I come from a tree

This is something that has been puzzling me for some time:

Tere hommikust!
Tulen tammikust!
Toon teile sooja sepikut

It's in a book I have at home. A class says it in unison with a clap as a way to begin the school day, as they are about to take a bus to Tallinn for a school excursion.

Now, to the best of my ability, this translates as:

Good Morning!
I come from an oak tree (or, maybe, a dam)!
I bring you warm wheat bread.

Which could possibly be accused of "not making any sense". Is it normal to declare you come from a tree/dam and offer warm bread to your teacher in the morning in some parts of the world?

Estonian Week

Okay, trying to learn two languages at the same time is finally starting to take it's toll.

I've gotten to the point now when I'll remember the German word when I'm trying to think of the Estonian one (and vice versa) - usually in the middle of a sentence.

"Ma olen kolmkümmend Jahre alte... wait a minute..."

I'll stare at a plate for fifteen minutes, trying to remember what it's called in German, but the only word that will come to mind is "taldrik". Eventually, I'll have to look up words I already know just because I can't get the other word out of the way.

I've recently decided to try something different - alternate weeks for each language. Last week was German Week: I read German poetry, went over German grammar, made a point of trying to remember the German names for things, tried to speak in German sentences when I could get away with it and had the language settings on my computer switched to German (which was, admittedly, an accident - but a happy one).

This week was supposed to be Estonian Week. Apart from the German lesson, I was going to try to focus on Estonian. I switched over my computer settings, tried to make a point of reading Estonian poetry and news, tried to remember the Estonian word for things as much as possible... I even made a point of not watching German news or listening to German radio even though I had the opportunity to do so.

Now, I should probably point out then when I say "read poetry" I'm probably referring to side-by-side text with the English translation. When I say "reading the news" actually mean "looking at the words and trying to see if I recognise some of them". When I say "listen to the radio" (or something like that) I mean "listen to the sounds coming out of the radio and occasionally picking up one or two words I know".

Anyway, so far Estonian Week has been a bit of a struggle. I find myself going through German withdrawals. I want to read the German poetry books - I have to remind myself to put them down and pick up something Estonian instead. I want to watch the German DVDs that just happened to arrive in the mail at the beginning of the week. I know I should watch another episode of Tuulepealne Maa (which is an enjoyable TV series which can be best described as "The Estonian answer to Band of Brothers") - and I probably will before the week is out - but I have these shiny new DVDs and I want to play with them...

Also, I keep thinking of the German word when I'm trying to come up with Estonian sentences. I sometimes found Estonian creeping into German Week, but German seems to be trying to invade Estonian Week quite aggressively (not entirely unlike approximately 700 years of European history, that).

It's as though my brain just doesn't want to let the German go. It is much easier than Estonian...

Oh, well.

C'est la vie.

Oh, wait, that's French. Scheibenkleister!

Sauerkraut

Let me make this absolutely clear:

Only German plebs eat sauerkraut straight out of the jar. It's an ingredient, like seeded mustard.

If you have "tried" sauerkraut before and you didn't like it, it's probably because you tried eating it straight out of the jar/tin. Don't do that - it will never taste good that way.

You need to a) mix it with other stuff, and b) cook it.

For example, if you want something quick and easy you can fry some onion and apple and mix in the tinned sauerkraut - maybe top it off with some caraway seads or something. It's a great accompaniment to sausages.

Or, as the main meal, you could try stewing it with ham, bacon hocks, pearl barley, extra (fresh) cabbage and some white wine vinegar. Add in a couple of bay leaves and some peppercorns during the cooking (to be removed before eating) and it tastes fabulous. Serve with boiled potatoes and buttered black rye bread.

Or head online and find some other recipe that takes your fancy. Just, please, for taste's sake, don't eat it straight from the jar.

Google Chrome on väga huvitav

Yup. I changed my language settings on my computer's system over to Eesti today, and sure enough Chrome is talking to me in Eesti, taking me to the Eesti version of major websites (when they exist) and offering Eesti options when it tries to correct my spelling.

See on tore! I love the way it completely alters minu language environment.

I'm even impressed that it does this by listening to my system settings rather than waiting for me to change them within the program. Yes, on one level that's a little bit creepy, but imagine how much time you'll save if English is not your person default language setting.

Crazy Tom's pizza recipe

A couple of years ago I spent the weekend with a group of people crazy enough to travel to Julia Creek for a triathlon. One of them was an English guy by the name of "Tom". At least, I think his name was Tom. I can't really remember these sorts of details (heck, I can barely remember my own name sometimes).

Anyway, Tom had spent some time in South Africa, where they apparently put banana on pizza. He was lamenting about the fact that he can't convince any pizza shops in Australia to use banana as an ingredient.

I told him the entire concept of banana on a pizza was ridiculous. He said people who put beetroot on hamburgers can't throw stones, which I figured was a fair cop.

Ever since then, I've been wondering exactly what pizza would taste like with banana. Last night I was making pizza for dinner, and I finally decided I may as well give it a try.

It's different - takes a moment to get used to - but it is not unpleasant. Slightly sweet, like pineapple, but with a weird undertone that takes you by surprise when you aren't expecting it. I'd possibly do it again.

It put me in mind of the fancy-pants pizza shop on Ross River Rd which puts beetroot on one of it's gourmet pizzas. And it made me wonder - why are vegetarian pizzas in most take-away pizza joints so darn boring?

If you're a vegetarian, you really only get two options: you can have the exact same ingredients that you would get on a super supreme minus the meat, or you can have cheese and tomato. Why don't they bring in some crazy options that people who eat peperoni pizzas would never consider? Why not have a "fruit salad" pizza with pineapple, banana and cucumber (what? It's a fruit).

It's not so difficult and out-there that a regular pizza shop couldn't do it. You don't have to be "gourmet" to be "not entirely boring".

Hmm, I'm obviously dealing with a moron

So, I submitted a paper to a journal some weeks ago and today I received the comments from the reviewers.

The first reviewer, whose comments I've just been reading through, seemed to struggle with my paper quite a lot.

I'm well aware that my writing style is far from perfect. I have a tendency to be flippant, I frequently digress and I often catch myself using sentences that I had thought were erudite but turned out to be simply obnoxious. Plus, I have a stupid belief that essays, like poems, should be aesthetically interesting rather than simply conveying the facts. I fully expected the comments to come back saying that some of my sentences could be clearer and I should move things around.

This person has basically written back saying entire paragraphs are impossible to understand and my argument is obscured. I can handle that. Such things help one grow. Except...

Except that their comments have indicated they aren't keeping up - or don't feel they should have to. It's as if I'm expected to explicitly outline everything I'm talking about in every single paragraph - they aren't pulling information from one section to inform the next, and I can't shake the feeling they're doing this on purpose. They're struggling with the abbreviations I'm using even though I established them properly in the early paragraphs and have been using them consistently ever since, and that also feels like it's on purpose - like they don't feel they should have to glance back at the beginning of the paper to find out what those abbreviations mean, therefore I should either not use them (or I should re-establish them on a regular basis).

I got to a point partway through reading their extensive comments (for which I'm thankful - I like extensive comments), when I realised what they really want is a simpler style. I have written the paper - quite deliberately - in a slightly circuitous fashion. I present some information and then explain why the information is relevant. I repeat this pattern multiple times, and then in the end I tie all the strings together. Each section makes sense eventually, you just have to read it with the assumption that it is taking you somewhere. You don't even have to wait that long for the pay-off. The "what" is clear in each paragraphs (at least, I believe it is), and a couple of paragraphs later you get the "why". This reviewer clearly wants the "why" first and foremost and continually referred to throughout the "what".

They clearly want me to strip it back and dumb it down so that the reader doesn't have to work as hard to figure out what I'm talking about.

Now, I've had a number of people read over this paper before I submitted it - including someone who checks clarity of writing style for a living. None of them had this much trouble understanding what I had written or the points I was making.

The second reviewer didn't even see the need to make comments on the paper - they just said a few things need to be moved around and that's it.

All of this leads me to believe that the first reviewer is not getting it - either because they can't get it or because they don't want to. It's almost like they've decided that it's hard to understand, so they are going out of their way to not understand it.

And, having formed this (possibly unfounded) opinion of the person writing the comments, I find an old character flaw is coming to the surface: I hate dumbing things down for stupid/lazy people. I can't stand the way everything has to be "easy" these days, and I start feeling my inner snob rise to the bait when someone suggests I should write something in such a way as to make sure people don't have to think about it.

Tell me my sentence isn't clear and it will get me thinking about how to do a better job. Tell me to repeat myself multiple times or use simpler words so people don't have to pay that much attention in order to know what I'm talking about and I'll dig my heels in. I'll happily try to write something "better", but I don't want to write something "simpler".

I've talked about this before, in my discussion of graded readers and simplified texts. I hate simplifying things. I'm trying to get over it and understand the role simplified language has in modern society, but I still hate it. The unsimplified version is richer and more interesting. Half the time I'm sure the reader could step-up to the challenge if they wanted to. Why should everything be brought down to the lowest common denominator?

I'm going to change the paper - grudgingly, of course, but I have to address the reviewer's concerns to get the paper published. But there's a good chance I'll be doing it with some spite directed at the reviewer, which is a bad attitude to have.

I have to refrain, reframe and then sit down to fix the paper so that I'm still proud of it, but it's easier for the lazy people to read.

I've also finally got the corrections back for my thesis, and my supervisor also wants me to focus more on repeating myself, so this is going to be a fun week.

What the Internet is for...

I had a short conversation with someone recently that went something like this:

Them: Well, they say most of what's on the Internet is porn.
Me: Have "they" seen how many recipe sites are out there?

I would be interested in seeing the comparative statistics on that at some point - just how much of the internet is porn and how much is cooking and craft. I think it would be a pretty close call.

Avoidance tactics

Just to put things in context: I'm supposed to be working on a referencing guide for Harvard.

We need a shop on campus which sells sushi.
I'd eat sushi for lunch all the time if there was a shop on campus and I didn't have to drive somewhere to get it.
It could just serve sushi and ramen - quick stuff that can just take a minute to throw together.
That reminds me, I don't know what ramen is, exactly.
I've been guessing.
Must confirm.
Wikipedia.
Ah, noodle soup.
Thought it was something like that.
We could have a shop in the student mall that does quick sushi and ramen easily.
They can go in the old post office or something.
I wonder how hard it would be to start up a Japanese fast food joint?
Have to hire a decent sushi person from somewhere.
No point having a sushi joint if the sushi's no good.
Could we convince one of the current Japanese take-outs in town to open a mini outlet?
If I had a quick-and-easy Japanese sushi bar I'd call it "Jaapani Söök".
Why did I say that?
What language was that one - oh, yeah, Estonian.
Hmm, wonder if naming my sushi bar "Japanese Food" in Estonian is intrinsicly amusing enough, or if I need a reason to put the two concepts together?
Estonia - Japan.
Japan - Estonia.
The latest food craze: Estonian Japanese Fusion.
Sushi with smoked Baltic herring and pickled cabbage as ingredients.
Could work.
Sashimi with head cheese as a side dish.
Not so much.
Sashimi works well with chips - I've done that before - and Estonians love potatoes...
Maybe have the Japanese and Estonian food on the same menu, but not on the same plate (unless someone asks for it).
Maybe just have the legends of Kalev decorated in a Japanese brush-work style around the room.
Something involving pearl barley and tuna?
This is a stupid idea.
I wonder what John Fiorelli is doing these days?
"Okay, John Fiorelli!"
Hey - it's actually "John Fiorella"!
Whoops.
Hunh, I've been getting that wrong for years.
I still like the way "John Fiorelli" sounds though - good name.

I have discovered the answer: Spreading German

Aha! I knew there would be a simple answer to the German problem. At least, I was hoping there would be, because eventually I'm going to need to have my system messages converted into English again.

Turns out that, when you use the Regional Language settings to add the keyboard sets for other languages, you have to remember to reset the language settings to English in that particular menu. If you don't, it assumes you want the default language settings for the computer to be in whatever you last selected.

IE and Firefox don't seem to care about what the computer's language preferences are set to, but Chrome pays closer attention. And, while Microsoft Office programs don't change their menus to match the system settings, they do change their automated content such as dates and number configurations.

This is why I noticed Chrome going all-out German before I picked up on the fact that it was more of a system-wide thing.

I have now fixed the computer at the reference desk, but I'm going to leave my own computer in German for the time being. I'm coping reasonably well at present, and it's always good to spend some quality time in the language environment of your target language.

Maybe I'll switch it into Estonian for next week...

Here's a picture of a marmoset:



No reason.

Zombie Alert!

The National Zombie Watch has reported a fresh outbreak of zombies in South-East Victoria, which seems to be travelling north along the coast, following the low pressure system off the cape.

This marks the fourth zombie outbreak to effect the south-east of the country in the past year, and residents are urged to stay vigilent. Although previous zombie outbreaks have not reached the plague proportions predicted by the NZW, people are reminded that it is important to avoid becoming indifferent to the threat of zombie infestation.

"It is tempting to say, 'oh, it's just zombies again', but you can't just assume that the zomie apocalypse won't happen to your family simply because you weren't caught up in any of the previous zombie waves," NSW spokesperson Nick Michels said at the press conference. "We can't allow ourselves to become lax when it comes to zombies."

The last major zombie infestation to sweep through Australia was the Queensland Zombie Plague of 1978, in which the entire south-east sector of the state was abandonned to the undead for approximately three years, until the plague died out. The National Zombie Watch hopes that such an extreme outbreak of zombies will never effect an Australian state or Territory again.

"Families need to establish a zombie survival plan," Michels stated at the press conference. "Most zombies will eventually rot and die as long as they don't have any fresh food. Decide in advance whether you are going to stay or leave. If you are going to stay, remember to make sure your home is zombie safe, have plenty of tinned food and bottled water and a good supply of napalm cannisters. If you leave, please do so long before the zombies are reported in your town. Once the zombies have come, you really should stay and defend."

Zombie protection kits can be obtained from any ambulance station throughout the country.

Background Photo / Open Air Museum

Just mucking about with the template because I can.

The background photo was taken at the Open Air Museum in Tallinn, which was one of the highlights of my trip to Estonia last year.

I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is thinking of travelling through Eastern Europe at any point.

Mind you, I had some difficulty explaining the concept of an open air museum to a friend of mine recently.

You see, it's a museum of buildings and farms - as in, the actual buildings and gardens are the "objects" in the museum. It's brilliant - they grabbed old buildings from all over the country, took them apart, moved them to the museum and put them back together again.

It took a few goes to explain to my friend that I was talking about real buildings sitting in a park. It's such a brilliant concept, but one that we're not so familiar with here in Australia.

The Open Air Musuem has something of an extra significance for me, as well. I was standing next to one of the buildings, reading the sign, when my personal language goals cemented into place. You see, all of the signs in the OAM are in Estonian, English, German and Russian. I was looking at this sign, trying to make out the few words I knew of the three non-English languages, when I realised I didn't want to just play with these languages - I wanted to be able to read them, dammit. I want to be able to go back to the museum in a few years time capable of reading the entire sign - all four languages. Maybe, by the time I'm there again, I'll be able to do it.

It's spreading

Hmmm.

At first it was rather amusing, now I'm starting to get nervous.

Remember how my Google Chrome browser suddenly decided to switch my entire language environment to German? Remember how I said I was going to leave it like that and see if it switched itself back?

Not only has it not switched itself back, but the German is spreading.

I just noticed a couple of options in a drop-down menu on IE were offered in German (although the rest of them were in English, so that was odd) and another programme I use, Spark, had also switched it's language settings to German without instruction.

Not only that, but one of the programmes at the reference desk had also switched to German without being prompted.

Now, I'm willing to swear an affadavit that the only language settings I have changed on either computer in the last few months has been to add the German and Estonian character sets as keyboard options.

As far as I know, this is a normal function of computers and should not be encouraging the electronic world around me to spontaneously alter my language environments.

So what's with all the German?

Have I suddenly caught some sort of computer zoonosis that is causing me to spread German wherever I go?

Gold for Australia!

Man, these Commonwealth Games suck!

I know it seems a bit strange to complain about my country winning medals, but seriously! Have you seen the medal tally?

Australia has twice the number of medals as India and is practically wiping the floor with Brittain and Canada. The other countries seem to be competing as some sort of rent-a-crowd.

I know we actually have an Institute of Sport, which basically means our government is paying money to develop supermen (and women), but we are doing so well in these games it's starting to get freaky.

Granted, a lot of athletes decided to give this one a miss for various reasons (at least partly to do with the fear of dying from some dissentry-like disease or from the stadium collapsing, or something), so maybe we would have more of a run for our money if everyone who could have come out to play actually did.

But, still.

I remember, during the last couple of Olympics, I actually got bored with Australia's acquisition of metalic decorations and found myself barracking for Estonia all of the time, as it actually felt like an achievement when we won something.

Australia? Winning's just something we do. It doesn't seem like we have to fight for it any more. I don't want to lessen the achievement of our athletes, who have worked really hard to be as good as they are, but it just doesn't seem like it's a real competition any more.

You know who you are...

... and you probably won't read this anyway.

Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful, but as much as I love you and as much as you know you're loved, I find your apartment vaguely depressing.

It's not that the ceiling is falling down, or that the kitchen drawers are broken, or that the oven doesn't close properly (and therefore won't cook properly), or that the bath tub is some cheap little spa-thing with plastic parts that are starting to break down, or that your toilet looks like it's been cleaned by a teenage boy who is secretly hoping toilets are largely "self-cleaning"...

Rather, it is the culmination of all these things combined with the size of that monstrosity you call a TV set. I'm sorry, but people should not be investing in televisions that large when a) they already have a perfectly functioning TV, and b) the ceiling is falling down!

Yes, I know I'm unbelievably picky, and I'm not living there, and if you're living there and you're happy with things they way they are then I should just keep my nose out of other people's blah blah blah

But, Good Lord, man! Your ceiling is falling down!

Better in my dream

For some daft reason, I decided to translate one of my own poems into Estonian. The original version is over on my siegeworks blog (along with this translation) but this is my hamfisted attempt to write it in Eesti (maybe half re-writing it a little on the way)

Ja seal ta on
Tõde et valgustab vale
Paljastab mis ma teadnud juba
Aga püüdmanud eitama.

Ja kõik mu kavad
On libisevad läbi minu käte
Aga, kõige lõpuks ma teadnud alati
Nad olid rajatud liivale

Näha, kuidas nad lendavad...

Sina olid parem sisse minu unistus
Aga ka mina olin

Corrections to bad choices of grammar/vocabulary/idiomatic turns of phrase gratefully appreciated (only for the Estonian version - you can keep your mits off the English one, thank-you-very-much).

Monkeys

I don't trust monkeys.

I'm fascinated by them, but I don't trust them. It's not just because one of them tried tricking a friend of mine into coming close enough to pee on him - although that's part of it. I've just been paying attention.

I've been to more than my fair share of zoos. I've watched documentaries. I've noticed their nasty little monkey behaviour and their sneaky little monkey faces. I know they aren't the cute little fuzzy friends everyone wants to think they are.

Monkeys, you see, are a lot like cats. They have their own agenda, and they don't care who they have to bite, scratch or defecate on to achieve their aims.

Plus, they have opposable thumbs. I've always felt the only reason cats put up with us at all is the fact that we have invented tinned tuna and they haven't worked out a way to simply steal the cans from us and open them for themselves.

Monkeys? Monkeys would work it out. They're basically cats with power.

Don't trust 'em.

Diese Siete ist auf Englisch. Soll sie übersetzt werden?

This is just amusing me no end. My Google Chrome browser woke up today set in German. And I mean set in German.

Not only are the language settings of the browser itself in German, but it's taking me to the German versions of major websites, bringing up German pages in my Google searches, asking me if I want to translate English pages into German, and highlighting all of my English spelling as being incorrect (because it's not spelt properly auf Deutsch, ja?)

It's even doing it with pages I've bookmarked - taking me to the German version of the page even though I bookmarked the English version.

I didn't tell it to do this. I haven't touched the language settings for the browser. It was in English when I shut it down last night, and in German when I opened it this morning.

Yesterday I added German and Estonian language settings to my keyboard configuration, but I'm reasonably sure that shouldn't make one of my browsers convert into another language without being prompted (I should point out that I have IE and FireFox open at the same time, and both are in the same language settings I left them in yesterday).

It's odd. It's hilarious. I'm not going to change it back. I figure it made itself this way, it can switch itself back when it feels like it.

Marcia Sings

So, Marcia Hines is releasing an album called "Marcia Sings Tapestry". That's right, she's covering the whole album. When I first heard this I thought it was a bit rich, but now I just want her to do a whole series of them - taking singer/songwriters' signature albums and covering the whole shebang.

Imagine it:

"Marcia Sings Taproot Manuscript"
"Marcia Sings Thriller"
"Marcia Sings Tea for the Tiller Man"
"Marcia Sings Graceland"
"Marcia Sings Born in the U.S.A"

It could be fabulous.

Glass Houses

There is an old, yet very true saying:

"People in glass houses should not walk around naked."

By the same token, people with hands-free phones should not use them.

At best, they look like crazy people. More often that not, though, they look like they're talking to someone - someone standing near them. However, not only are they not talking to anyone in the vicinity, they don't particularly want anyone in the vicinity to listen or react to them. So, the people standing nearby justifiably turn to look at the person who could very well be talking to them, only to have said person give them that look.

You know the look I'm talking about - the one that basically says "Well, of course I'm not talking to you. Duh!"

It's rude and obnoxious, but the crazy people seem to think that they are perfectly in the right, and the people who dare look at them while they're talking on the phone are the rude and obnoxious ones.

Normal, polite human society depends on outward signals to give your fellow man a heads-up as to what is happening in a given social situation. If you are talking to someone on the phone, it is only polite to look like you're talking on a phone. You shouldn't look like you're talking to someone standing next to you. It just annoys the people standing next to you.

Tomorrow, when...

Wow. I have to say, watching Tomorrow, When the War Began the other night really drove home just how much I truly hate Blurred.

Now, let's just start by giving TWTWB its due praise: this movie rocks. It was enjoyable, pacy, well written, well acted, gripping and utterly believable (after the obviously necessary suspension of disbelief). It was thoughtful and intelligent without being artsy. The characters were fun and appealing without being "quirky". The story was dark and grim without being depressing. And, as if that wasn't enough, it was an action movie that would appeal equally to teenagers and adults, men and women.

In short, I'm still having some difficulty believing this was an Australian film.

We just don't make films like this. We make weird artsy depressing films that leave you wondering why you bothered going to the cinema. We make obnoxious unfunny comedies where every character is either "quirky" or a moron (or both). We make films we don't want to see, and then whine about the fact that no one watches our films.

TWTWB was not only an Australian film - it was an Australian film based on an Australian novel. And it still wasn't artsy and depressing. The book, Tomorrow, When the War Began was a phenomenon in Australian Young Adult Literature circles back in the 1990s, being one of the most popular books of the decade amongst teenagers and young adults. It took it's readers seriously, and treated both it's teenage characters and teenage audience like intelligent, capable people. The movie was pretty darn faithful to the book and did exactly the same thing - treated its characters and audience like intelligent, capable people.

Compare this with Blurred. Blurred was originally a play which was also something of a phenomenon in its day*. Part of a subgenre of Australian Drama known as "Australian Theatre For Young People" (I may have written a paper on this genre for my Honours in English Literature), the play was kind of artsy and depressing, but at the same time it had a bit of verve and a sense of humour. It treated its teenaged characters and audience like intelligent people. Lost, bewildered and far-too-eager-to-get-stoned-or-drunk, but intelligent none-the-less. Capable of thinking deep thoughts.

The movie took everything that made the play interesting and intelligent and replaced it with the least interesting cliches and tropes you can think of for a typical teenage comedy - you know, the kind that assumes teenagers don't actually think at all and are only interested in sex and fart jokes. The play wasn't my favourite play in the world (that would be a toss-up between The Importance of Being Earnest and Is That A Muffled Shriek?), but I liked it enough to be really disappointed with the movie.

And now, of course, now I know that Australian film makers actually are capable of making good movies that respect the source material and the audience. Now I know that we could have, if we wanted to, made a film version of Blurred that wasn't so depressingly awful. I never liked it. Now I just hate it.


* A bit of a fake phenomenon, it must be said. TWTWB was popular because kids just wanted to read it, so they bought it from bookshops or borrowed it from libraries. Blurred was just snaffled up by a lot of high school English and Drama courses because it seemed like a good idea at the time, so a lot of kids read it in class or performed sections of it (rarely the whole play) for assessment pieces. Not the same, I know, but it does mean a large number of Australian young adults were familiar with the play when the movie came out.