You know your workplace is male-dominated when . . .

I am not sure if the architects had this in mind when constructing this workplace, but it is mostly staffed by males, so instead of having a separate bathroom for women and men, the bathrooms are the one-person, unisex bathrooms like you might find in gas stations.

Whenever I use these facilities, I go in and the toilet seat is almost inevitably up, which I find sort of hilarious. I'm not really sure why the custom is for the toilet seat to be down, honestly. It makes almost as much sense for it to be up.

Cabin Adventure!

Favorite movie?

I don't know if it's just me, but I have a difficult time answering people when they ask me about my favorite of anything. So usually I try to think of the most recently enjoyed and say that...because all-time favorite seems like a bold, bold statement.

But I think that I may just say that Howl's Moving Castle is my favorite move. Maybe of all-time. Everyone should know--just in case you have ever asked me that question and haven't received a satisfactory answer.

Way cool movie. It seems maybe a little bit weird, at first, but give it a chance, and you will love it.

I heart technology.

My new job may be good for something. I learned how to "take a picture" of the computer screen.

Today, I snapped the sponsored links in Gmail. I thought this one was stellar.

Something about out-of-control emotions and also very fit old people, who go hiking.

PERFECT. How does Gmail know?

Ode to Irony

Today, I walked into my class a little early. Some people from the previous class were still filtering out, including the teacher and one of his students.

Teacher says to student, "How was the wedding?"

Student, oh so casually, replies, "Oh, it was a funeral." And student continues to walk out the door.

Meanwhile, teacher chuckles at the irony. I am laughing so hard in my head, and some of it slipped out a bit, I'm not going to lie. Teacher notices me laughing, chuckles again, and leaves.

Why wasn't anyone else in the room laughing?

yet another about the funny mishaps of language. . .pattern noted

“I’m so happy about the prize. I can’t believe on this! I'm so much excited about to know the Europe and to travel in first class!"

It's as easy as riding a bike.

Truthfully, I have never owned a bicycle. I have ridden a bicycle, but never have I actually owned one. And honestly, I don't own one now. But I'm close. My friend Eric let me borrow his bike for the summer. Eric told me to look for a royal blue colored bike chained up somewhere on the first floor of Campus Plaza. I think that everyone who lives on that floor of Campus Plaza owns a royal blue bike. Needless to say, I couldn't find it. But I got more specific information from Eric shortly after that bike-finding debacle.

Despite the info-getting impetus, the bike had been sitting at Campus Plaza for two weeks or more. I kept meaning to go get it, and I'm not sure why I hadn't. I think I was a little scared. Having a bike, riding it, riding it while wearing a backpack, all that sort of thing. I see other people like me doing it, but somehow it seemed rather advanced for my abilities.

Finally, yesterday, I obtained it. I was afraid somebody was going to look at me and say something as I walked away with it, as if I had just stolen it. I noticed the seat was rather high, but I couldn't really manage to get it lower. I thought I'd try anyway, and as I got on the bike, I fell off.

This was a hilarious moment, a moment which I'm sure several people observed. I was on 800 North in full daylight, after all. After I forced myself to laugh about the fact that I had just gotten my pants dirty, I started walking the bike. Then I had a grand idea that I could ride it without sitting on the seat. Which is how I got it home.

Today was a big day, though. I rode it to school. I rode it, and I rode it on campus as people were walking around, and they didn't look at me as if I was doing it for the first time. "Fools! I'm an expert!" I triumphantly exclaimed to myself in my own head.

Then I locked up the bike at the bike rack near the building, like a normal person, went to class. Afterward, I went to get it, anticipating the route I would drive it home on (can you say drive a bike?), and anticipating nervously going down the hill (would I die?).

Unfortunately, I'm not an expert; because, unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the lock for a second time. And if no one thought I was stealing it when I got it from Campus Plaza (I don't even live there), then they wouldn't have been convinced today when I spent about five minutes trying to unlock the freaking bike lock.

Something is wrong with this picture.

Community Supported Agriculture

Not that I'm against communism or anything, but I was surprised to discover that there is government-supported collective farming in America. Except they don't call it that (probably to avoid some negative associations)--it's called "Community Supported Agriculture."

The raison d'etre?

"Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production."

I am wondering what it means for the farmland to become spiritually communal.

Anyway, that's all. I love America.

fizzle

It's silly, I know, but it's also funny:

fizzle, v.
To break wind without noise

or as a noun,
"The action of breaking wind quietly."

And Oxford English Dictionary cites this quotation as the earliest usage of the noun:
"1598 FLORIO, Sloffa, a fizzle, a fiste, a close farte."

The image of some guy speaking Early Modern English in the 1598 Anglo-Saxon world, and writing this, of all things to write . . . what better thing to be immortalized for than these few and beautiful words that offer us such valuable information about what English was and is?

Florio, thank you for your contribution to the English language.

Today.

Not that it was needful for anyone, but I started a new blog today. And I like this picture by good ol' Ansel Adams. What a photographer.