I'm getting tired of this bull.

Lord, give me strength. Again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FROM: THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL
MR.KOÏCHIRO MATSUURA (UNESCO AWARD INC)
PRIZE AWARD DEPT.

REF NO:ELX23649/441
BATCH NO: 005874652/252

ATTN: WINNER.

RE: AWARD NOTIFICATION, FINAL NOTICE.

We are pleased to inform you, that as a result of our RECENT LOTTERY DRAWS HELD 2008.

Your e-mail address attached to winning number:
kST/571/UNNP with serial number:345 drew lucky
numbers: 10 which consequently won in the 5th
category.

you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay of (FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS) in cash credited to file with REF:?.NDP/EGS2309/05

Note that all participants in this lottery program have been selected randomly through a computer ballot system drawn from over 10,000 Officials and 15,000,000individual email addresses from all search engines and web sites,from Asia, Australia, NewZealand, Europe, North and South America, Middle East and Africa, as part of our International Promotions Program.

This promotional program takes place every year,and is promoted and sponsored by theUnited Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization with the help of Bilgate of microsoft and computers.

THIS IS DESIGNED TO IMPROVE THE LEVEL OF EDUCATION AMONGST STAFF AND STUDENTS AND ENCOURAGE THE USE OF INTERNET ACCROSS THE GLOBE.

Your fund is now deposited with Union Bank and insured in your name For security purpose and clarity,we advise that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims have been processed and your money remitted to your account.

This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claims and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.

We look forward to your active participation in our next 1. million dollars slot.

To begin the processing of your prize you are to contact your claims agent through our accredited Prize Transfer agents as stated below:

Name..(DR) MARTIN JOHNSON.

TEL: +234-703-391-8573

CALL HIM IMMEDIATELY WITH HIS ABOVE DIRECT PHONE NUMBER IF YOU ARE CALLING FROM (USA) THIS IS HOW YOU DIAL 011-234-703-391-8573 .

You are also advised to provide your claim agent with the under listed information as soon as possible send it to his email addresses below,

E-mail: drmartin227@yahoo.com


1. Name in full
2. Address
3. Nationality
4. Age
5. Occupation
6. Phone
7. Batch/ref numbers

All winnings must be claimed not later than one month After the date of this notice.Please note,in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications,remember to quote your Batch number and Serial numbers in all correspondence.

Furthermore,should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.

Congratulations!!!once more and thank you for being part of our promotional program.

Bear in mind that 10% of your fund will be going to the lottery organization that played the lottery with peoples name and email addresses that should be after you most have received the fund in your account,the 10% would have been given to them,just because the fund has been insured and will not be deducted till the beneficiary receives it in his or her account.

Sincerely,
MR.KOÏCHIRO MATSUURA.
THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL.
UNESCO AWARD INC.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Once again another scam was bestowed upon yours truly and her innocent uni mail address. And the grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes nearly knocked me out. Mind you, this was considerably better than the previous mail I'd gotten from... err... what-his-name, but still, there's no hope for 'em.

Firstly, there is NO SUCH ORGANIZATION AS "UNESCO AWARD INC" (with and without the full stop after "inc"). The only hits I got were two, which described this letter as being little more than a scam. Furthermore, there are orthographic mistakes (e.g. too much space, too little space, lower-case instead of upper-case letters and PUNCTUATION) and evidence of stylistic mistakes. ARGH.

And what's up with "Bilgate of microsoft and computers"??? What is this "bilgate" thing; some sort of armadillo?! And the postmodifier is one of the lousiest excuses of a grammatical construction I have ever seen. It just screams credibility, doesn't it?! Not to mention the following sentence, which they so generously bestowed upper-case letters upon: "THIS IS DESIGNED TO IMPROVE THE LEVEL OF EDUCATION AMONGST STAFF AND STUDENTS AND ENCOURAGE THE USE OF INTERNET ACCROSS THE GLOBE."

I can hear the subliminal message now: "So yeah, you can really trust us on this one. It's for educational purposes. Honest."

And do I REALLY need directions for how to dial a phone?! "THIS IS HOW YOU DIAL"??? HOW UTTERLY DUMBASS DO YOU THINK I AM?! I think I know how to count and use my phalanges and the surrounding muscles and tendons to guide my index finger to the buttons on my phone to which the given numbers correspond! I am pretty sure I was not born yesterday. Hm, come to think of it, all of the sentence in itself is quite nasty: "CALL HIM IMMEDIATELY WITH HIS ABOVE DIRECT PHONE NUMBER IF YOU ARE CALLING FROM (USA) THIS IS HOW YOU DIAL 011-234-703-391-8573 ." Why place the US in parentheses? Does that mean I cannot call them? Does that mean I cannot collect my "prize"?

Bummer.

And did you notice that there was absolutely NO trace of a full stop at the first mention of the so-called "director-general", his name and his alleged workplace? No indication of an abbreviation whatsoever? Did you also notice that there were almost too many at the last mention of the "director-general" at the end of this mail? ("Oops, I forgot to put in the full stops at the very beginning. Well, it's too late to change it now. I've got to get to the streets and sell illegal drugs within the next 2 minutes, so I gotta complete this now before it's too late. I'll just compensate with putting the full stops at the end, then. I'm sure the reader will understand.")

So, over to the email address: "drmartin227@yahoo.com". Yeah. Seriousness galore. Especially when you see that this is a Yahoo! email address. The address I received it from was also on the same level of seriousness: "unesco.inc08@luckymail.com". "Luckymail"??? Heh. Indeed.

You'd think that "UNESCO Awards, Inc." would have their own domain being as renowned as UNESCO is, but no. I reckon this is because of all of their lotteries. They should cut down on that crap and spend it on someone who really needs it instead of focusing on all of these unprofessional pastimes.

We are not amused.

Signing off (and starting to get a little annoyed at such spam entering my uni email),
Elise

Britain's DEFINITELY Got Talent!

Seriously, if you don't get chills from this performance, there's no hope for ya.



Signing off and trying not to procrastinate any longer,
Elise

Dershtikt zolstu veren!!!

The most beautiful rendition of the Irish classic I've ever heard. Besides, these lads are three of the funniest characters in their show anyway.



*sigh* I'm... speechless. There's nothing that can be said about this at all.

No, really, there isn't. I won't even try.

Meanwhile, I had an epiphany in Spanish today. Man, did that feel good when it suddenly occurred to me the answer to analyzing that sentence. Well, sort of a mixed feeling, really. Euphoria because I'd finally been able to see how the whole thing was analyzed, and a tinge of annoyance that I hadn't been able to see it before. Grr.

Furthermore, I've lately found a fascination in Yiddish words and expressions. They're so much more than "shmuts" (dirt), "gelt" (money), "chutzpah" (gall, brazenness) and even "kosher" (you all know this one!) The title of the post, for instance means "you should choke on it". And then there's "draikop" (scatterbrain), "dumkop" (for all you who know German, you know this means "dunce". Homer Simpson, on the other hand, would go for "stupidhead", which would be the direct translation), "tuchis"/"toches" (butt), "farblondzhet" (lost, bewildered, confused) and even the glorious "Gai shlog dein kup en vant!" ("Go bang your head against a wall!")

Man, that last one's almost on the same level as the French Taunter in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". :-D

And then there's of course the procrastinator's slogan: "Kum ich nisht heint, kum ich morgen." ("If I don't come today, I'll come tomorrow.")

Yes, when utilizing a sick mind the meaning of it changes slightly, but you get the main points, don't you?



So, to end off this endless rambling, I leave you all with the follwing wish:

"Vahksin zuls du, tsu gezunt, tsu leben, tsu langeh yor."
("May you grow to health, to life, to long years.")



Chutzpah,
Elise



Ps.: Here's another beauty:
"Vahksin zuls du vi a tsibeleh, mitten kup in drerd."
("May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground.")

I particularly like this one. *giggle*

Did you know...

... that MC Hammer has a BLOG?! *lol* I must admit I had to giggle a little when I saw this! Can I... "touch this" this time???

Oh, man, some people just don't know when to quit while they're ahead! And of course he's included a rendition of his ONE hit. You know which one I'm talking about. Look at "Saturday March 22" and enjoy (or cringe - take your pick)!

Anyway, I've managed to be a relatively good student today, and have started on revising for Spanish, which no doubt is the most challenging of my exams when it comes to expressing yourself. And of course there is the curriculum part, but that's just a matter of getting into one's cassava and making it stay there.

It's nothing like Brit. Civ. I seriously don't know how that exam's gonna turn out. It's just the sheer size of the curriculum that scares me. How the heck am I gonna remember it all?! PRAY TELL!!!

Meanwhile, things are starting to get a little better now, emotionally speaking, thanks to the major quick fix of happiness from my friends this weekend! Thanks you guys, it helped a lot! *gives everyone a group hug and continues taking in the sweet smell of leather while her earrings dangle joyfully from each ear and the faint sound of "That's What Friends Are For" is heard from a distance*

And now it's finalized: I'm off to Spain for 5 weeks this summer, i.e. Málaga, to expand my vocabulary, improve my oral Spanish and meet new interesting people. I'm really glad I got in at such short notice, not to mention utterly relieved. Hope all of this time, money and effort won't be wasted... If it is - well, at least I'd get a nice vacation. :-)


To grape, or not to grape (that is the question),
Elise

Hiiiiiiiiii-yah!

Tired of looking at a black-and-white blog now - so I changed the color of it from something melancholy to something more pleasing to the eye. So there. :-) Now it matches Miss Piggy.



Purdy in pink.

Meanwhile, I've managed to be a good student (though not as good as I was when I started uni, but I'm getting there!) and prepared for class tomorrow, although I haven't been able to catch up on the things for my other classes as much as for CALL. *sigh* I wish I was on schedule in all my classes!

Anyway, time for a shower and then hitting the books again one last time before bedtime.



Signing off (in pink!),
Ms. X (EKS - you know, my initials... Geddit? Funky, innit?)

... And yes, he knows how to groove, too.

Cooking while lipsynching to Finnish heavy metal? Why not?




Laughing her head off (almost) whilst doing Spanish,
Elise

My future husband. *swoon*

The Swedish Chef. Again. Yes, he is out of my league (and polyester), but there's always hope - isn't there?



I.e.: "Es vong-vong de-de lettuuce, en vear ges-vuur de boom-boom. Es vur de lettuuce derr-hup! *bang* Vork-bork de sallad... Ying ges-vuur de hum des voor de biggie (?), en yim de voong de boomed-boom. Es vur de voor de hup! *bang* Es vuur de bruussel sproots."

No, I might not completely understand what he's saying, but at least he's a Cordon Bleu chef (albeit taking a few shortcuts in the cooking process), which makes it all the easier for my part.

Imagine me and him... and little bork-borks running around inside the house making bruussel sproots... and with their keeken smooshers chasing after Japanese chocolate cakes like their father:



Or shooting coocoonoots...



Now how to get a hold of his phone number...



Off to use her own keeken smoosher,
Elise

Tiempo libre... Por ahora.

Phew. Done. At least for now.

After having frantically written 3 assignments, wherein two of them were overlapping by two days (*gasp*), I have now come to the point of relief. Kind of. The only thing preventing me from feeling complete relief is that I asked my teacher a question which he still hasn't answered. Ah well, if he doesn't answer by the deadline (at noon today) I'll just assume that we are required to put up a bibliography in the assignment and that I am permitted to cite to the Ex.Fac. book of my very first semester.

Mind you, several of the things we'd gone through in our Ex.Fac. classes were surprisingly relevant to my subjects, albeit expressed with Norwegian terms. Like, say, for the Spanish assignment I found some Norwegian compound words which we were to translate into Spanish. Really interesting to see how the Spanish explanation of compounds related to the Norwegian - and also kind of challenging to unite them together.

*sigh of semi-relief*

Besides this, life's just the same as usual. I think I'm finally managing to recover some of my long-lost pizzazz for studying after having suffered from an on-and-off academic dryspell for about 2 months straight, the longest time that it's ever lasted so far. These assignments appear to have given me a real kick in the butt in terms of catching up with material. I just hope it will last for a while, at least until after the exams.

To think they're only less than two months from us now. Man, time sure does go fast. (Cliché) Too fast. (Cliché #2)

Speaking of time going fast, there are a group of people in YouTube who post old Barne-TV clips from when I was a little kid, including the opening titles for the show itself. I'm really having fun with this these days. *sigh* The memories... "Elefanten Bums" ("Bump the Elefant"), "Kalle Klovn" ("Charlie Chalk"), "Postmann Pat" (...), "Mumfie" (...), "Sesam Stasjon" (remember that pinball number counting animation?), "Portveien 2" (my neighbor!), "Vertshuset Den Gyldne Hale", "Regnbuebyen" (I think that was the name... Anyway, that show with Gullars), "Albert Åberg", "Pingu", "Huset Med Det Rare I", "Den Lille Andungen Kvakk Kvakk" ("Quaq Quao"), "Oksen Anton" ("Ox Tales"), "Lokomotivet Thomas" ("Thomas the Tank Engine")... The list goes on and on and on - and for every clip I see, I get more and more of that nostalgic feeling. *sigh*

Yay, my teacher (finally) answered. As far as I could see, I'm in the clear. So, another thorn removed from my side. :-)

Anyway, off to YouTube. Or perhaps HIMYM. We'll see. And of course even more studying. Just need to procrastinate a little first. And eat my brekkie.


May the Force be with you,
Elise