.- quantum uncertainty -.

So I called the bus information line. Despite pressing 8 for English, I was greeted by a French woman.

Here's basically what was said.

"Hey. I called for the schedule for my bus stop and was told that some of the stops on that line have been displaced. So is there service at my particular stop?"

"Were you given a schedule at all?"

"Yes."

"Then there is service at that stop."

"Oh. Really?"

"Really."

"That's great!"

"Is there anything else I can do?"

"Are you SURE I have service at my stop?"

"Yes."

"Okay, thanks. Have a great day!"

"You too."

... I walk out of my apartment and there is a sign on the bus stop. "SERVICE ONE BLOCK NORTH."

... okay. So I walk over to that stop. Bear in mind that the bus is due momentarily.

I arrive at the stop one block north...

... to find ANOTHER sign on the bus stop THERE saying "SERVICE TWO BLOCKS NORTH."

And look, look, two blocks north, THERE IS MY BUS HANGING A LEFT.

Son of a bitch.

So I walked a kilometer and a half, IN THE SNOW, through and over the NON-PLOWED sidewalks, to finally get to the metro (subway) and got to school just 10 minutes later than I would if I'd caught the bus outside my apartment anyways.

Sons of bitches are going to get a fucking earful from me, let me tell you.

Then... the Italian exam. Challenging. Not horrific. I think I did okay. Probably the usual for me in Italian, which is B- range. (stupid modern language department has a different scale. It'd be a B+ anywhere else!)

Went for a deliciously greasy meal of hot dogs and fries at La Belle Province and then came to the coffee shop to study for a little bit while having hot chocolate.

I shall be done done done done in just over 4 hours at the latest.

I am SO looking forward to the relief of it all.

First of all, a big ol' HAPPY BIRTHDAY, complete with old-school pink dancing elephants to shiningmoon. I can hardly believe this is something like the 12th birthday of yours I've been around to witness. And to think I thought you were Old(tm) at 25! ;) <ducks> Have an amazing day, sweetie. :)

Second of all, OH MY GOD, my Italian translation is terrible. Horrible. Obscene. Horrifying. English to Italian is like going from 20/20 vision to... 1/1000. It's like, all my skill and precision just melts away and I'm suddenly clumsy as hell.

Third of all.... SO TIRED. Will I NEVER be rested for a Tuesday class? Ever??

Well, I overslept. I meant to sleep 'till 8:30 or so but hit snooze (on both my alarm across the room AND the one next to my bed) several times and finally got my ass out of bed at 9:45. Surprisingly, I finished my Italian translation and it doesn't quite suck, so yay.

On the downside, my bus is in three minutes and I'm not dressed, so HOORAY, yet another $14 on cab fare. I have GOT to stop getting bad nights of sleep on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Anyways, my translation is printed and stapled (! I was afraid I'd lost my stapler because I haven't used it in approximately 5 months, but no! It was right there! On my desk! Where I needed it! Conveniently! Who AM I?!) and yeah, there goes my bus, so I ought to get dressed, brush my insane hair and call a cab.

"Stay awake!" vibes are greatly appreciated.

Also, I so need new icons. Hm.

(Don't ask me why, but I can't seem to stop posting to LJ, despite my initial desires to post elsewhere.)

Anyways, some random stuff that doesn't make me want to kill people:

- The Canadian dollar hit parity with the American dollar today. Know when that last happened? BEFORE I WAS BORN. 1976. It was under 62 Canadian cents to the US dollar as recently as 2002. I remember getting a paycheque in American dollars for ~$5800 and getting $9900 and change in Canadian funds for that at the bank. Of course, while this is clearly a source of national pride, and is good for Canadians in that we can go to the US and not be like "oh, $5 American is $7.50 Canadian!"... but apparently it's bad for Canadian industry. I think it's close to 75% or 80% of our exports go to the United States -- who are now getting less product for their money, so they're buying less. Americans buying less means less is being sold, period. And our tourism will likely take a dive, as Americans have been all "haha, 1 US dollar is equal to 73 Canadian ones!" for the last couple of decades.

- Italian is fascinating, but I'm currently all mixed up after class, because I keep wanting to speak Italian, but am only thinking in French and then trying to convert it to English. Did you know we almost never use the subjunctive in English? I never really learned English grammar. I learned a LOT of French grammar, though, and have been toying with the subjunctive in French since... grade 7? Grade 8? But we almost never use it in English, and when we do, we often don't realize it, because the only difference between the present indicative and present subjunctive is the 3rd person singular. Indicative says "she goes", subjunctive says "that she go".

Also, despite my intense dislike of the subjunctive, I must train myself to use it more frequently, because, apparently, I make a LOT of mistakes in both French and Italian with it.

Example in French: Je pense qu'elle est une bonne personne. (indicative, DESPITE the "I think that")
Example in Italian: Penso che lei sia una buona persone. (subjunctive, because it's not a certainty.)
Example in English: I think that she is a good person. (indicative, DESPITE the "I think that")

But another example:

Example in French: Je pense qu'elle vienne a la fˆte. (subjunctive, because it's not a certainty.)
Example in Italian: Penso che lei venga alla festa. (subjunctive, because it's not a certainty.)
Example in English: I think that she may come to the party. (subjunctive!)

But who SAYS that? No one. "I think that she WILL COME to the party" or "I think that she IS COMING to the party".

We often use "to think" and then the gerund or future or infinitive form of a verb to indicate that it isn't a certainty, rather than use the subjunctive.

God, I'm so glad I already KNOW English. I can't imagine learning that.

And now, off to Sociology of the Media.

So far, Italian class is awesome, Law & Society will be interesting and my Contemporary News Media class is terrifying. The prof for that one has, oh, 15 years broadcast journalism experience. Like, I've seen her on the national news broadcasts.

Getting my ass out of bed this morning was hard. I had a plan! I was going to be asleep by 2am, which basically means that by 1:30 or so, I'd be in bed, then do the ritual tossing and turning for a half hour. Of course, while I was finishing up something in WarCraft, some friends of mine in the game begged me for a half hour of my time to allow them to do something really quickly, they said. "20 minutes," they said, "max 30!"

Well, I finally got done with them at 2:26am, a full 30 minutes afterthe "max 30!" deadline and then tossed and turned until 3, which caused me to smack snooze twice this morning. Blah. I am draggin' this morning. I have 23 minutes before the bus comes and I am still in my PJs and also congested as hell.

On the bright side, I did my Italian homework last night, which was to learn the difference between "avere torto" (to be wrong), "avere ragione" (to be right), "essere giusto" (to be right), and all kinds of ways to say "I made a mistake" and to read about adjectives and adverbs. The subtleties of this language are so overwhelming, sometimes! Just putting an adjective in a slightly different spot changes the entire meaning of the sentence. True, we can do that in English, too, but the punctuation can help us out.

Example:

Strangely, he spoke about the topic.

vs.

He spoke about the topic strangely.

The comma after strangely in the first sentence tells us that it was odd that he was speaking about that topic, whereas the placement and lack of comma in the second phrase tells us that it was his discussion of the topic itself that was strange, not that he chose to speak about it.

In Italian, you don't always have that clue. It's JUST the placement.

And now I have 18 minutes to get ready.

Catch you all later.

My Italian exam went pretty okay, actually. I think I may have gotten in the mid-70s, which is okay. A little higher might bump me from a B- to a B, though. I got 8.6/10 for my oral presentation on Pisa, which is AMAZING. It's my best mark ever in Italian. Er, except for a test I got 89% on back last fall in Italian 201.

Basically, though, I didn't blank on any tenses as a whole and I managed to keep most tenses separate in my mind. Go me.

Friends entry to follow, but first, a meme.

Tagged by literaryradical:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

1. "Lodestar" by Sarah Harmer
2. "Brian Wilson" covered by the Brown Derbies
3. "Christmas Time is Here (instrumental)" by Vince Guaraldi Trio
4. "Never Been Hurt" by Sara Melson
5. "South of Me" by Weeping Tile
6. "The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe
7. "Where is my Mind" by The Pixies

And I shall tag... trexphile, moireach, spykate, seanpaune, hambam, jessruth and goldfishdreams.

And also, if you have not yet played this game, prepare to sink hours into it. Addictive little beast. And I take no responsibility if you get fired for having played instead of worked.

Last Wednesday, I won tickets to the November 1st hockey game between the Habs and the Panthers.

Thing is, I already HAD tickets to that game, as my friend MG had invited me.

So basically, I went with MG, while giving JB and a friend of hers, M-something, my tickets. Amusingly enough, they were in the same row, just 8 sections away from each other.

We all met up for dinner (well, we were going to meet at 5:45, but JB was late and M was waiting at the wrong restaurant) and we all had a great pre-game dinner, just talking and laughing. MG told some embarassing stories about me, JB was delighted and I was blushy.

We practically RAN to the Bell Centre, and though JB and M were delayed because of M's backpack, MG and I ran up to our seats and settled in just as the puck dropped. :D

Within five minutes of game time played, we were up 2-0.

It promised to be a great night.

At intermission, with the score 2-1, we went and found JB and M and chatted together and placed Canadiens stickers on our faces and laughed and then scurried back to our seats.

MG and I noticed that the two people to our right were, shockingly enough, not there. At all. Through the whole period, which ended 3-2.

At intermission, we went to get JB and M and dragged them back to our seats and the four of us settled in to watch the third period together.

JB sat between me and M, and MG was on my other side, and we were all happily chatting and watching the game and then Florida scored.

MG was sad. I was annoyed.

Then we got two penalties and it was a 5 on 3 for Florida for over a minute, and JB was giggling at my "oh shit, oh shit, we're gonna die, now", because hello, FIVE MINUTES LEFT in the third period, it's TIED and we're down by two men!

She stopped giggling at my reaction when Florida scored the go-ahead goal.

MG looked like she was going to cry.

I was most unhappy. JB scratched my head in time to the 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, LET'S GO cheer, though, which, well, cheered me immensely. ;)

Despite being unhappy with the goal, I was not about to give up. I cheered even harder, yelling at the top of my lungs (I am now somewhat hoarse) and JB and MG and M all got into it.

With under a minute in regulation, we had a power play, we pulled Theodore and we had a 6 on 4 and then, with 8.1 seconds to go, Steve Begin scored the equalizer.

THE ENTIRE BELL CENTRE ERUPTED IN JOY.

MG was, strangly, hugged by the dude to HER right, so I grabbed JB and we hugged in celebration for a few moments, before I grabbed MG and JB grabbed M and then we all put our arms around each other and screamed at the top of our lungs and cheering "GO HABS GO" and "BE-GIN", "BE-GIN"! (which doesn't sound like "begin", but more "Bay-Zhay". I know, French names are weird.)

8 seconds of play in which nothing happened, except the crowd cheering at the announcement of Begin's goal and then a minute break before five minutes of four-on-four overtime. We were still in this! We could still win! It was ELECTRIC.

Jose Theodore made a couple nice overtime saves and then we got a power play in overtime and MG turns to me and says "The only thing I like better than 4-on-4 hockey is 4-on-3 hockey!"

And then Michael Ryder scored the winning goal for the Canadians and AGAIN, the Bell Centre erupted.

It was an incredible experience. The team is GOOD, these days, the fans are totally into it, we can come back from being down in the game with eight seconds left... it's amazing. It's nothing like it used to be, lacklustre with bored fans. Hockey these days is really exciting, and anything can happen. With 5 minutes to go in the third, being down by a goal, that's when people used to just go "oh. We're going to lose." and we WOULD lose.

Not so last night.

I love my Habs, and seeing them play hard, not give up and come up with the win, with two of my good friends with me, was amazing. :D

I now need to study for my Italian test. :)

Three things occurred to me today, during my last day at work.

1) It's been almost ten years since I've been at a job on my last day, and known it was my last day there.
- My last few jobs have seen me laid off unexpectedly. The last time I made it my choice, I was doing tech support for a small ISP in town. And it was because I was moving to Virginia. In fact, my last day was just before my birthday.

2) I loathe quitting something I'm good at.
- Part of me is downright pissed that I'm not going to get to improve my productivity scores or get listened to again and be able to raise my objectivity/research ratings. I did good work, dammit, and I will now miss the proof thereof.

3) I now feel useless, in that I am not remotely helping society.
- At least when I did Ipsos/AP surveys, I was getting public opinion stuff. Today, I was on an Avon survey that was disguised as a general makeup survey. Granted, it was better than beer, but not by much. And it was a billion times better than an ASI survey, so I'm glad for that. But it would have been nice to do an AP poll or Air Canada Jazz or something that I enjoyed or meant something, you know? (That recent Bush approval poll, BTW? Done by Ipsos/AP, by the Montreal call centre. In fact, if you check out the site, you can download the PDF. It's got lots of neat questions. I did the August version of it, and this is the September version.)

So I did five completes tonight, which puts me roughly around 1.35 per hour for the day. That's much better than the 0.64 average per hour they wanted us to aim for. :)

Then I had coffee, or, rather, hot chocolate with JB.

Then I came home. Talked on the phone. Watched bad TV. Ate nightmeal. And am going to go to bed soon, because I have to get to school at a reasonable hour tomorrow so I can buy my Italian book and do my Italian homework before Italian class.

Friendslocked entry coming up.