Laboring on Labor Day

I woke up this morning feeling mildly productive, which is new for me, so I decided to take a hold of the zeitgeist and actually do something with myself. I've had some scrap fabric lying around for a while, and I've been itching to use my new/old sewing machine, so I whipped out my measuring tape and my straight pins and went to town:




And then I took a t-shirt that was huge on me and did this:


Too bad I haven't even started re-reading Sense and Sensibility for class.

Tagged, I'm it!

T-hype tagged me! Shucks. Oh, those crazy internets and their memes.

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

I'm going to pretend that it says "World Series" instead of "Third Series," because making it a baseball analogy makes much more sense to me. Also please to change "lifetimes" to "innings."

So let's start with the 8 random facts about myself.

I can fly.

I can turn invisible.

I have opposable toes and a prehensile tail.

I was raised in a foreign country by wild animals.

Shucks, I've run out of fake facts about myself, so I'll move on to some real ones. Let's see...

My addiction? Public transportation. Currently I don't have air conditioning in my apartment. Buses are air conditioned. Problem solved. I ride the bus for the sake of riding the bus - which is why I have an unlimited monthly pass.

The last book I finished was Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House, and I'm in the middle of Salman Rushdie's East, West. I'm passionate about short stories.

I can't wait until the next Harry Potter book comes out.

I love thunderstorms.

I can fly.

For real.

The Mets lost?

The Mets lost?!?

The Mets LOST?!?!?

This is going to be a sad, sad day for all of us.

True Confessions Time

I know this is probably completely awkward, but I'm so happy and pleased and excited that I have to tell everyone this.

Hi, I'm 21 years old and I've finally been kissed.

For the first time. Ever.

I know it's kind of ridiculous. You're probably like, "What? People wait? For kissing? Why?"
In my case, it was a one-two punch of firstly dating boys that I realized I didn't like halfway through the first date and then going on a dating hiatus for almost two years ("Dating hiatus? People do that, too?"). Most of my friends either: a) think I'm some sort of prude; b) applaud me for waiting because they're afraid I'll get pregnant (I come from a line of very fertile women, and I'm not about to tempt fate); or c) think I'm joking. Anyway, I guess my planets never aligned until tonight, when a friend I've totally been crushing on asked if he could bring a movie over. To "watch." It was 1963's The Great Escape, which is nearly three hours long.

We did a lot of "watching."

It was so sneaky and kind of Bollywood-esque how he surprised me. I was completely engrossed in the film and to get my attention he said, "I have something in my eye." I was all "Let me see" when he slid his hand to the back of my head and pressed his lips to mine.

And it was totally worth waiting, in case anyone was wondering. Totally.

You know what, Bridgid? You turned on the CD player so now dance.

I was just looking through a notebook from last semester and someone had written that message on the last page. Yes, for all of you who thought that my last name was Basmatic and my first name was Totally, the secret is out. (Totally is actually my middle name).

It's that time of the semester again - midterms. Not only does that mean that I have stopped wearing makeup and doing my hair and otherwise caring about my appearance, it means that I have tests to take.

Oh no! you say.

Oh yes! I reply.

Namely, I have a Latin midterm tomorrow, and while I've been studying for a few hours I don't feel any more prepared than I did a few hours ago. So I'm going to try out that theory that the best way to learn is to teach, and all of you are going to get a lesson in Latin!

Since my test is only going to be translating sentences from Latin into English, that's what we're going to focus on in this lesson. The most important thing to look at when translating from Latin to English is the main verb of the sentence, which is typically at the end. For example:

Magister numquam errat.

Errat is the verb, and it tells you a few important things: firstly it tells you the number and person of the subject, and secondly it tells you the tense. The number and person of the subject is important, because it's not always clear in the sentence. Here we know that the -t on errat tells us that the subject is singular and third-person (he/she/it). We also know that it's in present tense, because there's no fancy -ba- or -bi- in the verb (and I'm a really bad teacher, because I'm haven't touched on the principle parts of verbs or the different conjugations and I'm just assuming everyone already knows them).

Anyways, once you've got the verb figured out, the rest of the sentence is easy. Magister is in the nominative case, so it's probably the subject, and numquam is an adverb. All set!

Magister numquam errat = The teacher never errs.

Okay, so now I think I've been going about this lesson all wrong. I haven't talked about declensions or conjugations, I've just jumped right into translations.

OH WELL.

When I grow up, I'm gonna be a cat lady. You know, those octogenerians on the end of the street who have an infinite number of cats? Yep, that's going to be me. Here's why:


World's cutest kitten, right? SO CUTE. And he looks just like Buttons. They are brothers from other mothers.

He needs a name, though. Any suggestions are welcome!