Global Scholar: Online Tutoring

This blog post will be used to address two topics:

1) My academic misery; and
2) Global Scholar, an online tutoring service.

As you can see, the two are not unrelated. I believe there's cousin in there somewhere. The first order of business:

I need to apply to University soon. (Okay, by March 1st. Still.) Some Universities, like McGill, consider students with a certain CRC (Like a calculation of your marks in comparison to those of others, generally scored from 22-35 points) for scholarship purposes. I am now enduring a nail-bitingly nerve-racking wait for my CRC. To make things worse, my schedule was a mess to make, I almost got placed on default because of it, and now I'm listed as being in the wrong courses. In fact, one of the few joys I get out of life right now is reading Dawson College's tutoring advertisements in the Daily Bulletin. They are really rather clever: "Are you Puzzled by Plato? Baffled by Biology? Mystified by Math?" You get the idea. (If you don't, you may need to be tutored. Definitely keep reading.)

And the second and more important order of business:

I recently stumbled upon GlobalScholar. The basic concept behind the site is to allow students (or just people who don't understand stuff) to access affordable, one-on-one tutoring via the Internet. Granted, it isn't the first site to do so, but it does have a few interesting features that make it worth checking out if you're in need of some tutoring, or if you've got a diploma and are looking to do some freelance tutoring.

The nuts and bolts of the site is that it incorporates different kinds of technology like headsets, &c., to accommodate different kinds of subject matter: You can easily be tutored in a language course and have your pronunciation corrected, or send your teacher a folder containing Word documents of your essays for him to review, or, it seems, use a black-board-type application to sketch out diagrams for things like math and physics.

However, the site also allows students (or parent and students, operating through connected accounts) to choose between different types of tutoring services, which makes as much sense when it comes to catering to the variety of school subjects as the various applications does. For example, while it's probably best to send along an essay for review and discuss it with your tutor in Scheduled Tutoring chats(the student chooses from the freelance tutor's available hours), if you're stuck on a math problem, you can choose Instant Tutoring and get your homework over with as soon as you need help. The other two tutoring options, Homework Help and Self-Guided, seem useful for more casual or isolated cases of difficulty and students (perhaps College students) who are more strapped for time and would appreciate setting their own pace, respectively.

Not everything has to be part of a specific course, though: some tutors are willing to help students write their college admissions letter, which is, to say the least, a daunting task. I've got to write mine soon. Maybe someone can detract me from my idea to send in a picture of myself when I met Youppi.

The site screens the USA-based tutors before allowing them to work through the site, but doesn't hire them as employees, so the tutors' work is considered freelance. I imagine that this would be useful not only for retired and semi-retired teachers, who often ease from full-time teaching to tutoring, but for younger teachers or instructors who are on maternity leave, sick leave, &c. (Teachers, after all, in spite of their high-waisted pants and tacky coffee mugs, are people too.)

The student (and his or her parents) also benefits from a 24-hour cancellation window and monitored chats and tutoring sessions, but most of all, the student can actually pick his or her tutor from a variety of instructors in a given field or specialty. As a student, I'd much rather be able to choose my tutor and be able to return to the same tutor each time I order a session, thereby maintaining a certain degree of consistency throughout the tutoring, than be assigned to a preselected (and in some cases, outsourced) tutor. I imagine this also adds a little personal touch to the tutoring, especially where things like essays are concerned, and the tutor can actually see the same student progress.

The (beta) site, which welcomes students' feedback, is currently offering a $1 flat rate for an hour of tutoring to encourage people to test the service out for themselves. The site, again, is here.

HistoryWeekly's "The Clothespin: An Historicall Reviewe"

As always in our publication (with the small exception of every issue but this one) we bring our readers an unbiased and scholarly account of the invention of several of what are now life’s little essentials. From the toaster to the telephone, the basket to the baboon (famously invented by mixing helium and carbon in 1857), no stone shall be left unturned except where applicable by law and in the state of Puerto Rico; or otherwise, wherever Shakespeare’s adage that “The laydee spake words fayre, yet moved not her stocke, even at halfe price” may be applied.

This week, our esteemed guest historian J. D. Hillstone (BA Florida State University 1964, MB McGill University 1969, MA Concordia University 1972, NBC every MON from 9:00 PM EST) will guide us through the long and difficult waltz that is the genesis of the clothespin: From its humble beginnings in rural Austria to far-reaching success in Western Europe, Western Africa, and, by misunderstanding, in several western omelettes, the clothespin has undergone change unthinkable by anyone except perhaps the US Mint, but not unless you buy something and I don’t break fifties.

In his popular oeuvre, The Clothespin: History on The Line, Hillstone writes “Whether or not clothing would have become the success it did is perhaps more due to the easy care of the clothes themselves than to Miss Edna Goode of Palm Beach, despite past historical evidence to the contrary.” Then a radical new historian, both Hillstone and his book, which he ambitiously published in 1910 several years before his birth, were cast out of academic circles, then out of social circles, and then out of circles at a large, forced to live without the geometric shape for many years but benefiting greatly from square meals. However, close to five decades after the publication of Hillstone’s book, it was picked up by producers and turned into an overnight cinematic success, then by a magician and placed into a hat, tapped twice, and turned into a rabbit and a set of endtables. Since the lucky break, Hillstone says, he has “never looked back, I’ve got such a crick in my neck!”

“Medieval Austria was the optimal combination of geography, societal conditions, and hotsauce to foster the invention of the clothespin in 1034, it’s de-invention in 1037, and re-invention in 1040, as well as lots of time for lunch in between.” Exhibiting the critical eye for detail readers have come to expect from him, Hillstone cautions, “Of course, the reader will understand that it was not until 1041, with the discovery of the clotheslines in ancient Egyptian tombs that the use of clothespins was inferred to. Prior to 1041,” he writes, “clothespins were used to fasten loose closures in garments, keep sewing material together, and propose marriage to small marsupials.”

The eminent art historian J. B. Boodwecker (also known as Mary Dolores Andrews) agrees with Hillstone’s dating. “Just look at these plates,” he told HistoryWeekly in his Cote St-Luc 2 ½, “here’s one showing a woman using clothespins to debate whether God is actually benevolent or just in a good mood. Here’s another one showing a carpenter and his apprentice coming to blows about which was the proper way to carve a clothespin-notice how they aren’t yet using sharpened finches to do the job.”

It is, Hillstone claims, the humble Grete Jungsten from the city of Bad Godesburg, then known as Milan and informally as Larry, now current-day Cherry Blossom Karaoke Studios, who can be credited with the first clothespin. A literate woman who could also read, Jungsten wrote of her tribulations on the back of a Loo Fung takeout menu: “Iohannes needs his clothes to be dry, but refuses to get out of the water with them on. After draining the water out of the Danube (Editor: then in the King of Sicily’s pocket) with a straw, I am now faced with the dilemma of drying his clothes, which are soaking wet and causing a scene in front of the neighbours, not that they don’t have their own ways, but who am I to judge, with what I married?”

After using string, her fingers, and the entire cast of Amadeus to hold the clothing to a thin branch outside her 1964 Winnebago, Grete turned to the clothespin as the perfect alternative. Asking her husband to get out of his clothes, as he was making them difficult to lift, Grete attached the clothing to the branch via the clothespin, and history was made. The second prototype, which was 6 feet shorter that the first and not made of beaverskin, caught on at an alarming rate in Central and Western Europe, so much so that for decades, immunization shots were mandatory for infants over the age of 60.

From there, Hillstone tells me as we walk onto the golf course, tennis rackets in hand, selling the clothespin idea was child’s play. When asked why it is that dry clothes are so preferable to wet, Hillstone waxes poetic: “Why is anything better than anything else? How the hell should I know? Jesus, would you serve, it’s your turn.” Hitting the volleyball back to the eminent genius and checking mate, this lowly reporter was for the first time struck by the mastery of the true storyteller (first mistaken for Halley’s Comet). “Besides” Hillstone adds, a smirk playing on his lips, and also at the Saidye Bronfman Centre May 13-18, “how else can slacks look really good? I mean, really good.” Packing his fencing foil in its case and tallying up our score (two perfect strikes for me, three for Hillstone), Hillstone shakes my hand and just as soon as it began, our interview is over.

What can readers of HistoryWeekly take away from our investigation of the clothespin’s humble origins? Not the flatware, because the maid will notice. If anything, the clothespin extends beyond the surface of clothing, housechores, and what it means to be considered “really peachy keen” and touches the core, the very essence of man’s desire to fit in, or at least get a decent meal and be home in time for the News at 6. On a global level, the clothespin evidences the emergence of feminism from unlikely suburbs in Medieval Europe, liberating women from the task of holding wet clothes outside for hours on end and reciting “Ode to the West Wind” until the clothes dried.

Next week in HistoryWeekly’s An Historicall Reviewe series: The stamp viewed as an allegory for Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as interpreted by Harvey C. Major and a choir of hummingbirds, or the other way around, it is difficult to tell at current press date.

Redbook is in my badbook(s)...

Yesterday I had the misfortune to purchase, after a particularly long and muddy gym fitness walk, a magazine entitled "Redbook".

This was a highly uncharacteristic move for me (on par with the time I starred in the one-time Broadway Musical "Parabolas", playing the part of Abby, the rebellious but oft-misunderstood downward curve).

In fact, for the duration of my stay in the pharmacy, I believed I was actually Bette Midler. But it was not so. I know because she was in line behind me buying marked-down salted nuts. But we plow onwards with this fascinating narration.

Under normal circumstances (ie, utter pandemonium), I would have opted to:

1) Not purchase, but rather read the entire magazine in Pharmaprix.
2) Buy something I actually needed, such as a bottle of water.
3) Serenade the floor security guard with a tear-jerking rendition of "I Love You Much Too Much" delivered duet-style by myself and a can of spray deodorant.

However, I made the untimely purchase.

My reasoning went thusly (before it got a quick coffee and went to catch Blades of Glory with my sense of smell):

Meg Ryan is on the cover. I strongly dislike/ dislike/ neither like nor dislike/ like/ strongly like/ N/A Meg Ryan. My impression of the cover is very bad, yet much like the millions of people who went to see Titanic, I am nevertheless propelled towards it by some unknown factor (later discovered to be several aisle clerks lined up behind me, blowing at my back). Ergo, not only must I submit to this urge, but the probability of rainstorms tomorrow is 35%.

Once home, after a relaxing supper and cup of coffee with my favourite ever person, Rebecca Ugolini, I opened the magazine. Since then, 4 of the 10 plagues have been witnessed along the East Coast, with a few having finally reached the West, and many making reservations at some of the top hotels in the country, naturally demanding the luxury suites.

Simply put, it sucks. I have been a victim of false advertising, but I am now selling my Victim of False Advertising outfit on E-Bay for CAN $30. Go check it out-it's the best outfit ever, incredibly slimming, flattering to everyone, will make your life wonderful, solve world hunger, and make you fabulously rich all for only, I repeat, $30. If only Billy Mays, famed promoter of 100% fail-proof house cleaning products, was here to harp this outfit. Then, you'd never be a victim of false advertising again.

But, seriously: If Redbook is a magazine for older women, then why don't they just write "A magazine about fashion, beauty, health and being a woman" or something equally granola underneath the title? Then they wouldn't have to resort to putting a picture of Meg Ryan on the cover to indicate that the mag is for the too-cool-for-youth crowd.

My advice to Redbook is that they take a page out of the world-famous (?) magazine "Rebecca" and name their revue after myself. This may sound idiotic, but just think about it, and you will quickly see that it is much more idiotic than it initially appears to be.

Swiss Miss and Myself

I'd like to start off this post by saying that this is post number 66. Which means that, with the simple addition of another 6 either by Crazy Glue or industrial-strength screws, this post becomes The Post of The Beast.

If anyone has a 6 they would be willing to send me, just email me at rebeccaugolini@gmail.com and we can discuss it. Interesting trades accepted; for example, I have an extra J, H, E, G, and F, 5, 12, 20, and 5.634.

Anyways, onto the true life purpose of this entry: Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate.

My mother recently purchased a box with numerous packs cleverly hidden inside it. The said box was acquired at a "Super Market" which, I can imagine, is Mom Speak for Ultra Secret Lair of Delicious Powdered Chocolate Drinks (alternatively, Curly's Place)...

The stuff is great. Not just great. Awesome. Swiss.

Not only does it resist clumping when it meets for an informal lunch date with the boiling hot water with more energy than hippies did VietNam, but it is also therapy in a bag.

Not like that Therapy In A Bag you bought last week; that was just a psychoanalyst in a burlap sack. This is the real stuff. In fact, did you know that THE Swiss Miss herself is a Harvard alumni?

Case in point: Swiss Miss hot chocolate warmed my day, my throat, and my heart today as I came home and drank it before napping for an hour and a half, waking up in a daze, filming a video for You Tube, and leaving for more classes.

Not only that, she didn't jump straight to the action either. And just enough cuddling afterwards.

Yes, from now on, it is my Swiss Miss and I. We will brave the hard times that life throws to us, both of us failing to catch adequately. We will be one of the great duos of history: Rebecca and Isaac, Antony (I shotgun Antony)and Cleopatra, Asterix and Obelix, Sonny and Cher... and finally, Rebecca and Swiss Miss.

And now for an ethical question: If Certain Person R brings a pack of Swiss Miss Mix to school and uses the hot water from the cafeteria (intended for tea) to make the Mix, does she have to pay for it/tell the cafeteria woman?

I mean, would it be ethical to charge me for hot water? What about lukewarm water? I mean, if you prick me, do I not persist in my need to make hot chocolate?

New Concept: Book-Store

Today I entered into Indigo. Not the colour; that was last week. The store. For the uninitiated, Indigo now not only sells coffee, danishes and other pastries, mints, invitations and cards, notebooks, pens, and writing sets, CDs, DVDs, posters, and the occasional house furnishing as well as Godiva chocolate, water bottles, and soap... they now sell books! I walked in today and noticed a small section at the back, behind the Baby Boomers reading Moby biographies while sipping fake frappucinos, behind the eco-friendly 20-somethings with hemp tote bags scouring the racks for calendars of Prague, Finland, and UNICEF paintings, was a section devoted entirely to...

...books! It was almost as if Indigo, like Chapters, was cashing in on this new "bookstore" craze.

Here's the concept: (You can follow with the red numbers on the illustration)



1) People (Note: this individual is commonly called an "Author")
2) write certain amounts of text(Note: this is sometimes, but not always, called a manuscript)
2 1/2) and attempt
3) to get publishing companies (Note: the people with the cash and the printing press)
4) to first edit (Note: the process of completely changing, reworking, and dumbing-down the content of the book so much so that the original author not only has to be re-introduced to the novel, but also has to retrieve the copy of the house keys and burns all those trashy, revealing love letters)
5) to publish (Note: this means to put on paper, publish in serial format, or print on the back of a medium-size Labrador) the manuscript in a format called a "book".
6) These "books" are then sent to new-concept "book-stores" where people "buy them" (Note: buying refers to manhandling the book while staining it with danish filling and then placing it in a section completely different to the one in which it belongs)

Such is the wonder that is making a book. Like growing a bonzai tree, this laborious and painstaking Asian technique is nothing without a beautiful, pared-down Feng Shui room to set it in. The museum and podium of the "book" is the "book-store".

So go; gawk at this new invention. The folly of our time. The thing you will tell your grandchildren about when, inspecting a dusty old photo album, they'll point to a shot of you leaning over a bookcase, sipping a Frappucino, reading In Style, and ask "Grandma, what's that?".

And you'll reply "That's something mommies and daddies who love eachother very much do. It's called steal from Indigo by reading books and not paying for them."

Go and mooch. Go and be entertained. Go be literate. Go to Indigo.

And the award goes to...

I'm delighted to recieve this award and I don't really know what to say. It's been a tough battle through these years, but my lisp and I have always stuck together through the good and the bad and the really salty fish my nonna makes at Easter.

I'm excited. I'm reunited with my dust allergy.

Having finished my Spring Cleaning, having torn off my number Jersey and sprayed myself with a glass of ice cold water and re-confirmed my endorsements for Nike, Adidas and Gravol Chewables, I'd like to announce that I met dust today.

And we're not on speaking terms.

There were some stony glances. And the silence was uncomfortable. But I think we're on the path to reuniting our friendship and the Spice Girls.

Now a word from the man who got me through this allergen-less time, Andrew:

"Uber allen Gipfeln ist ruh, in allen wipfeln spürest du, kaum einen Hauch. Die vöglein schweigen im Walde, warte nur Balde, ruhest du auch".

In addition, we'd like to thank the Academy, the viewers, and of course the fine staff at La Baia Dei Formaggi for a job well-done.

Hawk Me!

So, today my mom woke me up at 6:50 AM. Sounds like the first line of any typical loser's blog. And it is. Mine. But my day is different. My blog is different. And we won't berate him for it, poor guy, he doesn't have enough problems as it is, and frankly with the wife and the state she's in it's all he can do to get through the term.

Yes, my blog is a male. I found out last week during a particularly noir Oxy Clean commercial. Which leads me to today's topic: Billy Mays.

Being a very serious college student, last week, I found myself watching an advertisment on this new thing called the TeleVision for something called "Hercules Hooks". The Hooks appeared to suck mythological Greek ass, but the guy harping on and on about the product's virtues didn't suck so much.

His yelling and gesticulating put me at ease. His facial hair was comforting. (P.S: Males, since you all have long hair now and dress like gay ("Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like those people.") nerds from 1970 and wear girl jeans, please grow some facial hair so I can tell you apart from attractive women.) His continuous, harsh criticism of everything outside his own family of products made me get all warm and fuzzy inside.

With all the above qualities in tow, with a pair of earrings, an apron, a short, taupe-coloured afro and a Miraculous Madonna pin or medal, Billy Mays could have been my grandmother. (Note: I have not been able to have the suspected familial link corroborated with any evidence by my local medical lab.)

In short, I love Billy Mays and the bevy of highly suspicious-looking products he endorses and "Vigorously appl[ies]... in a variety of different ways or to a variety of different surfaces in quick succession." And I would like to ask him to endorse me, promote me, and attempt to sell or otherwise move me such as other precious merchandise, such as gold, diamonds, and VHS tapes of Regis and Kelly can be moved.

I will take some time to reflect on this. And then I will post my list of well-thought-out requests (read: cries for help) concerning my personal life addressed to the loving heart and "loose-fisted "one more thing" sign" of the glorious, bearded Billy M-M.

(All Billy Mays information that doesn't spring from the deep recesses of my heart comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mays, who has always provided me with deliriously wrong answers come time for a paper.)

"Vedi, segui... ma, guardi!"

My nonna kicked my ass at checkers the other day. Twice. She's a pretty shrewd strategian. I'm just pretty. Zing! (Kidding; I'm just a shrew.) She also owns at playing with Carte Napoletane. Any game.

When I'm older, and if I end up producing kids who have their own kids, what will I kick their asses at? Maybe I will make even sicker You Tube videos than they will. If You Tube is still around. If videos are still around.

Anyways, what was the point of this post? Oh, yeah: This needs a word of its own. Being beaten by your nonna. Like being "Plutoed"; is being "Nonna'd" a special kind of defeat/total obliteration of its own?

My new favourite You Tuber!

(Well, almost. Second fave.)

Computer-savvy, funny, endearing and interesting, Father Roderick Vonhogen of the Netherlands (on You Tube as rvonhogen) has taken it upon himself to launch www.healthycatholic.com, a website/podcast which chronicles his "uniquely Catholic view" on getting his spiritual and physical health on the road to Goodness. Tracking the aim to lose 25 pounds in just 14 weeks, the entertaining series of clips, each about 3-5 minutes each, features Fr. Vonhogen talking about setting up a get-healthy routine, the balance between body and spirit, running, and even dabbling in the culinary arts discussing healthy food. In Fr. Vonhogen's repertoire of videos are also numerous traveling and general vlogs, all of which are produced with the same catchiness of the Healthy Catholic series.

I'm sending out my brainwaves to ETWN TV! Get this Father on your airwaves! Here's one of the first Healthy Catholic videos, in which Father Vonhogen sets up his health plan:

"What Consumes You?"

So, this post may require a preface. Infact, it doesn't even have a face at all. Makes it really hard to put makeup on.

As some of you, or all of you, may be aware, I am a person. I am locatable using time and space coordinates and am subject to natural laws.

I also attend school. When it strikes my fancy. No, really, I am a great student.

Today in English class, we were asked a question. It wasn't "How many more books can we ask you to buy without causing you to weigh heavily on your family's monetary means?" or "Why are you still here?" but "What consumes you?"

I gave it some thought. Then, I gave it some more thought. Then I gave it a prescription for allergy medication and told it to come back in two weeks when Spring started and we'd talk.

Lent is probably the perfect time of the Liturgical year to ask "What consumes me?", if not to find something to give up, to find something to take up to counteract the consumption. (Note: Many thousands of people died of Consumption in the early seventeenth centuries, before which TB and Consumption existed as totally distinct diseases with their own Frat houses. Then one day, they met by chance on www.Catholicsingles.com and decided to become one.)

I have come to the conclusion that I consume me, and that from now on I should try not to be such a bitch to myself because that leads me to be a bitch to others, which leads them to be a bitch to me, which if you keep going leads you to a fork in the road, you want to take the left until you get to an overpass, get off at the next exit and you're there.

I'm Speechless

I searched You Tube for "makeup", wondering if behind-the-scenes footage from Paris Fashion Week would turn up. Instead, I got this:

"I'd love to but I have to go weep and gnash my teeth."

www.thebricktestament.com

Amazing. It's Bible stories your nonna tried to explain to you as she was eating castagne so you couldn't clearly understand her, explained via LEGO SCENES!

My Nonsensical Belief that Everything Will Work Out for Me No Matter What I Do / Happens to Me

I have an Art History test tomorrow. I have a Boring Ass History Test the day after. But I always have "My Nonsensical Belief That Everything Will Work Out For Me No Matter What I Do Slash Happens To Me".

It isn't a book. It isn't a life philosophy. It isn't customizable with your name or initials.

It is something that I have always had in the back of my mind, or, when space was limited, folded very neatly somewhere at the top of my mind. It is my belief that no matter what happens, and this is based on past experience, I will somehow manage to:

a) Bullshit answers which are seriously right;
b) Look at a textbook two minutes before going to class and ace it like it's hot;
c) Not study, go to class, hope the teacher is absent, and she/he is.

I am fully aware that I am undeserving of such freak luck/ability/barbeques. And I don't think it is in my imagination, either. It just happens to me. Shit works out. It's the way my life works. Academically as well as with most other things. Stuff just happens. I am a lucky person.

What can I say? Has anyone else experienced similar phenomena? Does anyone want to borrow it?

Yeah, then maybe balding will come back in style.

I'm watching this woman on You Tube giving relationship advice... I don't know. She's stressing forgiveness as the main factor of any romantic relationship. To me, this is missing the point: Shouldn't forgiveness be the "it bag" of any relationship? Including one with yourself...

Anyways, is there an "it bag" for everything? I mean... the "it bag" is a bag that comes out, becomes a hit, and everyone wants it. Every season, the bags that come out are popular and trendy, but the "it bag" always stays in fashion, at least for a longer time than usual styles.

Is this applicable to other things? I mean, I know it sounds stupid, really really stupid, but think about it. Let's say swinging and free love is the new thing in relationships. Everyone wants something open because it's fun, but the enduring thing is a monogamous relationship. Monogamy is the "it bag" of relationship styles? So is forgiveness the "it bag" of relationship values?

It makes me think of the Sex and the City episode where Carrie is upset because Big isn't seeing her in exclusivity of other women. She thinks she wants the sexy, New-York-type I'm-a-hot-woman-in-her-mid-thirties-slash-fourties thing, but she actually wants an old-fashioned kind of thing with Big.

Why do we go for the new stuff when what we actually want is the "it bag"? Why can't we resist the new faddish bag that we know we'll be sick of in two seasons, or two weeks?!

Because the "it bag" costs more, its harder to get, you proabably wouldn't be so casual about throwing it on the floor... maybe its the same thing with relationships that acually mean something... unlike the woman in the video, I don't just mean romantic ones. Any kind of relationship.

Who doesn't have 60 facebook friends, and only 2 you would trust with a deep secret or something important? I know I do... I'm not saying that every friendship has to be an "it bag".

I'm asking why it feels so great to get wall comments you know don't mean much? Do we value quantity over quality? Is it a rush to, say, own 20 handbags in red, blue, patent black, snakeskin, canvas.... than one really good beige, one hot brown, and a really nice, formal black, plus a crazy one just for kicks?

It's as though the sheer number promises a kind of false reassurance: How can you have nothing to wear with a closet full of clothes and 10 handbags to match? The same way you can have nobody to talk to with 70 people online.

What I'm saying is that maybe we need to try and find our own "it bags" no matter how long it takes or how hard it they are to get.

Maybe this post is stupid and I am the only person who hasn't realized this yet, and anyone (Laura?) who is going to read this will roll their eyes and go "duh!". But I think that maybe I could be onto something.

Yeah, maybe I'm onto something like this:

George: Hm, maybe this could become the new cool thing. Living with your parents.
Jerry: Yeah, then maybe balding will come back in style.

Look, Timmy, it's My Space en Fran-says!

PREFACE: As anyone in the delightful province of Quebec knows, preserving the French language is a pain-in-the-ass topic in politics and for "intellectual" kinds of people. Frankly, I don't give a shit. But I'm trying to make a point in this post. I am mildly successful. Read on.

So, we all know that MySpace and Facebook are sites where you can network, post pictures of yourself, meet stalkers and get harrassed. We also know that both are a lot of fun, but that Facebook is considerably funner and less full-of-shit. You have just passed the 101.

However, having discovered Facebook and at least partially turned my back on MySpace, I still have a minor addiction to it. And still go on it. Frequently, I am in rehab for just that addiction.

But if MySpace expects moi to stick around, the least they could do is kick the crack habit and fix the disgusting French translation on the homepage for MySpace Canada!

I'd like to know who exactly translated this (the text in the pink graphic at the top of this post) and what they were on at the time:

My Space Music - But not Musique My Space?
Branche-toi! - Too bad the team didn't take its own advice and learn some current, just-as-catchy-as-the-English French slang...
Concerts dans ta ville - Okay, this isn't so bad. Spectacles is the right word, but I guess you could say concerts if you want to be hip and with it.
Forums sur la musique - Not bad, not bad. I had hope, until I read...
Top Musiciens - Not only do I ask what, I follow it up by "fuck". "Top Musiciens"?
Secret Shows - How is this French? "Spectacles Secrets?"
I guess you've read enough French. But it isn't over. Nope, you can click on "Go!"...

Okay, okay. So what's the point here?

1) My Space cannot hire a good translation team,
2) Even if they could, they are not in tune with Quebecois and couldn't come up with the right sayings anyway,
3) Even their bad French isn't catchy; and
4) This just goes to show that there really isn't a sincere effort to preserve French culture, that most French-Canadians and/or Quebecois know enough English to use the normal page if they can successfully navigate through the aforementioned menu, and that the whole concept of a bilingual My Space Canada is not only a failure, but just so much chin music hoping to pass itself off as some "I'm o.k., you're o.k. and we're one big country" bullshit! This isn't 1972!

In closing, I urge anyone who is actually Quebecois to promptly kick the asses of every single man, woman and chimp working at My Space Canada, and to translate the page themselves. Or offer to help. I can't do it and, frankly, I think I am done with My Space, but you can!

Allez-y! But go easy on the chimps.

Calling Dr. Jones?

I'm sick. Moving on:

A strange kind of thing happened to me today. This is nothing new. In fact, it is something really, really old. So old that when it rides the bus it gets the special discounted tickets. But I've dusted it off and am ready to tell the world about it.

I was on the metro, standing near a bunch of empty seats. So was this girl, who was standing right next to me.

We both started going towards the seats, and she for some reason stuck out her hand and let me go first. I sat down at the single-seater, but instead of sitting down, she looked at the seats, walked to the door that was closed for the ride, leant against it and didn't sit for the rest of the (very empty) metro ride.

Why? Upon closer inspection, did her bionic eyes, so clearly superior to mine, reveal some kind of rare and dangerous biochemical poison on the remaining empty seats?

Was the seat I took the only one she truly desired, in her heart of hearts, and the secret object of her every passion?

Why, UQAM girl? Why did you stand for the whole ride? You had a heavy bag.

But now I have a heavy heart.

What's In a Name?

1. Your real name: Rebecca

2. Your Gangsta name (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle)- Rebizzle.

3. Your Detective name (fav color and fav animal):- Pink Cat. OMG sounds wrong...

4. Your Soap Opera Name(middle name, and childhood street):- Monica Marquette.

5. Your Star Wars Name (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom's maiden name):- Ugorezan

6. Your SuperHero Name (2nd favorite color, favorite drink):- Red Amaretto.

7. Your Iraqi Name (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, last letter of your moms middle name):- Eomasia.

8. Your Witness Protection Name (mothers name and a friend's last name, that you havent seen in a while.)- Alessandra Martelli.

9. Your Goth Name (black, and the name of one your pets):- Black I Have No Pets

10. Your Porn Star Name (One of your friends pet, and a street you've lived or live on.)- Mikey Marquette

Happy Couple

I'd like to announce Technology's and my plans for marriage.

Last night, I was looking at my Facebook profile. And I realized...

I now have Facebook.
And MySpace.
And YouTube.
And a Blog.
And MSN.
And an MP3 Player.

All these little things started to make sense. It has become evident:

Technology loves me.

Sure, we're had a few fights over the years. And we have our differences. But all in all, we are a pretty sick couple.

Literally sick, as I have a throatache. But onwards, Christian soldiers.

Care to come to the wedding? Any ideas as to where we can hold it? (Technology doesn't want to convert to Roman Catholicism, but we are going to Baptize the children.)

On Facebook, I Bragged That I Could Situate People On a Socio-Economic Cartesian Plane Based On Where They Lived In Montreal

No kidding I can: It is wonderfully biased. And satirical. Perhaps not skillfully so.
Not sure if a Cartesian plane is really best. Maybe just a bird's-eye-view diagram.

Here's how it goes down:

If you live in Place St-Henri, if you live in Rosemont, if you live on or near Jean-Talon anywhere East of, say, St-Denis, if you live in any middle- to lower-class largely French Canadian neighbourhoods, if you live near immigration offices, or highways (!) which are not near TMR or anything, you fall in the negative spectrum.

If you live in RDP or St-Leonard, you are probably Italian. So am I. But not lucky enough to reside in these places. Lucky?! You hit the middle of the chart, and so does anyone else belonging to areas which mirror this one, but belonging to different cultures/ethnic backgrounds.

If you live on the Plateau Mont-Royal, or between De Lorimier and 10th avenue on Beaubien, or in Old Montreal, on St-Denis, St-Urbain (In a non-ghetto way), or anything similar (can you see the Habitat from your window?) you probably think you are in some kind of chicer, upper class. But you're just a wanna-be hipster. Therefore you reside somewhere in the lower negative spectrum of the chart.

If you need to take a train to get to where you live, but it's still in Quebec, you aren't a Montrealer, but you may as well admit that you damn well want to be one.

If you live in the West Island, I'm kind of mystified by you. I don't know much about this place except that not many last names end in vowels here. Grandparents may speak English, not the language from the Old Country. In addition, blue eyes and blonde hair, both natural, can be witnessed in this region. People go on ski-trips... and parent's might not slap their kids. Truth be told, it is on hiatus vis-a-vis placement. It's on the top somewhere, but I've just put a little flag with a "W?". Care to aid me?

Finally, if you live in Outremont, Westmount, Beaconsfield (not really Montreal): You are actually part of Toronto. Get out. Or write me a check. I could use it. I'm living in the negative spectrum.

Note: If there is a sign of blue Quebec flags on your balconeys, you are in a seperatist neighbourhood. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If there are rainbow stripes, you're in the gay village, not that there's anything wrong with that. These are just sprinkled onto the chart as little smiley faces. Do not try to place them.

Don't you love ghetto-mentality? I do!

I Am Descartes

In case many of you do not know, the Earth is round. In a similar vein, I have a sister.

Coincidence? I think not.

She just said "What the heck does the Earth being round have anything to do with you having a sister?" Obviously, we are not all functioning on the same level of mental capacity, here.

Here is a deep and meaningful message she would like to relay to the entire online community:

"I do have mental capacity. And I bet you can't solve this equation... No, write it, write it. Ok! Um... can I write it?"

The problem is as follows:

2 (5A + -3A) - 10 = 100

I shall now prove that I, Rebzugo, have passed highschool math, albeit one year behind.

2 (5A + -3A) - 10 = 100
2 (2A) - 10 = 100
4A - 10 = 100
4A = 110
A = 28.33

Not only this, but as we were calculating, sans calculator a la 1544, my dear sister several times put into question my mathematical abilities. In addition, in several instances, her very intelligent yet slightly less-developed in years brain committed several oversights which are to be expected of today's youngins, not like in my day.

That's ok, I do that everyday. My mathematical abilities usually start crying, talking about their childhood, and leave the witness stand in a flurry of emotion. Court is usally adjourned.

Look, folks, it isn't as if I didn't try.

I'm Ready For My Close-Up...

I may be ready. Ready for the Math and Logic test.

Pr. 1: All Rebeccas are amazing. (TRUE STATEMENT)
Pr. 2: All bananas are amazing. (TRUE STATEMENT)
Conclusion: Therefore, all Rebeccas are bananas. (TRUE STATEMENT)

Therefore, the form (All A is C, all B is C, therefore all A is B) is not invalid but verily, verily valid.

For As it was in the time of unleavened bread, O Truly, I spake unto thou, and didst I not say, as thy tongue was fixed to the roof of thy mouth, Hear! In the city of David there lies a Rebecca in a manger, and you will find her wrapped in swaddling clothing, and she is the Banana of the World.

Hillary Duff and Me

This is my foahty-sixt' post.

I just recieved the BEAUTE flyer from The Bay. I am looking at all the perfumes. I wear Light Blue. It isn't featured in Valentine's Day Bottle Format. Probably because it is blue.

The best-smelling perfumes I have smelled in a while are quite shameful.

1) Princess by Vera Wang
2) THE NEW HILLARY DUFF PERFUME

Yep. I like the way it smells, ok?! Plus Hil-Hil ows me money. And she better cough it up.

Indiana Man

So, there are many things to discuss. A great many things to discuss. A great, great, extraordinarily great amount of things to discuss.

So many things that I have begun issuing numbers.

Now serving number 24! Number 24!

Ah, yes. Your ticket? Thank you, sir. Right this way, please. And I'll have to see your papers.

Here is what I am getting at: There is really nothing going on with me right now. Therefore I can't really thing of anything to blog about, or You Tube about.

Hm. I can't think of some way to make this exciting either. I mean, it could be exciting, couldn't it? Having nothing to talk about.

Kind of like Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones with nothing to talk about.

Not that he talks too much. He mostly swipes giant rubies with rocks and runs through the Amazon. On his time off, he collects old coins. We would have been perfect for eachother but I don't look good in khaki.

Mais Monsieur

I feel like a useless piece of shit who dropped French because she was too lazy to get her shit together and didn't understand half of what people were talking about in that class and was afraid of the teacher and had nothing to contribute to the Quebec-themed learning curriculum so she decided to drop out and continue next semester in a lower level of French, which is actually much less than she could do if she tried, but she knows she won't so what's the point of failing in a hard course when she could pass with flying colours in an easier course SLACKER.

"Bonjour? Le temps... eh, vous avez le temps pour moi? Juste un peu, comme, je suis Rebecca, et je suis dans ta classe puis... comme je peux lacher le... umm... monsieur? Le francais?"

It was so bad. He looked at me with such a look of pity.

It said "OMG, poor lost Italian-accented kid, get out of my office and take two ibuprofen and go lie down and drop my class."

My Day in a Nutshell Grows in Brooklyn

Here I am. Blogging from the kitchen. Are you enjoying the novelty?

Here is what is going on right now: I am trying to summarize the latest and greatest (actually, first and probably not worst) chapter of A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present into class notes.

Trying.

Today I bought a new tin of lipgloss. The nation can rest easy.

As well, I bought A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Man was it hard to get that thing into the city.