Soooooooo....
Feb. 17th, 2004 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yinshubackupHad very odd dreams last night.
I Don't remember all of 'em, but I do remember one:
some friends 'n me were having a house party, and we kept hearing these noises outside up on their raised deck/roof thingy. Thump! Thwack. thump. sounds of rubber raft-like things being inflated and tossed around. I was the only one who kept noticing it after everyone else decided to ignore it, though. So I finally opened the door as this giant square rubber rafty thing came and hit the door. I was just like, "that's it!"
And lo and behold, there were people climbing in and out of this steel dome thing in the middle of the deck, like the entrance to an underground bunker, inflating these things and suddenly they were aware I was watching them, and they froze, and I froze, but then they saw all the party people behind me and they knew it was too late for a cover up- They admitted what they were doing was prepping the landing pad for this alien ship that was supposed to arrive any minute now. I was like, whoa! Really? Can we stay and watch? And they were like, *shrug* whatever. Civilians.
So all these people were out on the deck looking up at the sky and all of a sudden I realized these aliens could be hostile and maybe I shouldn't be the first unlucky human they saw. I wasn't scared, really, just... trying to be rational.
I just gave a giant leap off the deck and RAN away so fast, around the corner of the house where I could still see, but maybe not be seen as quickly. That is, barring a sweeping alien scan of the place, or something.
But it was too late- suddenly they were there, and their huge ship was hovering over the deck, and then they teleported off the ship and were everywhere- in the yard, on the deck.
They looked like a bunch of punks, I mean in the big-city-underground-too-hip-to-be-cool-subculture kinda way- except their bodies were more elongated than ours, their hands and fingers longer, etc. I knew they were trying to imitate Earth clothing and culture, this was not how they normally acted. The leader was a brunette valley-girl character, at least, this was the image she was projecting. She went around speaking, trying to talk American english a mile a minute, with a valley girl accent and attempted slang, and most people were fooled by it, but it sounded strange to my ears, and I knew it was a ruse. My ears caught the tell-tale signs of a non-native speaker stumbling over the grammar and diction of a foreign language. It was like in those Asian music videos where they sing one or two lines in english just because it sounds cool, but they don't really know what they're saying.
Anyway.
I turned around and almost bumped into two of them, one being another pretty female who I became instantly enamored with, the other a skinny brit-looking lollipop boy. I became overwhelmed with the desire to learn their actual language, and it was like the girl held me in check with her wierd eyes, but she approved of me, somehow.
She said something to the leader female, who stopped and turned, and they brought me over to her. I was just... consumed with this desire to learn their language, and the leader started speaking in it-- As I suspected, her real voice was very high and thin, and nasally, with elongated vowels and strange syllabic compounds- I couldn't really understand it, but it sounded much like a bird, and I thought, these are avian-based creatures, not mammals.
To everyone's surprise, they offered to take me with them, to learn their language on their home planet for one year.
I looked around at all the people and the world I knew, and thought, this would be worth it, as an opportunity for science, and to advance the human race if I can learn to speak with them for real, and teach other humans. But then I got a little worried- I thought, how do I know I can even eat their food and live? How do I know I could survive on their world? We are talking, thousands of light years away, here. If I can't hack it- or if they aren't being honest, and decide to keep me forever... I would be completely helpless. Yes, okay, even if I never come back, it would be worth it, for humanity.
But then I thought of something else-- my companion, my heart, my best friend. My throat caught at it-- I changed my mind- I did not want to leave him here. I told the aliens, I cannot leave my companion- can he come with me? But they just looked at me, as if to say, we have offered, take it or leave it.
I knew this was a potentially huge opportunity... but I also might never see him again-- he probably wouldn't even know where I went, and the anguish nearly tore me in half.
I don't know how it ended, because I woke up.
Bad news: lab today kinda sucked. I started off great! So well prepared, with an efficient game plan-- set up mise en place, slice and dice all my veggies, make the sauce, then fry veggies to serve fresh at presentation time. I had gathered all my ingredients and gotten started; even when my partner showed up late, my feathers were unruffled. But, there were only 5 fry-o-lators, and everyone crowded me out until the very end so I had to do my tempura last. The batter was too thin, but by that time we were already supposed to be presenting and I was late and didn't have time to fix anything. I also didn't blanch my lotus roots long enough, so they were still mostly raw. My tempura sauce needed more dashi, less mirin and soy sauce.
Ahh well. next time I'll know better. The hot oil splatter thing was also not as scary as I thought. It was fine, I was just too rushed at the end to produce a decent product.
My partner and I made a fine comeback in the second half, though, wherein he made some great stir-fry and I made our presentation all pretty by making daikon radish flowers with little carrot centers since my cooking part was done.
The instructor loved them- everyone was like, oooh, ahhh.
Which was good, because maybe now we won't fail this lab totally due to my late and crappy tempura. -_-;
However, I know how to make tempura now, I understand what went wrong, and I feel that with practice I'd be good at it. The only problem is, frying stuff at home to practice is much more messy.
Good news: (Well, kinda. I'm kinda torn between "Damn straight, Respect mah authoritayy!" and "oh great, now they're ALL gonna want my time")
My IT Prof. (a PhD from London School of Economics) thinks I'm the bees knees, and has beaten all the students over the head with the fact. She sent them all an email telling them that they should all pay attention to the TA's [read: my] comments, because the comments are dead-on.
Then today, when I went to talk to her about questions that students asked me yesterday, but I didn't really know her exact answer to, she was delighted that the answers I gave them (which I pretty much pulled out of my arse) were EXACTLY what she wanted them to understand. She even re-wrote a bit of her curriculum on the spot in accordance with my suggestions that they seemed to understand it better this way.
Hahahah. I'm good.
I also took a bit of time today trying to explain to her the paradigm gap I see between those with liberal arts backgrounds (like myself, and her), and most hotelies who've been here straight outta highschool. It's just a very different style here, and it takes two very different mindsets. (exhibit A: my own GPA's rollercoaster ride.)
I hope that, over the course of the semester, I can bring her and my fellow hotelies to some sort of understanding with each other. Because... although I left what I felt was a lovely fluff degree for a hardcore money maker degree, I still appreciate the lovely fluff for helping make me a more well rounded person.
I think hotelies should get out more. "Statler High", indeed.
Bad news: My HP 12C calculator STILL isn't here yet, which is holding me back from studying finance very well because although I can review the problems, I can't actually DO them.
Good news: I caught my Professor in his office today, and he let me borrow one. Yay!
So I'll be staying up most of the night practicing away. Uhmm... yay?
Anyway, I'm off to a review session for my DEA 150 exam. I'm already late, but it'll be okay. And first I have to change out of my chef whites. Yarg.
I Don't remember all of 'em, but I do remember one:
some friends 'n me were having a house party, and we kept hearing these noises outside up on their raised deck/roof thingy. Thump! Thwack. thump. sounds of rubber raft-like things being inflated and tossed around. I was the only one who kept noticing it after everyone else decided to ignore it, though. So I finally opened the door as this giant square rubber rafty thing came and hit the door. I was just like, "that's it!"
And lo and behold, there were people climbing in and out of this steel dome thing in the middle of the deck, like the entrance to an underground bunker, inflating these things and suddenly they were aware I was watching them, and they froze, and I froze, but then they saw all the party people behind me and they knew it was too late for a cover up- They admitted what they were doing was prepping the landing pad for this alien ship that was supposed to arrive any minute now. I was like, whoa! Really? Can we stay and watch? And they were like, *shrug* whatever. Civilians.
So all these people were out on the deck looking up at the sky and all of a sudden I realized these aliens could be hostile and maybe I shouldn't be the first unlucky human they saw. I wasn't scared, really, just... trying to be rational.
I just gave a giant leap off the deck and RAN away so fast, around the corner of the house where I could still see, but maybe not be seen as quickly. That is, barring a sweeping alien scan of the place, or something.
But it was too late- suddenly they were there, and their huge ship was hovering over the deck, and then they teleported off the ship and were everywhere- in the yard, on the deck.
They looked like a bunch of punks, I mean in the big-city-underground-too-hip-to-be-cool-subculture kinda way- except their bodies were more elongated than ours, their hands and fingers longer, etc. I knew they were trying to imitate Earth clothing and culture, this was not how they normally acted. The leader was a brunette valley-girl character, at least, this was the image she was projecting. She went around speaking, trying to talk American english a mile a minute, with a valley girl accent and attempted slang, and most people were fooled by it, but it sounded strange to my ears, and I knew it was a ruse. My ears caught the tell-tale signs of a non-native speaker stumbling over the grammar and diction of a foreign language. It was like in those Asian music videos where they sing one or two lines in english just because it sounds cool, but they don't really know what they're saying.
Anyway.
I turned around and almost bumped into two of them, one being another pretty female who I became instantly enamored with, the other a skinny brit-looking lollipop boy. I became overwhelmed with the desire to learn their actual language, and it was like the girl held me in check with her wierd eyes, but she approved of me, somehow.
She said something to the leader female, who stopped and turned, and they brought me over to her. I was just... consumed with this desire to learn their language, and the leader started speaking in it-- As I suspected, her real voice was very high and thin, and nasally, with elongated vowels and strange syllabic compounds- I couldn't really understand it, but it sounded much like a bird, and I thought, these are avian-based creatures, not mammals.
To everyone's surprise, they offered to take me with them, to learn their language on their home planet for one year.
I looked around at all the people and the world I knew, and thought, this would be worth it, as an opportunity for science, and to advance the human race if I can learn to speak with them for real, and teach other humans. But then I got a little worried- I thought, how do I know I can even eat their food and live? How do I know I could survive on their world? We are talking, thousands of light years away, here. If I can't hack it- or if they aren't being honest, and decide to keep me forever... I would be completely helpless. Yes, okay, even if I never come back, it would be worth it, for humanity.
But then I thought of something else-- my companion, my heart, my best friend. My throat caught at it-- I changed my mind- I did not want to leave him here. I told the aliens, I cannot leave my companion- can he come with me? But they just looked at me, as if to say, we have offered, take it or leave it.
I knew this was a potentially huge opportunity... but I also might never see him again-- he probably wouldn't even know where I went, and the anguish nearly tore me in half.
I don't know how it ended, because I woke up.
Bad news: lab today kinda sucked. I started off great! So well prepared, with an efficient game plan-- set up mise en place, slice and dice all my veggies, make the sauce, then fry veggies to serve fresh at presentation time. I had gathered all my ingredients and gotten started; even when my partner showed up late, my feathers were unruffled. But, there were only 5 fry-o-lators, and everyone crowded me out until the very end so I had to do my tempura last. The batter was too thin, but by that time we were already supposed to be presenting and I was late and didn't have time to fix anything. I also didn't blanch my lotus roots long enough, so they were still mostly raw. My tempura sauce needed more dashi, less mirin and soy sauce.
Ahh well. next time I'll know better. The hot oil splatter thing was also not as scary as I thought. It was fine, I was just too rushed at the end to produce a decent product.
My partner and I made a fine comeback in the second half, though, wherein he made some great stir-fry and I made our presentation all pretty by making daikon radish flowers with little carrot centers since my cooking part was done.
The instructor loved them- everyone was like, oooh, ahhh.
Which was good, because maybe now we won't fail this lab totally due to my late and crappy tempura. -_-;
However, I know how to make tempura now, I understand what went wrong, and I feel that with practice I'd be good at it. The only problem is, frying stuff at home to practice is much more messy.
Good news: (Well, kinda. I'm kinda torn between "Damn straight, Respect mah authoritayy!" and "oh great, now they're ALL gonna want my time")
My IT Prof. (a PhD from London School of Economics) thinks I'm the bees knees, and has beaten all the students over the head with the fact. She sent them all an email telling them that they should all pay attention to the TA's [read: my] comments, because the comments are dead-on.
Then today, when I went to talk to her about questions that students asked me yesterday, but I didn't really know her exact answer to, she was delighted that the answers I gave them (which I pretty much pulled out of my arse) were EXACTLY what she wanted them to understand. She even re-wrote a bit of her curriculum on the spot in accordance with my suggestions that they seemed to understand it better this way.
Hahahah. I'm good.
I also took a bit of time today trying to explain to her the paradigm gap I see between those with liberal arts backgrounds (like myself, and her), and most hotelies who've been here straight outta highschool. It's just a very different style here, and it takes two very different mindsets. (exhibit A: my own GPA's rollercoaster ride.)
I hope that, over the course of the semester, I can bring her and my fellow hotelies to some sort of understanding with each other. Because... although I left what I felt was a lovely fluff degree for a hardcore money maker degree, I still appreciate the lovely fluff for helping make me a more well rounded person.
I think hotelies should get out more. "Statler High", indeed.
Bad news: My HP 12C calculator STILL isn't here yet, which is holding me back from studying finance very well because although I can review the problems, I can't actually DO them.
Good news: I caught my Professor in his office today, and he let me borrow one. Yay!
So I'll be staying up most of the night practicing away. Uhmm... yay?
Anyway, I'm off to a review session for my DEA 150 exam. I'm already late, but it'll be okay. And first I have to change out of my chef whites. Yarg.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-17 10:54 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 06:32 am (UTC)It's a class about why people who live in certain kinds of buildings have higher crime rates (no kidding- they did a study where there was a direct correlation between building height and violent crime, regardless of socio-economic status- it held true for poverty level up through middle class), why people walk to one side or the other in the mall traffic and when they enter a store, why do males tend to go to one side and females tend to go to the other side (just look at how the Gap is set up next time you get a chance-), why in an empty room do people gravitate toward the nearest wall or column, but if there are 2 or 3 or 4 people they will all spread out to give each other space, that kind of thing.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 07:23 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 12:50 pm (UTC)