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It’s Justin’s 24th birthday today. Happy birthday, Tiny! The file photo to the right isn’t exactly current, but it’s close enough. As a matter of fact, it’s probably almost exactly a year old. If I remember correctly, Debs took that picture (or I took it with her camera), which pretty well restricts it to the month of June, assuming my memory isn’t entirely shot. We may have even been celebrating his birthday, but I don’t think so. I think we were just celebrating a weekend. I really like still being at an age wherein it’s somewhat acceptable to celebrate such a mundane occurrence as “Friday.”

I still haven’t bought Tiny a present, mostly because I have an idea as to what I want to get him, but it’s been quite difficult to get a hold of. I found a shirt which seems very appropriate, but the largest size it comes in is XL. Tiny, as his name suggests, is around 6′3″ with broad shoulders and a barrel-esque chest. Also, he likes baggy clothing. I have an email floating around out in the æther that is cyberspace awaiting a response from the creator (not Creator) to see if I can get the shirt special made in a larger size. If that falls through, I’ll have to come up with something else. Luckily, 1) Tiny is in Seattle, and probably doesn’t expect a present to arrive on time (especially from me), and 2) if other years are any indication, he probably doesn’t remember it’s his birthday, unless his mum has called to remind him. He’s kooky that way.

In un-Tiny related news, VeryCuteGirl (represented as such to protect her (and me, if her husband happens to be of the large and vicious variety)) has a 15-month old child in addition to a husband. Which suggests some sort of permanence there, eh? I actually got the chance to talk to her for a bit today, and was proud of myself for not being either pointlessly awkward or pointlessly flirty. I was instead pointlessly myself, which is all I could really hope for. She seems very nice, but I was happy to notice that, during the class-induced conversation, I was able, without any sort of difficulty, to think of her as Classmate as opposed to Crush. It’s important for me to be able to make that distinction.

The class has already taught me a lot. For instance, it taught me that I suck at remembering the various parts of grammar (i.e. lexical categories), dividing words into their appropriate morphemes, and thinking of words phonetically (despite the fact I’m a big fan of word-sounds as opposed to word-meanings). Thus, the class is doing an excellent job in pointing out all the ways in which I am deficient as an English graduate student. Dr. Burnett always said it was important to know your weaknesses as well as your strengths, but I’m still not completely comfortable with the idea that all of my weaknesses are represented in a single branch of study so closely related to my own.

I want to learn Spanish, as I think it would be very beneficial in this region of the United States (and by the time I’m middle aged will be even more beneficial). I also watched Lola Rennt yesterday, and now want to learn German. Lisa’s a big fan of that idea, as she speaks German, but usually simply to insult me these days, which is ironically why I originally wanted to learn Spanish. Debs used to call me several things in Spanish which probably weren’t nice. Her favorite was Bendejo, which is funny, as I’m usually also called the English equivalent. :) I also discovered, after being distracted by (and subsequently from) my Linguistics homework last night that I am a big fan of Tok Pisin, which is one of the languages of Papua New Guinea. Seeing as how it’s largely English-derived, it makes a lot of immediate intuitive sense to me, and I like the sound of it. Now, if only I weren’t atrocious at learning languages.

Am I allowed to talk about people in class who piss me off? I’m always afraid someone will stumble upon it and be offended. Of course, they offended me ~first~, so I don’t know why it bugs me so. I’m too nice a guy. Well, here goes… it really annoys me when people contradict the professor in the middle of lecture, and hold a debate in which they don’t really offer any substantial evidence. Please please please, if your best evidence is “I think” or “I can do it,” then defer to the guy with the degree and empirical studies backing up his argument. For the sake of my sanity. And also, do NOT (thank you) use my class time to show off. I don’t care if you speak Spanish really well. When the vast majority of the class does not, there’s no reason to show it off, and it doesn’t count as supportive evidence anyway, seeing as how nobody has any idea what you just said and couldn’t tell an American Spanish accent from a South American one regardless. Also, the guy sitting behind you speaks five languages (including Swahili), and you don’t hear him showing off, do you? I’d legitimately rather learn how much I suck at linguistics than how much you rock at Spanish.

Notice how it went from general and third person to specific and second person? Weird. Felt kinda nice, though. Hope I didn’t piss anyone off, including you, Dear Reader.