does this necklace make my butt look big?

GOD i'm such a slacky mcslacker face. sorry i haven't been writing. I KNOW YOU ARE DEEPLY OFFENDED. in my slackitude, i've been working 9-5 for the first time in my life. i know, i'm lazy, and fat.

oh! that's something that totally freaking boggles my mind: the Fat Thing. (it's what my friends call me.) ((just kidding. but that's going to help prove my point.)) In one of my intro linguistics classes, we had an assignment to write down slang that we used only with our group of friends. one of mine, among climbing and video game lingo (i hate video games but all my high school friends were gamers), was the appellation "fatty." we use it as a joking compliment, a favorite in ironic situations such as climbing or eating. my friends and i call each other fat in jest because 1) they are all skinny, ripped males and it's hilarious, and 2) I am a skinny, ripped girl and it's hilarious. NOTE TO AMERICA: I DO NOT THINK I AM FAT. Apparently, this makes me a freak. I was at a doctor's appointment once, and a male nurse was taking my blood pressure and stuff, and instead of telling me to take my shoes off and get on the scale, he got really uncomfortable and said "uh, sorry, i--if you don't mind--i'm sorry, but how much do you weigh?" and all the other nurses i've ever had ALWAYS 'joke' about the "worst part" being getting on the scale. Do all hospital workers have some sort of Fat Vision where they assume that every female, even the obviously trim ones, are Horribly Insecure about their weight? it bugs the HELL out of me. i weigh 115 pounds, is there a REASON i should be INSECURE about that? oh wait---one girl in high school called me anorexic. a girl who had obviously never seen me eat 2 pints of ice cream in one day.

AND! this is crazy! on my first week at the preschool when the horrible horrible sub was there, i was joking about one of my favorite kids about how he was too biiiiiig and faaaaat for me to pick him up. he was giggling and saying "YOU'RE fat!" and i'd poke him and say "look at this belly! you must weigh at LEAST nine million pounds! there's no WAY i can pick you up!" and he'd laugh hysterically. and the stupid, stupid sub girl looks over, with a serious look on her face, and says "NO one here is fat." like we were being mean or something. look, lady, you might be a Normal Insecure Chick, but if there are two people on the planet who you can call fat to make them laugh, they are a four-year-old boy, and Kaley.

AND, for the first time in my life I've been able to sleep within minutes of going to bed. this is, i need to emphasize, Freaking Amazing. even in South America when I was traveling and backpacking and taking classes and speaking spanish all the time et cetera, it still took me like nine hours to fall asleep. It's so bad that a) I am/was? convinced i have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, and b) literally remember two (2) times in my entire existence where i fell asleep within minutes.

ALSO, for the first time in my life, last night when I went to bed at 11 and couldn't sleep til 2 and had to wake up at 6, I wandered out to say hi to my boyfriend, sat on his lap, and stared at his screen. normally this is an ideal time to space the fuck out, as my eyes instantly glaze over when i look at video games--try as i might, i was never able to focus my eyes to make sense of the frantic movements and explosions on the screen. i literally couldn't see it. until last night. EPIC. oh wait---i totally don't care.


Acronyms. What's the difference between WTF and "what the fuck"? 'wtf, in all its nerdiness, just sounds nicer. it's inherently kinda funny and silly because you're verbalizing a typed acronym associated with video games and nerds. so when my bee eff just said "wtf kaley, you're still awake?" (it's 7:45 and i'd fallen asleep within minutes of sitting on the couch after Doing Stuff all day) and i was thinking how different it'd be if he said "what the fuck."
Same thing with GTFO, or "get the fuck out." If i were to say "get the fuck out" to anyone under any circumstance minus obvious joking with close friends, i'd be a Bitch. but again, the boyfriend says it in totally non-offensive, even happy ways, such as insisting i go get myself ice cream and watch the Office.


oh. hey. NOTE TO CREEPY GUYS: I DO NOT NEED STRANGERS TO TELL ME I AM ATTRACTIVE. AND PLEASE STOP STARING.
i hate denver.

back to the topic of my rant:

i'd write [witty title here] if it weren't so freaking cliche.

I started working at my boyfriend's old preschool teacher's school this week and i freaking love it more than i can describe. All the other teachers i've ever talked to (such as other Spanish teachers at my other job) talk about how TIRING and EXHAUSTING it is to teach kids. i don't get it. kids have so much energy, they give ME their energy! i just get all pumped and i love chasing them around being a sea monster and giving them helicopter rides and playing pretend and playing legos....how is that exhausting??? kids are like a triple-shot latte for me, only they make me happy all day, even after i get home.

It's hard though, to be all Adult-y after playing with 5-year olds all day. Like in some ways, you feel more like an adult by being the one to carefully apply sunscreen to tiny faces, being the one to remove bee singers and splinters, being the one to remind them to put toys back, et cetera, but you're also playing kids' games with them all day!! So it's kinda weird to get home and have a Boyfriend. Because i'm still like "play time?"

Guess what happened the first FIVE MINUTES of work today. I set the kids out to play outside, am watching the 3-year olds and then I hear Wyatt say: "I found a bug!" I turn around--"WYATT PUT THAT DOWN THAT'S A--"
*waaaaaaaaaah*
"....bee."

Why kids are awesome:
We spent about half an hour looking in the grass for bugs and shiny peices of ribbon, which was EXTREMELY EXCITING. LOOK A PURPLE ONE! A PINK ONE! A BIG ONE!!!!!!

It works out well for me because i get excited about stuff too. I don't realize this is normal until someone asks me about something i like, which i of course don't just LIKE, but which makes my eyes light up and my voice get louder and my legs to bounce and my mouth to grin. i don't just like stuff, I FUCKING LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE IT. i was hanging out with my friend Val today and she was noticing how i either HATE things or LOVE them. you don't like boulder? GET THE FUCK OUT, I HATE YOU. you like milkshakes? HOLY CRAP ME TOO AREN'T THEY DELICIOUS?? sorry for all the caps lock, i just get excited. and i'm not at all sorry i laugh loudly and frequently, i'm not sorry my voice carries, i'm not sorry i'm passionate and enthusiastic. if you're not like me, i basically think you are dead inside. and if i embarrass you, i'll just do what i did to my sister one time at the mall where i started humming along to the music on the loudspeakers and she hissed at me to stop, and i went "you should just be glad i'm not doing THIS!!!" and proceeded to LEAP and SPIN across the mall and sing loudly as she hid her red, red face.

Good times.

Oh is it picture time?
Here's an albino peackock. NEATO.

your FACE!!!!!

Whole Foods and Costco are officially conspiring to crush my soul. How? Oh, I will tell you. I will tell you indeed.



Two things that make life worth living: 1) Wild Oats' lemon creme sandwich cookies (I have to actively work to NOT eat an entire box in one sitting, they're that fucking delicious) and 2) bulk packages of Orbits bubblemint gum to feed my addiction (I go through a pack a day. Good thing I'm not a smoker, this oral fixation is serious like whoa.)


Fucking Whole Foods. I liked them until they took over Wild Oats. So Whole Foods, when they bought out my beloved Wild Oats, stopped carrying my goddamned lemon cookies. I asked a cashier lady about them, I put a pleading note in their comment box, and then i put THREE MORE comment cards in when they responded to everyone's question except mine. Every single time. I put in comment cards every time i went there---so like once a week. No freaking response. So I started e-mailing them. And requested that Amazon e-mail me when my cookies become available, if they will ever again. OH HOW I NEED THEM.
So while i've been pining after my lemon cookies, i discovered on a recent trip to Costco that they no longer carry my favorite flavor of Orbits gum---they decided it was sufficient if they carried two kinds of mint, and some fucking watermelon mint crap, because yeah, one average and one weird-ass size fits all.

Enough whining. Time for funny stories and randomness, kids!

Funny story:
So I was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend's car one day coming back from climbing, and we were having a Serious, Deep Discussion about Life and Pain. And since we were in this far-right lane that turned into a turn-only lane where we didn't want to go, i interrupted my friend, who was in the midst of a Rant about Life, to say "this lane ends." and she said, "YES. EXACTLY. this lane ENDS. for all of us, at some point. it's so true!!!"
and it was true. the lane ended, and we had to change lanes. METAPHORICALLY?? perhaps.
GOD i'm so deep.

On my Facebook profile under "activities," among "climbing" and "drinking copious amounts of white tea" and "chocolate ice cream" and "spaghetti" (i love food like a fat kid at fat camp) and "being a badass" (i'm not modest but i'm honest), i have listed "making everything you say into an insult about your face." and it's true. But it doesn't always work as an insult, per se. For example: a friend says "man it's hot" and i go "your FACE is hot!!!! ohhhh snap!" and they're like ".....yeah.....burn." and i'm like "yeah. burn." When such an event occurs, and the other person thinks you're in fact complimenting them, it's key to keep a snide, smug look on your face like you just gave them the burn of their life. And they don't even FEEL burned, (so in your head you're like "OH SNAP you don't even KNOW!") that's how damn good you are. Covert. Yeah. Word.

Randomness:
Here are three of my favorite pieces of clothing:



hehehehehehehe. words on a shirt.
it's funny 'cause it's true.

BED OF EVIL AND LETTUCE!

When i was on the bus the other day i was reading the sign above the front seat that says to get your big 'ol butt up and move if some old person wants to sit there. but they don't say "old person." they say say "elderly persons." but i don't call my dad an "elderly person." I call him an "old person." I think he appreciates my honesty.

at a thrift store yesterday, my boyfriend found a video entitled "Evolution: Anti-God Religion of Death."

I started laughing, and then I saw that it was serious. It was, in fact, christian religious video. Wow, Blogger says with its fierce, cruel red underline that that is spelled wrong...because it's not capitalized. EFF YOU, RED LINE--i see you sitting under "eff."Taunting me. LEAVE ME BE!!!

On the cover, a happy Adam and Eve chilled in the happy Garden of Eden. On top of a pile of human bones that took up two-thirds of the cover.

One word*: wtf?

*acronym

So: Summer. The best and the worst things about summer is the change in my sleep schedule. Instead of going to bed at midnight and tossing and turning for a while, waking up at 7 and then sleeping in til noon on weekends.....oh summer. During the summer, I have teh freeeeedom to go to bed at 4 AM and sleep til....4 PM. Oh yeah, in case you ever need to defeat me in a battle, know this: My superpower is that I can sleep for 12-14 hours at a time. every day. YEAH, BRING IT!!!!!!!!!!!

/don't call me before about 2. kthxbai.

it's funny 'cause it's true.

ATTENTION GIRLS WHO WEAR THOSE CLEAR BRA STRAPS: you are not fooling anyone.

a few days ago a tiny bug flew into my nose and died. it was a very strange feeling--i don't know how fast that thing was flying, but when it made that ill-fated upward turn, i did NOT have ANY idea what the HELL was going on, did a whole-body twitch, shrieked and frantically rubbed at my tickly itchy nose. ha, you BETTER die a snot-covered death, you stupid little bug you....

the next day, another weird thing happened. i saw this hippie-lookin dude walking around while playing a ukelele. no wait, it gets weirder. i saw him twice more that day, and he was still singing.

i wish i could play the ukulele.

every time i hear a famous person's name, i try to image their name not being Famous: like what it sounded like when their 4th grade teacher called out "drew barrymore?" or "jon stewart?" et cetera.

i am a big fan of spelling out 'et cetera.'

here's a fun game: make the most retarded noise you can make. and i mean literally like how that kid in ESL in elementary school made noises. you know, like..."ennnh. NYEHHHHH!"
now image being the driver of the short bus.
and that sound being the honk.

i was doing homework (read: "browsing facebook") the other day in the evercrowded computer lab at school when i came across this picture:
oh, but first: i learned this in 5th grade sex ed but it is still true: everything is funnier when you're not supposed to laugh. so i clicked and here comes this picture and because i'm in a crowded, dead-silent room of studying college kids, my attempt to not laugh hysterically turned into my snorting into my hand for about ten minutes until i clicked away from the picture--that was the only way to stop the madnesss!!!

the End of Eloquence

Dun dun dunnnn.....

The annual Conference on World Affairs is going on at CU this week, and I FINALLY went to some talks today (Monday i was busy puking, Tuesday i had a Fiesta for the kids i teach spanish and then rapped in Chinese for Asian Language Night, and yesterday they all looked boring).

The End of Eloquence!!!! Such a dramatic title. The room was PACKED with middle-aged Boulderites and fleece-wearing retirees and like, 2 other college kids. I was interested to hear this talk because as a linguist, I have some very strong opinions (wait, are they opinions if they're Correct?) and know more about grammar than most Hoity Toity Non-Infinitive-Splitting College-Educated retirees. For example, I know that stupid grammar rules like splitting an infinitive are considered incorrect ONLY by snooty, ignorant prescriptivists who subscribe to the outdated notion that Latin is the Best Language Ever and English should be Just Like It. Just because something is impossible in an ancient language (and one that English is not even a daughter language of) doesn't mean it's wrong in our language---people just wanted English to be prestigious like Latin and so assigned Latin's grammar rules to English. Pretty silly, no?

So this one guy spent his entire allotted time quoting famous authors and bemoaning the lack of such eloquence in today's society. Apparently being a talented writer in the 1800s is analogous to being the average American of the 21st century. Wait, what?? Yeah, exactly.
Another dude blamed music and technology for the proliferation of 'like' and 'uh.'
One more bitched about how students in his writing class 'don't get laid' (HAR HAR) because they don't know the difference between 'lay' and 'lie' and pondered about where today's kids learn to talk like we do (which is, by the way, DISGRACEFUL)

So for the first time of all the talks i've been to at the Conference, i went up to the mic to ask a question. I started off by answering their question about where/how/why kids learn to speak like they/we do (over a hundred curious gray heads swiveled in my direction at this) and I talked briefly about how when i was in middle and high school, every paper i wrote was full of 'like,' 'frickin,' and cuss words---I wrote exactly how i talked, and every single time, i was praised for having Voice, and always got A's. Then the panel moderator stood up and said impatiently, "Do you have a question?" and got interrupted by about a dozen people in the audience shouting over him to me to "keep going!" so i grinned and kept going. I explained that with certain grammar rules such as the lay/lie dichotomy, there is no reason that English speakers would suspect which to use because transitive and intransitive pairs are so few in English, and asked the panelists if they thought that it was important or even valid to maintain such outdated, strict standards that don't represent standard English grammar. I then pointed out several valid uses of 'like,' such as as a quotative and an approximant, and that by saying 'you know?' the speaker is soliciting participation from the listener---so is it possible that today's speech is more oriented not only towards brevity in a short-attention-spanned world, but also in eliciting participation rather than showing off one's own smarts in soliloquies?
The audience applauded.
It rocked.

And then Steve picked me up on his way home from work--he left early because the ditzy intern was driving him INSANE by saying 'um' and 'like' loudly and repeatedly every few words while making phone calls to (possibly now ex-) supporters of the non-profit. So i thought about how i absolutely do agree that some people literally need to be slapped every time they say 'like' to stall and i HATE it when people use apostrophes incorrectly (PLURALS DO NOT NEED AN APOSTROPHE) and i LOATHE it when people use the POSESSIVE 'your' when they mean the contraction of 'you are'. But there are reasons for all of those things--'your' has a completely different meaning from 'you're' and apostrophes mean possessive, '-s' just means plural. Basically i just like pointing out to a room full of highly-educated bourgeois Boulderites bitching about Kids Today that a) we're not all dumb blondes, and b) don't follow the Rules just because your 3rd grade grammar teacher told you to--actually understand if they're relevant, useful, and valid for the structure of your freaking language.

Picture of the Day:I literally laughed out loud (lloled if you're Hip) for about ten minutes when I saw this picture.


Opinions of interest to linguists/language nerds only:
1. I have no problem with the disappearance of the English subjunctive. ("If I were you" --> "If i was you")
2. I actively want English to adopt "they" as our singular neuter pronoun. We NEED it, and "Everyone must do his or her own work" sounds stupid.

Nerd out.

random lists and randomness

You can learn a lot about your mother tongue form non-native speakers. Here are some questions I was asked recently by a Korean exchange student in my linguistics classes:

1. What is the most offensive word you know? (fag)
2. What do you call petting a PERSON'S hair--petting, stroking, something else? (petting?)
3. What is your favorite metaphor? (he/she's 'hot')
4. Ambiguity....is nebulous? (yeah, but we don't really say 'nebulous'....)


Every morning I wake up with a different random song stuck in my head. Last weeks mental playlist:

Monday: Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!
Tuesday: the corny Titanic song
Wednesday: the states song (aaaalaaaabama, alaska arizona arkansas california colorado conneticut...)
Thursday: System of a Down-Lie Lie Lie


Random thought: Misuse of apostrophes should be banned.


I asked the (elementary) kids I teach Spanish to name some Spanish speaking countries. Their FIRST guesses:
1.New Mexico (NEW Mexico?)
2. Africa
3. Asia
4. Europe
It took about an hour of prompting to get them to guess Spain. heart kids.


I had an interesting conversation with my boyfriend today that perfectly exemplifies indirect speech acts:
Me: Hey Steve, you wanna go get ice cream?
Steve: No.
Me: I wanted to go get ice cream.
Steve: Why didn't you say so?
Me: I did!


I just found this epic quote:
"It is common knowledge that standard English inserts a glottal stop before a tautosyllabic voiceless plosive."
Common knowledge, indeed.

Randomness: