While I was escorting two foreign students to someone at the office who can help them, some guy pointed at me and said “you!” in a rough voice. I thought he thought he knew me, but I didn’t know him, so I said “huh?”. When I was walking away, he said — mockingly — “huh?”.
Maybe I should’ve said “oh bugger off”.
It’s late, I have to make work hours, I’m tired and hungry and I can’t deal with idiots right now!!
A A A A A A R R R R G G G H H H ! ! ! !
This morning at the bus stop there stood a kind looking elderly woman with a maroon beret and a shopping-bag-on-wheels (pull-cart or whatever). She got on the same bus than I, walked to the seat right after the middle doors where there was a woman sitting. The old lady said “Go away, that’s my seat” (“mees pois siitä, se on minun paikka“). People threw glances at her throughout the drive and I felt like saying “look up, there isn’t a sign saying ‘for the elderly and idiots’ above the seat” but of course I didn’t.
And (some of) the old people say (all) young people are rude…
The network connection on my work computer didn’t work this morning. Linux wouldn’t start because it couldn’t find my home directory. On Windows, everything worked, except the connection and the stuff I’m doing on Protege kind of needs a connection (and I can’t google offline). So, the configurations were being updated which took half an hour but still there were problems with the connection. So I went to the student area where there are 4-5 computers. Not a place of peace and quiet. Next to me sat a man who mumbled to himself all the time, and you know how a low-pitch mumble is very very audible (like a darn bass boom).
Now I’m finally back in my own room (not without a roommate, alas) and the connection works. Too bad I have to get going in half an hour. (Last terminology lecture, and last lecture ALL YEAR — there’s an exam on Application Design on Thursday, though)
I got asked to continue in my job next year. Of course I said yes, because I had written in my traineeship report (about last summer) that I was glad to have been able to continue the work this autumn and wished I’d get to continue after this 3 months’ period. I don’t know if my professor had read the report yet… but anyway. I got my employment extended. \o/
My “room mate” at work asked me ONCE AGAIN that I’d close the door if I leave because he has an expensive laptop here. I just went “yes yes, I know” but I don’t have to be told more than once! GEEZ! I do have common sense (and then some), and even though I don’t have any fancy computers that I carry around, I care about my stuff enough not to leave the door open with a note “please, do come in and steal everything”. Besides, I hardly ever go anywhere (except lectures) so when I’m here, I’m like a guard dog.
I’m really offended (and annoyed) by the constant request.
Men…
Oh yeah, happy 1st of December!
This morning in the bus a girl sat next to me and after a while she picked up a powder compact from her bag, pawed all over her face for quite a while, and put the powder back in her bag. After a while, she picked up the powder from her bag, pawed all over her face again, and put the powder back in her bag. After a while, she picked up the powder, pawed all over, and put the powder back. (At this point I was biting my lip so I wouldn’t laugh.) Then she went on putting the rest of the make-up. Good thing she didn’t put any more powder (she did apply blush though, had me fooled for a second) cause I may have injured my lip badly…
I bought a new dictionary today: The Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green. Am I an Obsessive-complusive dictionary collector?
I want to tell about the horrible cackle my localisation/CAT teacher made behind my back making me jump in the air at least somewhat and wondering what I’d done wrong. Me and the girl sitting next to me glanced at each other, most likely thinking “is it you or me?” (or actually, I was thinking “please, let it be you he’s laughing at rather than me”). In the end, he was laughing at the story we were translating.
I want to tell about the man behind whom I sat down yesterday in the bus. He had a yellow birch leaf stuck in his hair.
And that made me think of a man whom I once saw standing in the bus. Every so often he drew a few circles around his head with his hand.
I have written about my university term but I don’t want to publish it yet because I don’t want my latest language related post (in a long time, I might add) drown in the flood.
*slaps hands over ears, eyes, and mouth*
*goes to read Dark Tower VI*
(sorry, I’m not very good at [spelling] English interjections, hopefully you get the point)
It’s amazing how one person can produce so much suffocating stench. I don’t remember one single morning recently that there hasn’t been a smelly hobo/drunk on the tram stop or in the tram. *Outside*, at the stop, one can smell them from 5 meters away (!!) and when they get on the tram the smell soon spreads to every corner.
After yesterday’s hacking-hacking I decided to make a new category for posts called Tweaks. I’ll try to document what I’ve had to do to make the blog the way I want it to be — as a reference to myself mostly so that I can re-do them if something happens (or when I update WP etc. and all my hard work will be copied over (or whichever operation the update requires)).
Crazy language + statistics note:
I seem to favour 3 same-letter variations of different interjections. For example: awww, ewww, and phoooweee as in the title of this post. Language Log had a wonderful post (called Aw+ 
) on the subject. Apparently, I’m following the hordes. Unintentionally!
Why I think I use three letters? It’s the shortest ungrammatical cluster of same letter. So, it stands out (well, at least somewhat, compared to cluster of one or two) and is economical.
Oooh… I almost slipped an eggcorn (I’ve read WAY too much LL). I first wrote “hoards” instead of “hordes” but luckily checked it.
Regular expressions are nifty. I just wrote in an *informal* report on “what on earth I’ve been doing all summer” and when I would’ve had to write “subdirectories and subdirectories’ subdirectories” (or “subsubdirectories”) I simply put (sub)+directories which my professor will surely understand (the + is a Kleene plus meaning >1, a Kleene star * would be >0)
The cleaning lady had brought me a waste-paper basket. Very kind. Too bad I’m finishing work on Monday…
Word of the Day: Wonky — shaky, awry, crazy
(picked up from Black House (the book I’m reading…))
This is another excuse for posting a WOTD… Although, I have posted JUST WOTDs or QOTDs and nothing else. Oh well.
I forgot to watch the 2nd part of the gross parasite series but luckily (darn I’m lucky — no, really) they re-ran it on a digital channel and I just happened to check the programs for the channel in yester’s paper. And it just happened to be on later that night.
This time it wasn’t that gross (although there was one maggot) — only mosquitoes and diseases they spread. Of course it’s awful to have malaria, sleeping sickness, etc. in the world, but I’m talking about the *gross-factor*.
@ 9:58
Ok, this is weird. 
The library man just called me. Yesterday I went to the library to look for a grammar book but it couldn’t be found anywhere. Now it had emerged. How did he know who I was? Very spooky. xD (I know there’s not a smiley for that, but sometimes I just can’t resist you know) I have to make one myself if there’s a blank one available.
Oh yeah: Due date 13.8. (I can’t access my menu (on the right) from work)
I didn’t desperately need the book but I couldn’t NOT go get it 
It might turn out to be useful cause sometimes I do need some grammar info which is difficult to find online.
@ 15:28
Uh-oooooh…
Finland gained its independence in 1919.
Says Bartleby (or The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition). That’d be 1917, thank you very much. Unless the Americans wouldn’t accept the independency until 1919…? And actually wouldn’t that be independencY (not independence)? Oh, no, sorry. Both are good.
The (late) Finnish band Ultra Bra (“bra” as in good in Swedish) sings in their song “Ilmiöitä” (quoting from memory, I’ll check it if I remember):
Jos aina törmää samaan ihmisen kadulla, alkaa pidemmän päälle tervehtiä, vaikka ei tiedä tämän nimeä.
I.e. “if one always runs into the same person on the street, eventually one starts greeting them even though one doesn’t know their name.”
I tend to go to the bus stop around the same time every morning (around 8:10) and there’s the same bus driver every time and he always starts his shift on the bus I’m getting on. So, last week I think, he started saying good morning. This morning he also said something else but I couldn’t make out what it was and didn’t start huh?-ing.
The same band sings in the same song “if a girl doesn’t drink (alcohol), she’s probably pregnant”. Uh-oh… Maybe truth isn’t in songs after all.
Sometimes people don’t need long “acquiantance(ship)” (whoa, I spelled it correctly the 1st time round), though. Yesterday on the way *from* work at the *tram* stop a woman told me about just coming from the hair dresser’s and taking the tram so that her hair wouldn’t get messy 
She had been at the hd‘s just a week ago but a rain had ruined her hair that time (with all the sprays and things so it was all flat and funny) and she thought she’d have to wait for at least some time before going back. Dang, I haven’t been at the hair dresser’s for a year!!
Last night I woke up at 3:20 am because the rain was so loud. And the morning before that I woke up around 5 am for no reason. Apparently I’m getting enough sleep. But why am I so tired? 
I always stop for a fraction of a second when someone has written ‘iff’ (or Finnish equivalent ‘joss’) in a text (scientific or at least somewhat). That, of course, means “if and only if” (‘jos ja vain jos’).
[Useless-ish to read if you don’t understand Finnish] I just sent positive feedback to a radio station because last night I heard one of the announcers (radio jockeys) say “minun nimeni on…” which is the proper, inflected way to say it. Usually he (the jockey) says “minun nimi on…” which to my ear feels like a hot needle. (If you need to use the erroneous (in that context) uninflected ‘nimi’ then please at least use the colloquial ‘mun’ — not half and half.)
A woman asked people for coins near the railway station this morning (she looked like a traveller though, not a professional begger). She asked me, too. That reminded me of this (extremely annoying) woman that has been standing around the exact same place (not railway station) since I was in high school (at least), so that’s 5-6 years by now. She has the same winter clothes and boots all year round and asks the passers-by “do you have any money to give” with her hand stretched out. 6 years! I wonder if anyone gives her money. If not, why does she keep doing that? Wouldn’t she be better off even in a crappy job or looking for a crappy job? That would probably be more productive than her current line of “work”.