Is it Thanksgiving yet?

Cant. Wait. Until. Thanksgiving.

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's seeing my family. Maybe it's taking a much needed break from school & work. Maybe it's going to the beach. Maybe it's the promise of turkey. Maybe it's the Macy's day parade and football game. Maybe it's the holiday spirit and chance at collective thankfulness. Maybe it's getting away from the routine. Maybe it's the Black Friday shopping.

What ever it is...Thanksgiving cannot get here soon enough.

Who fills out consumer research surveys?

Toyota's research company dedicated to "buyer feedback and emotional response studies" keeps sending out these customer surveys for me to fill out every few months or so since I bought my car in January; and I keep filling them out. I am such a sucker. They take almost 20 minutes to read and go through, clicking radio buttons from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

Who the heck actually does that?? Is it because I have no life? NO. Is it because I really think they care what I think? NO. Is it because I feel like I am accomplishing something meaningful or doing something nice for someone else? NO. It's because they have a drawing for a $20,000 cash prize that you supposedly get entered into for filling out the anonymous survey. It's because you click on the link and think, yeah, ok, that 1 in a million chance at 20,000 is worth 2 minutes of my time, and then, 18 minutes later you are still trying to decide whether driving a Toyota makes you feel more "powerful" or "secure" or hey, why not both?

It's all about getting customers to click on the link. Once they do, you've got 'em, because they're not going to stop filling the thing out mid-way through. And in my case, I'll click on the intitial link 3 times in less than a year. Clearly I don't learn. Is there anybody else out there who completes these surveys?

How to get tickets to go up the Washington Monument

Even though I've been to Washington, DC a million times as a kid and have been living here for two years, I've still never gone up the Washington Monument.


For a couple years it was closed for renovation, but I do believe it's been opened for while since. You have to have a timed ticket to go up as I learned this weekend when I took this photo. Apparently you have to arrive on site at 8:30AM in order to get tickets to go up. Ha. Yeah right. On a day I would have time to go the monument (namely Saturdays), there is no way I'd wake up up at 8:30AM let alone be waiting in line for a ticket at 8:30AM. I love sleeping in on weekends. So what are those of us who are not early birds to do?

Well, we can order tickets at Recreation.gov. If you want to go on a weekend, it's likely you'll have to order yours a few weeks in advance. Or in the summer a few months in advance. The tickets are free, but there is a nominal fee per ticket for shipping and whatnot ($1.50 each when I checked), but the extra couple of hours of sleep is worth it.

I'm going to order my tickets soon, because it's about time I check out this DC from the best vantage point--within!

Un-translatable

As much as language shapes our reality, it is also largely inadequate. There is so much that language can say; but there is so much more that language cannot say.

So many times I have wanted to express a feeling or thought, but was unable to do so because words just couldn't fully grasp the nuance of the concept. I find this problem most often occurring to me when trying to express certain feelings or when trying to give accurate descriptions. I still love words though and think they lie at the essence of our being. Yet sometimes words can't suffice. And sometimes words must be twisted into artistic forms to more accurately represent the human experience.

All this thinking came about by stumbling upon these 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World . 20 words that don't have English equivalents. I know there are many many more out there, but I enjoyed this selection, which included:

Jayus
Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”

Duende
Spanish – “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.”

Ya’aburnee
Arabic - “You bury me, a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them."

Wabi-Sabi
Japanese – “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

Schadenfreude
German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune.

and my favorite from the list (I can't imagine why don't have this one in English...):

Tingo
Pascuense (Easter Island) “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”

Trick or Treat?

Boo!


All trick, no treat.

Enjoy your Halloween.

Scary Glowing Pumpkin Faces

Yay. Nothing like carving pumpkins and turning them into jack-o-lanterns.


Students from my ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) conversation class managed to stump me. They asked why we call them jack-o-lanterns, and I had to answer, "I don't know." The best answer Wikipedia gives is the origin from the latin phrase ignis fatuus which is sometimes translated "will-o'-wisp, corpse candle, jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern, gunderslislik, and wisp, a Folklore depiction of ghostly light sometimes seen at night or twilight over bogs, swamps, and marshes." Meh. That hardly helps. And the History channel will tell you a folk tale, but I think the common thread is that we don't know.

So why are you called jack-o-lanterns, scary glowing pumpkin faces?

Birthing Tent Spectacle

Awhile back at the great Frederick fair in Maryland, they had a very unusual event for fair goers to experience. That being the birthing tent. Yes, that's right. A fun filled tent full of very pregnant animals ready to pop out baby animals.

Right before we got there, a calf had been born and another cow was is in the process of giving birth. I have never seen such a thing, and I'm even from the country. I found the birthing tent to be a very bizarre spectacle. Why would people want to stand around and watch such a thing?

The poor cow was losing blood left and right. And the people there before us told us in great detail how they had to attach chains to the calf to help the mother push it out of her ealier. At one point, the cow started turning around, and the farmer had to announce that some on-lookers were in the "splash zone," and it was then that I decided this birthing tent was really not for me.

Does anyone else think that a birthing spectacle is distasteful? Sure, the babies are cute once they're born, but I like my baby animals the way I like my steak--wIth no knowledge of how they got there.

Some More S'mores Please

Graham cracker.
Toasted marshmallow.
Hershey's chocolate.
Graham cracker.

Assemble.
Eat.

Yum. It's s'more season. Get to having campfires people!