all things me

Oxymoron¹ of the Day: Rational fear

[added; had this in my previous blog but forgot to move it to the new layout’s blog ]
Hmm… I was reading yester’s entry and wondering, could ‘cough’ be spelled ‘coff’ when it describes the sound of couging… That’d be nice.
OK, on with the show (bachelor’s thesis; I have a couple of auxiliaries to wipe off the face of the ea…computer screen and a couple of words to spin around). Sounds fun, ¿huh?

Been freaking out: (not related to the oxymoron; that came when I was thinking about my presentation on this coming Wednesday, bachelor’s thesis presentation) I’m convinced that the huge spider (huge by our, Finnish nature, standards) that is living above the door in my toilet is going to jump on my head one day.
[/added]

1. [oxymoron] noun, putting together words which seem to contradict one another

I should be doing my bachelor’s thesis… but naaaaaaah. I’ve been doing the more interesting translation research. I’m a bad bad girl! Too bad the translation thing I’m doing can’t be a major…
And when I’m done with this, I’m going to play some XIII

@ 23:49
I just got a mail from my aunt. I had written her to tell that I’m working most of this summer so I can’t be there to look after the kids; one of them is my godson (5 yrs old) so I usually go there to help when the “official” baby-sitter (or daycare at a family close by) is having her own vacation and my aunt and her husband are not on their holiday. Anyway, my aunt wrote me that she had told my godson that I’d be coming over this summer and he’s waiting for me, so she asked if I could come in August for a “normal visit”. Awww… my heart melts. My godson wants me to visit him.

Been cursing: my TV

It’s all over!
Yes! It’s over! I wrote the four pages on “Problems in dividing natural language generation into separate stages”!
Yes! I finished all the 5 assignments with all the 11 files (perl scripts, XSLT style sheets)!
Yes! Now I can finally play XIII!
Yes! On Monday I gotta work my butt off again!

Updates: I finished reading the Talisman today, next I’m starting “Talisman II” i.e. the Black House.

I’m always shocked (not in a bad way) to see a professor use smileys… In an email I received there was a <=O]
hehee…

Today I stayed at the department because I was supposed to go see a prof about my training/job but we (the studies coordinator and I) didn’t get to see him. Oh well, good thing I stayed doing assignments though, cause I finally got my natural language generation pipeline working properly (well, I haven’t made the pipeline which is Java, but the XSL transformations). I had done something very odd in the beginning when I was just learning the stuff and it messed up the whole system. Now there’s only a few “polishings” to do and I can send all the assignments/files to the professor (for whom I’m doing the course, it’s sort of “extra curriculum” but has to do with my bachelor’s thesis). I do, however, have an essay to write by May 1st, but that I’ll do on Friday. Today I have to check what I’ve done wrong in an assignment cause it was so easy (probably haven’t done anything wrong, mind you)

@ 23:27
Updates: Joined the Talisman Fanlisting

I have an exam tomorrow about “changing English”, we were told to bring our notes and papers with us. I’ll just read through the papers quickly tonight and I’m set. Better catch some shuteye, too…

Whee, can’t wait for tomorrow morning and the bus ride. I’m going to start reading Black House (that’s my “backpack book”). Geek? Me?

XIII arrived today but I can’t play it until this Sunday (at the earliest) because I have SO much to do so I can’t waste time playing (as wonderful as it would be… *deep sigh* Duchovny…).

But, a bit happier thoughts: I finished the assignment for Semantic Web today (due today, too, but anyway) quite effortlessly. Also managed to do the assignment (due Thu) for context-free parsing methods today, so I dared to allow myself meet Grandma tomorrow after text analysis exam. We’ll go eat and chat.

Today I’ve been reading for that exam (booooriiiing) and cursing my tv/video. It keeps turning off (and the cassette comes out) every few minutes. I’ll be rich (yeah, right) after this summer so maybe I could buy a new tv + video, perhaps digital tv because I’m going to have to anyway someday (by 2007, was it?). I can’t live without a TV and a properly working video (thank gawd the X-Files isn’t running…).

Last week there was a guest nodder but this week the star was back Oh well…

Last night I struggled with an assignment until I was feeling pretty hopeless, but today during the break on Context-free Parsing Methods I got it (head-driven phrase structure grammar on ProFIT) working. Hurraah!

Yesterday I got a topic for my translation report. When I went to the lecture (“translation difficulties caused by culture”), I only knew I wanted to do it on Stephen King’s books (surprise surprise) and I had had in mind something about “Americanisms” or realia in a more academic term. So, I’m comparing the first translation (Carrie, 1976 in Finnish) and the newest translation (Everything’s Eventual, 2003 in Finnish) and studying how they differ in the way the translators have decided to translate things that are of the American society (history, culture…) and that might be unfamiliar to Finnish people.
Pretty neat
At the moment (literally), I’m listing words in Everything’s Eventual, cause I have it English Carrie is arriving to our library any day now, my sister was kind to borrow the Finnish Carrie today for me, but I have to list the English words first. And the Finnish Everything’s Eventual is a tricky one. I have to go to the library and ask the staff to order it for me cause I need a specific book – a month’s time to keep it, not 14 days. It’s so new that some of the books are still “quick loans”.

I have *never ever ever* read so grammatically incorrect text before (and there’s no good excuse, I mean that it’s not e.g. written by a 6-year-old or something like that). Pheew. Now, I won’t name any names… But I just had to get that out of my system
*continues reading*
Maybe it was written in the middle of the night, tired. There’s gotta be something…

Oh, by the way, I’m doing *another* layout for all things me. Shame on me I wish I was a web designer (not that I have any competence)

Bought Hearts in Atlantis DVD –> Updates at TGWLSK. I also watched it today; very good movie, sweet… and good actors (Anthony Hopkins and Anton Yelchin who plays the young Bobby).

*Today* I got a confirmation on what I’ll be doing for the summer and that it’ll be training, which means I have to make a report on my work and I get 2 credits. At least after the summer the training will be done so I don’t have to worry about it later.

Today I got a confirmation that I will be working at the department of general linguistics for the summer. Two months in total (June, July) because I have to be a godmother, too. It’s not certain yet whether it’ll be a regular summer job or a trainee position. Training means that I have to write a report on it so the work has to be “reportable”. I was told by a professor that I could do terminology work (multilingual computer terms) and I hope — if I do end up doing the work as a training — it is reportable. But anyway, yay \o/
AND, if the current course assistant for a docent of ours has a tight schedule next autumn (I think she’s starting her 5th year) I might get the position of a course assistant. She (the course assistant) had recommended me. There’ll be an official period of application, though. *fingers crossed*

I’ve been writing the adventure game (in Prolog) all night (since about 8:30pm) but I can’t stay awake anymore (not even with the help of Pepsi Max; I haven’t drunk any sodas for a looooooooooong time, bleurgh). I’m getting old! I have to have the assignment (+ another one, but that’s done already) ready today. So I have time till midnight. I don’t think the prof is that strict on the deadline though, but anyway. Yay. The game is coming alone quite nicely. And in the weekend, I can relax and watch my new DVD

wish:-
  check_hour(morning),
  write('Good morning!').
wish:-
  check_hour(day),
  write('G'day! :)').
wish:-
  check_hour(night),
  write('Good night!').

Not actual, working code