maximine and minerva’s owl

We live near Hitotsubashi University, and over the years I’ve managed to befriend a lot of its campus denizens: security guards, visiting professors, gardeners, exchange students from different parts of the globe, cleaning ladies and academic researchers, young and old. Yesterday, while I was having coffee at a donut shop near the campus, I saw one professor who teaches French there whom I had met once in a pottery class offered at our local cultural center a couple of years ago, which we both attended. We chatted and then he said he could let me audit his class in lower-intermediate French if I want to, gratis, which will start mid September. 

I also want to audit a class in Business Management and have yet to talk to a prof. that offers one. This is something I will be looking forward to: going to school again, even if it’s not official and jsut sort of a pretend one. At least I’ll get a little bit of mental/intellectual stimulation that is more practical and something that I will have a use for someday. And not just from literature books that I have to peruse day in day out for my highschool classes, which make my brain saturated with stories by people who have been long gone and dead for centuries; not that I’m complaining but I do need different kinds of stimulation, and yes, that kind too. We live 10 minutes on foot and 3 by bicycle to Hitotsubashi University which, by the way, has a great campus albeit not too big. The place, I think, is very similar to Princeton U: cobbled stone roads and red brick pavements; the buildings have antiquated facades and possess a certain atmosphere that could charm you away. It has lots of trees too and several tennis courts that I could, perhaps, also, use for free. There is a considerable number of foreign students and I sometimes feel refreshed and at the same time nostalgic when I see them walking and roaming around. They’re all young and I feel so ancient old. The campus is so verdant and full of different varieties of trees and flowering plants; and they’re all my friends, too. Yes, the trees! I talk to them and I don’t mind even if you call me cuckoo. I’m a tree talker. A certified one. Who certified me? The trees themselves; and any tree, for that matter. 

He’s not quite back to his ‘normal’ self yet and I just can’t leave him like that. If I don’t get to go to Europe this October I will go in the spring next year. I’m hoping to meet her, her, her, her, her and, maybe, her, too. And if I get really really lucky, maybe, her, too.

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I’m currently reading ‘The complete Kama Sutra’ and ‘Sutil man ang Puso’ 

I am trying to translate certain parts of the former into Tagalog because it’s fun and I  thought it would help me get desensitized to “certain” Tagalog words. The latter was a give-away when I bought a half a gallon ube ice cream at a Filipino store in Tokyo. Awesome! Mga sutil na puso!

C’mon, let’s sing….

Desperado 

(The Eagles) 

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one  

I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get

Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
You’re loosin’ all your highs and lows
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late

.   .   .  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    .   . 

I just can’t shake this song off my noggin, after watching the movie ‘In America’ the other day. The little girl who sang it in the movie was really great but unfortunately her singing it wasn’t included in the soundtrack CD. Clint Black’s rendition is also impressive (click the link and scroll all the way down to track 16 if you want to listen to it).

and, yeah…medyo desperado na ‘ko.    

Barbie is hot she wants a bath.

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Study: Simple Writing Makes You Look Smart  

Many fledgling writers have been taught the mnemonic KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. A new study backs the wisdom of that advice.    Long words used needlessly along with complicated font styles — two tactics employed routinely by students trying to pad their work — are perceived as coming from less intelligent writers.

Or, to put it simply: Short words and classic fonts make you look smart.

Daniel Oppenheimer at Princeton University conducted five experiments manipulating the complexity of vocabulary or font style. Samples included graduate school applications, sociology dissertation abstracts, and translations of a work by Descartes.

Times New Roman, the default font for Internet text and writing programs like Microsoft Word, was contrasted by the italicized Juice font (the sort of font you might see in a homemade newsletter that’s trying to be more than it is).

The simple writing done in the easy-to-read font tended to be rated as coming from a more intelligent author than the more complex drafts.

“Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers’ evaluations of the text and its author,” Oppenheimer said.

He added, though, that the study does not suggest long words are inherently bad, but only that using them needlessly is a problem. So why do so many people do it?

“The continuing popularity amongst students of using big words and attractive font styles may be due to the fact that they may not realize these techniques could backfire,” Oppenheimer said. “One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it’s more likely you’ll be thought of as intelligent.”

The results will be published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.

By Robert Roy Britt  (LiveScience)

 Yes, yes, I’m a major league escapist and kawirduhan it  runs in the blood. Last month was ‘Bewitched’ (no, not that faux pas remake of a flick but the original 60s’ TV series) where while watching 16 episodes of it on DVD in one sitting, I submersed myself into my illusion that I was Samantha Stephens and that I had a magical power to do whatever I want by twiching my nose and do other witch-y stuff like being able to change my immediate reality such as subjecting to torture annoying mortals; that with a snap of my fingers I could be high up above ensconced in a fluff of cumulus cloud snacking on dried figs and beluga caviar while having a tete-a-tete with Bacchus. 

Clearly, each one of us does it (escape) in a way that we know how, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of something destructive and volatile in nature e.g., shopping sprees, over-eating, drink binging, irresponsible sex, or, being a pain in the neck to people around us, etc. etc. blah blah blah. But then again, that’s just me and I don’t even have to listen to myself because the cuckoo bird always manages to drop by and lay tiny cuckoo droppings on my head bwehehehehe. Ang init kasi dito ngayon at severe ang atake ng kahibangan ko at saka bakasyon at di ako makalabas.

So at the moment my choice of fake reality (oxymoronic a!) is Christmas. Oui cherie, christmas! and it makes me feel good. This is because I have so many great memories of christmas and reliving those memories helps me overcome my negative feelings, which at the present time have been coming one after the other because of the situation we’re in, which, sad to say, we don’t have control of. Which got me thinking that even though I don’t have control of my present unpleasanr situation, I still have control of my behavior and the way I would like to look at things. Again, that’s just me  pretending to be sage and kingsolomonic as usual teehehehe.

So Luiji yielded to my whim and let me put up my 15 inches plastic tree, the one I usually put in the bedroom during the season (the one for the living room is about 5ft and he didn’t let me take it out of its box kahit na naglupasay pa ako). I really, really wanted the fairy lights on the tree as well but he threatened begged me not to do it because it will just help generate more heat in the house kaya pumayag na rin ako na wag na. But what drives him crazy now is the music! hehehe….I’ve been playing ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ nonstop.

And look what I found:

It is very unlikely that Jesus was born in either December or January for two reasons: (1) The sheep in Plaestine were not found in the open fields at night from November until March. (2) Enrollment for taxation would not have been ordered at this time of year because of the difficulty in traveling.Some seek to establish the birth of Christ by calculating the birth of John, who was six months older. This is done by determining when Zacariah’s course of priests would have been serving in the temple. For 6 B.C., the date is said to have been in August. However, no one can prove conclusively either the month or the day of Jesus’ birth.  

Merry Christmas everyone!

Peace and Goodwill to men and women!