a little creeped out, but at the same time I don't think it was a bad movie. It's definitely not for kids though, like I thought it was.

Well, I was going to post some pics for you guys but my little "Host Image" button just draws a blank. Gotta love technology.

Hang in there, Paul. There will always be idiots who want you to do what they want you to when even they don't know what it is. The only thing that helps me is knowing that I'm less of an idiot than they are.

So it begins:

*Maintenance manager calls Paul at 5:30 on Friday afternoon*

MM: We just pulled out some turbine components and we need to ship them to Ohio.

Paul: Well, I have to call so-and-so in the home office in Virginia to arrange transport, and with it 5:30 on a Friday afternoon I don't think she's still there. I'll call her Monday morning.

MM: Well, you see, that's the problem. We need this shipped out now. It needs to be in Ohio by Saturday afternoon. Can you call a shipping company to come here tonight, and see if they will take a company credit card?

Paul, whose blood pressure is starting to skyrocket: Why wasn't I informed of this just an hour earlier? I could have arranged for something then. Right now I'm pretty sure all the shipping offices are closed.

MM: Well, this is really a situation we need addressed now. Siemens (our main vendor who is essentially in charge of the outage) wants this stuff out this weekend, and they say we are responsible for the transportation and cost of transportation of this.

Paul, whose molars are grinding like tectonic plates: All right, all right, let me call UPS Freight. They might still be open. That is probably the only thing we can do. Now, what exactly is being shipped out? I am going to need to tell them the total weight, plus the physical dimensions so they know how much room they will need.

MM: Well, we don't have that information yet. Just call them and see if they can come down tonight, and see if they will take a credit card.

Paul calls UPS Freight, and after being transferred to numerous extensions finally finds someone who will do this for a slight (yeah, right) expediting fee. They will take a credit card, but they are not happy that I don't have the weight and dimensions of what is to be shipped. They tell me to call back when I have this information.

Paul calls back MM: I called UPS, and they say they can do this, but we need the size and weight and credit card info from you.

MM: Oh, we don't need to do this anymore. Siemens has decided they will arrange for transport themselves.

Cerese wrote:

I found out today I have to take Calculus if I want to go to William and Mary, and I was planning on stopping at Pre-calculus. Shoot me now. Trig is bad enough as it is is. At least I found out now when I have plenty of time to do it on a normal one-class-a-year schedule, though.

We passed by William and Mary a few weeks ago on a visit to Williamsburg. Such a pretty area. Plus, Jon Stewart went there. That makes it worth a year of Calculus.

Cool! Happy Birthday, Monina!

Cerese wrote:

I found out today I have to take Calculus if I want to go to William and Mary, and I was planning on stopping at Pre-calculus. Shoot me now. Trig is bad enough as it is is. At least I found out now when I have plenty of time to do it on a normal one-class-a-year schedule, though.

Kels--trust me when I say this. Calculus isn't as hard as pre-calculus. In fact, I found pre-calc the hardest high school math class I ever took. I personally thought that algebra and calculus were of similar difficulty. Having said that, I think you should be fine, given the amount of time you have left in which you need to take calculus. You'll be fine, don't worry

I found out today I have to take Calculus if I want to go to William and Mary, and I was planning on stopping at Pre-calculus. Shoot me now. Trig is bad enough as it is is. At least I found out now when I have plenty of time to do it on a normal one-class-a-year schedule, though.

Louisa Ciel wrote:

Wishing my awesome cousin Monina a very happy birthday!
Sad to say I can't be there for her special day.

Happy Birthday, Monina!

Wishing my awesome cousin Monina a very happy birthday!
Sad to say I can't be there for her special day.

Heh, Zara. I can speak Mandarin too. It is a headache, though!

Howl wrote:

Day-late news, but great nonetheless:

Yesterday in class, my poetry teacher pulled me aside during worktime and asked if I would be interested in being one of the editors for our school's literary publication, which has poetry, short stories, some photography and art, etc. According to my poetry teacher, my AP English teacher also thought I might do well with it.

Yay!

Wow! Congratulations on that! That's pretty impressive, to work on the school's literary publication! It sounds like it'd be a lot of fun, especially for someone like you who loves literature! Do you know what kind of work you'll be doing? Computer editing? Reviewing works for publication?

Either way, it'll give you some fun and a work experience too, that'll look really good on your college applications. So I hope it works out well for you, girl

Howl wrote:

Day-late news, but great nonetheless:

Yesterday in class, my poetry teacher pulled me aside during worktime and asked if I would be interested in being one of the editors for our school's literary publication, which has poetry, short stories, some photography and art, etc. According to my poetry teacher, my AP English teacher also thought I might do well with it.

Yay!

That sounds like a pretty good thing! This will give you a decent idea about publication and editing. Go for it!

Zara Mikazuki wrote:

Mikazuki is also a noun, so it has a kanji form too:



~~~~~~~~

LOL! Totally digressed a little there. Anyways, I've seriously considered joining a Japanese scanalation team in a few years. You know, the groups that take the Japanese manga scan them, translate them, and reformat them for the English-understanding audiences? It's a pretty good way to learn the language in my opinion. As for my own manga/anime? I wish I could draw that well

Ooh, ooh! I know that! 三(pronounced "sān") means three, 日(pronounced "rì") means daytime/sun and 月(pronounced "yuè") means moon.

I'd love to learn Japanese someday, too. It'll probably be easy for me since I'm already fluent in Mandarin.
But that's interesting, Zara. I'm curious. Do you pronounce kanji like how it is pronounced in Mandarin?

Hm, are you sure about that? Because scanlating is hard work and you need a lot of free time. And you're so busy with college you barely have time to meet their deadline.
Psht, you can easily draw a manga! Anime style is one of the easiest forms! It'll also give you an excuse to go to Japan. LOL!

Paul wrote:

It's great to hear from you Zara, as always, but rest and get better! It sounds like college life is pretty challenging, which means you're probably loving it.

I have read in the local paper where it is estimated that one third of the population of Rhode Island will catch the H1N1 virus. I imagine this is being estimated for the country as a whole. As both of my sons have low-level asthma, I am concerned about this. I hope the vaccines come out soon.

For sure! I always love a challenge. I'd much rather be too busy instead of too bored. It's a pretty common cycle. During the school year, I'm always looking forward to the summer, cursing the loads of homework that I have. Then the year ends and the summer break starts and I'm fine for the first 2 weeks or so. Then I wish for the stress and adrenaline rushes that the school year usually brings. So in a sense, though I hate how busy I am, I'm so used to it that I love it and it's a part of my life now!

You should be a little concerned. I also have asthma and I didn't take the H1N1 too easily. My breathing dropped to about 60% of total at the worst point of the flu. But it was only there for a few hours. For the most part, I was in the 80-something% for my peak-flow reading. Now I'm like 85%. My fever's is as good as gone, but all the other symptoms are still there. My body aches, I'm coughing, slight difficulty breathing, etc. But if they are on inhalers, then it shouldn't be nearly as bad, Paul.

Laura wrote:

Sleep well, Zara, and get well soon! Gosh, I admire you for being so incredibly smart. I may be smart in the humanities field, but anything with numbers is completely out of my reach.

Haha! We all have our own strengths! I'm most definitely not too strong in the humanities (which begs the question why I was on Y!A B&A and here in the first place! ) But yeah! Thanks for the well wishes ><

You've been doing better than me as of late, Laura?

Selene wrote:

Zara officially declared resident genius.

Good for you! Nice to hear from you too! Learning Japanese? Now you can write your own authentic anime!

Resident genius! What an interesting name! LOL! Well, I guess I'm the numbers girl of a literary forum!

Yeah, Japanese is a really cool language. According to the government, Japanese, Mandarin, and Arabic are the three hardest languages for English-only speakers to learn, because the language bases are so different, how the alphabets are built, pronounced, and even sentence grammar. The reason why I'm having a relatively easy time is because my native tongue, Tamil, has an alphabet that is built exactly like Japanese, letters pronounced almost exactly the same, and even same grammar.

Because, you see, English is an "SVO" language: subject--verb--object.
Tamil and Japanese are "SOV" languages: subject--object--verb.

For example, take the English sentence "John gave the book." In SOV grammar, the sentence would read "John the book gave."

A more complicated sentence: "I gave you a flower." That, in SOV grammar, would read "I to you a flower gave."

And here's the cool thing. They use 3 different scripts: I know 1 fluently (hiragana), 1 almost (katakana), and 1 that I'm starting(kanji). Actually, Lilli, I'd think that you probably are somewhat familiar with Chinese kanji--Japanese uses them, but they are assigned different meanings and different pronounciations. And they are only used for nouns. Verbs, adjectives, etc. are written with the Japanese hiragana (for native words) and katakana (for foreign words) scripts.

Like, here's my name "Zara Mikazuki" in Kana (Hiragana+Katakana). Zara is a *foreign name*, so Zara is in katakana. But Mikazuki is a Japanese girl's name meaning Crescent Moon, so that's in Hiragana.



Mikazuki is also a noun, so it has a kanji form too:



~~~~~~~~

LOL! Totally digressed a little there. Anyways, I've seriously considered joining a Japanese scanalation team in a few years. You know, the groups that take the Japanese manga scan them, translate them, and reformat them for the English-understanding audiences? It's a pretty good way to learn the language in my opinion. As for my own manga/anime? I wish I could draw that well

Day-late news, but great nonetheless:

Yesterday in class, my poetry teacher pulled me aside during worktime and asked if I would be interested in being one of the editors for our school's literary publication, which has poetry, short stories, some photography and art, etc. According to my poetry teacher, my AP English teacher also thought I might do well with it.

Yay!

Zara officially declared resident genius.

Good for you! Nice to hear from you too! Learning Japanese? Now you can write your own authentic anime!

Zara Mikazuki wrote:

Wow. So this thread as regressed into a completely random thread?

Well, my life totally sucks at the moment. I was so unlucky as to have caught the H1N1 virus. I'm only beginning to recover. Heck, yesterday I had a 104.6 fever. I think that's the highest fever I've had ALL MY LIFE!!! So I'm back in Dallas for this entire week. Way too much make-up work awaiting me. *headache just from thinking about the make-up work*

Hmm....complaining about my chemicals for my research inquiry? Yeah. I ordered them 2 weeks ago, they said 1 week turnover max, and only today they emailed me saying that they placed the freaking order. Irritates me. And the project was due TODAY. Fortunately, I got 2 weeks extension. 1 week for H1N1, 1 week for the late order and arrival of the chemicals.

What else. For the first time in my life, math stumped me. Yet, not for the first time in my life, the class started impossible and is making more and more sense as time goes by. I guess that's just the story of my life.

In the spring, I'll be doing some sort of microscopial biology research laboratory. Then I'll try to join and psychology lab to see if I like molecular bio or behavioral bio better.

Oh yeah! And I'm learning Japanese! It turns out that my biology honors degree requires 6 hours of extra liberal-arts credit. So 2 semesters of Japanese should cover that AND be fun! Talk about multitasking

*cough* *hack* Yeah. Did I mention that I'm only STARTING to recover from H1N1? Yeah. Need to sleep. I've been sleeping an average of 12 hours a day, resting and average of 18 hours. So yeah. Bye-bye for now!

Sleep well, Zara, and get well soon! Gosh, I admire you for being so incredibly smart. I may be smart in the humanities field, but anything with numbers is completely out of my reach.

It's great to hear from you Zara, as always, but rest and get better! It sounds like college life is pretty challenging, which means you're probably loving it.

I have read in the local paper where it is estimated that one third of the population of Rhode Island will catch the H1N1 virus. I imagine this is being estimated for the country as a whole. As both of my sons have low-level asthma, I am concerned about this. I hope the vaccines come out soon.

Wow. So this thread as regressed into a completely random thread?

Well, my life totally sucks at the moment. I was so unlucky as to have caught the H1N1 virus. I'm only beginning to recover. Heck, yesterday I had a 104.6 fever. I think that's the highest fever I've had ALL MY LIFE!!! So I'm back in Dallas for this entire week. Way too much make-up work awaiting me. *headache just from thinking about the make-up work*

Hmm....complaining about my chemicals for my research inquiry? Yeah. I ordered them 2 weeks ago, they said 1 week turnover max, and only today they emailed me saying that they placed the freaking order. Irritates me. And the project was due TODAY. Fortunately, I got 2 weeks extension. 1 week for H1N1, 1 week for the late order and arrival of the chemicals.

What else. For the first time in my life, math stumped me. Yet, not for the first time in my life, the class started impossible and is making more and more sense as time goes by. I guess that's just the story of my life.

In the spring, I'll be doing some sort of microscopial biology research laboratory. Then I'll try to join and psychology lab to see if I like molecular bio or behavioral bio better.

Oh yeah! And I'm learning Japanese! It turns out that my biology honors degree requires 6 hours of extra liberal-arts credit. So 2 semesters of Japanese should cover that AND be fun! Talk about multitasking

*cough* *hack* Yeah. Did I mention that I'm only STARTING to recover from H1N1? Yeah. Need to sleep. I've been sleeping an average of 12 hours a day, resting and average of 18 hours. So yeah. Bye-bye for now!