One Norwegian Alaskan in Madison.



Fun with French

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Alright, kids, it's been ages, but here's something to tide you over while I try to get my groove back (and do some homework). In prep for taking French with Maria Leon this fall, I've put together a little something I found a while back. I call it 'Fun with French'.


"You've got a face that would blow off manhole covers"
"T'as une tête a faire sauter les plaques d'egouts!"
(ta zoon tait a fair saw - teh leh plahk de - goo)

"What did your last slave die of?"
"De quoi est mort votre dernier esclave?"
(de kwa eh mor votr der - nee - er es - klahv)

"How much for the little girl?"
"Combien pour la fillette"
(com - byen poor la fill - et)

"I think this wine has been drunk before."
"Je pense que ce vin a déjà ete bu"
(zhe pens ke se vin a day - zha e - te bu)

"Do you have any French in you? Would you like some?"
"Vous avez des origines françaises? Pourquoi pas une descendance française?"
(voo za - vay deh zo - ri - zhin fran - say? poor kwu pah deh - sen - dans fran - say?)

"I have a frog in my bidet!"
"J'ai une grenouille dans mon bidet!"
(zhay en gre - noo - ee dan mon bee - day)

"I like Spain better"
"Je préfére l'Espagne"
(zhe pre - fer les - pan - ya)

Right, then, off I go.


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It's at least 70 degrees outside right now, at 10:30 in the morning. I had forgotten how clean the air tastes here compared to Seattle. It's so much worse in LA; I remember our high school BPA group getting sick for a few days when we went down there three years ago. Still, Seattle can get a little brown on still days. Also, it's two days before the summer solstice and it was broad daylight at 11:00 last night. I remember the sun was shining at least 50 degrees up from the horizon when we drove back from Craggy Creek last night at 8:00, and it was still pretty light when I posted last night. Yay for eternal sunshine! I had a sunburn on part of my shoulders and the bridge of my nose yesterday, but they turned into a tan overnight, so now I can go do it again on the Butte. Who wants to wake Kat up for me?


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Yes! I am victorious! Actually, it's not as though I stole this laptop and beat up its password - dad practically put it in my lap so I would relinquish the computer upstairs. I am online, however, without anyone looking over my shoulder, which means only one thing - time to get cracking on my updates. That's right, I don't let my parents see my grades or my blog. Is that mean? A certain mother of mine says yes (though she doesn't know about the blog...I think). So finals are done (whew) and summer school is only a few days away. Mmm, organic chem in the summer. Nothing better! After Ro knocked down her last test on Friday we celebrated with dinner at Blue C Sushi, a really good spot in Fremont with the bar in a loft upstairs, movies projecting on the two story wall in front of us, and sushi served kaiten style on a moving conveyor belt surrounding the chefs. After dinner we went back downtown to see Harry Potter 3, which was awesome. We got tickets at the last moment so we sat in the first row with fellow SU students, and enjoyed Alfonso Cuaron's interpretation of HP3 right in our laps. The Dementors...and the Whomping Willow...and Sirius Black. It was perfect. Why could he not direct HP4? He's got a gift. Must now watch more than just the first part of Y Tu Mama Tambien.

You did hear right, by the way. I'm at home right now. A week ago I was studiously writing away on one of my final papers for Asian Families (the class I got an A in somehow!) when my brain sort of wandered away...like it had five minutes before that...and I realized both Father's Day and Mom's Birthday were coming up one right after the other. It's like they schedule these things in advance...hmm. I found a (relatively) cheap flight up to Alaska on Tuesday and with the awesome help of Kat and my (older) brother I managed to get from the airport to my house and spend the night in the (heated) garage. Elder Brother let Kat and me in through his window (in our pjs) the next morning so we could casually walk upstairs. My mom's jaw was on the floor for a good minute or two. She was really happy to see me though. :-D

She decided not to call Dad at work to tell him I was here, so Kat and I ran off to Anchorage to see Shrek 2 (v. v. good) before he got home. Well, we meant to get back before he got home. We kind of got lost...in Anchorage. Yeah, I know. We got lost on the way in, too. How's that for special? At least we girls can ask for directions. :P We found the Glenn again, finally, and crawled back through Elder Brother's window to pull the magic trick yet again, with delightful success. Dad's face wasn't priceless, but he never shows his emotions as much as Mom does. Guess who I take after?

It's been interesting being back home for such a short time. I know I'll be gone again soon, so part of me wants to be the daughter I never am when I'm around for the summer, or when I lived here before. I want to be more sensitive to my mom's feelings; I think she always wished we were as close as she is to her mom. They still call each other every week. I want to act more like a grown up around my dad; I feel like I come off as a spoiled little cynic when I talk with him for a while. I want to get to know my older brother again, because he's changed so much since we both went to college. Same goes for my younger brother - he's so tall and thin now. That's saying something, since he's never been anything but tall and thin. Now, though, it's scary. His face has matured a lot and his voice is deeper. He's all angles and lines. It's hard to say I ever really knew him, for as much as I keep things inside, he's the king. I can still get him to smile, though, so things haven't changed too much.

Today dad stayed home from work to hang out with me! and we drove through Willow to come up to Hatcher's Pass from the back side. We hiked up Craggy Creek and had lunch overlooking the most beautiful glacial valley I've ever seen. Except for Archangel Valley, which is only two mountains over. After that we scrambled up a boulder field to find a partially melted tarn (glacial lake) at the foot of a glacier, which was ideal for cooling dad's beer. Not that he meant to bring it along. No, no, he "thought that it was soda". Who would consume even a bit of alcohol right after climbing up a steep slope when we all know that it inhibits the production of ADH? Without your lovely Anti-Diuretic Hormone, you're just saying "please, sir, may I become even more dehydrated?" ::shakes head::

Maybe tomorrow I can take Younger Brother to the movies. No one in my family has seen HP3 yet, so there's work for me to do. Must get cracking. After Kat and I climb the Butte, of course. Which will only happen once I succeed in waking her up. It may be a long day.



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These finals-dealies don't leave much brain power for coherent sentence formation. Friday at four, though, watch out. I'll be back with 12 pages for Anthropology written and turned in, an unknown number for Ethics prepared and improvised in class, and a whole brain lobe emptied and ready to be filled with O Chem. All I need now is another roommate. And a job. I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat. I'll go with "E", as in eeeeeeee! Summer vacation, I'm right here. Any time you'd like to arrive, I'll be waiting.


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Written by this one person on this other person's site:

"'God' has been shoehorned into American public life on a steadily rising tide since the early 20th century in a way the founding fathers explicitly did not intend. The extraordinary confusion about whether marriage is a civil contract or a religious sacrament is, likewise, something that has its roots not in the dawn of time, but in early medieval Christian practice when the church began officiating at weddings. If it is in fact a civil contract then by every principle of civil rights and equality before the law there is no justice in denying it to some and reserving it to others. And if it is a religious matter, then the state has no business legislating any aspect of it at any level, and that the hell (one could ask) is the Christian right doing trying to tell Buddhists and Hindus and Jews and Catholics how to run their religions?"



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I found this note in the bathroom after I woke up this morning in Rena's bed. How I got there I'm not sure. How M wound up sleeping in my bed, I also don't know. I clearly remember getting into my own bed at 3 or so, and then getting up to go visit the sink. The next thing I remember is rolling over this morning to find an empty bucket next to my head in Rena's bed and M sleeping soundly in my bed. He denies any knowledge of how he got there.

Conclusion? I am a very still sleeper. Also, either M or A (who resisted our attempts to ply him with liquor) must have decided a Chinese fire drill bed switch would be amusing with unconcious participants. That, or both M and I like to sleepwalk...at the same time.


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  • Homebase Madison, Wisconsin
  • I was raised in Alaska, am the shortest person in my family, and I can wiggle my ears.
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