Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

It's time to spend time with the family and close friends, so I'm going to push back updates until the new year.

Hope you have a great one.

All my love, The Authoress

Coffee Cups

It doesn't matter whether they're filled with coffee, tea, ice cream, soup or hot cocoa, coffee mugs are common in every American household.

I originally wrote "kitchen" instead of household, but lately I've noticed that mugs seem to be everywhere EXCEPT the kitchen in my house.

Upstairs, there's a strict "no food or drink" policy. It's ignored in the case of coffee. The same rule applies to the living room, as well as the exception.

It doesn't seem to matter how immaculate my house is, there's always a stray coffee cup.

Coffee cups are available in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Stylized with patterns, designs, pictures, slogans and witty remarks, they make great personalized gifts.

Textbooks

Ever notice how textbooks have a way of hiding themselves?

It doesn't matter who you are, at some point in your life, you have misplaced your textbook at least once. In my case, I've done it more times than I can count.

The subject that hates me is the one that I'm actually good at: Math. Ever since I went back to public school, Math has hated me.

Four years ago, I was in Pre-Algebra. That textbook would vanish and reappear at random. I once had it in the living room, only to find it in the car the next morning. This pattern continued that year.

Then the next year, I was in Algebra. About halfway through the second quarter, my book vanished. We hunted everywhere for it. At the end of the year, about a week before school ended, my bus driver randomly asked me if the textbook that had been under her seat for five months belonged to me... My jaw dropped.

Last year, I took Geometry... which was possibly the worst class I've ever had. Two weeks into the school year, my book went bye-bye. It turned up a few days later with the corner eaten off of it, courtesy of my sister's dog.

This year, my Algebra book vanished. I freaked out because I needed it for an assignment and spent a week searching for it.

The other day, I was picking up music around my piano, when I happened to look up while on the floor. There sat my book, right where I had put it for safe keeping.

Textbooks are just a pain, I've noticed. No matter where they're put, they have a way of vanishing for a few moments, then they turn out to be hiding in plain sight.

Moral of the story?
Textbooks just don't like me, especially those of the math variety.

Calculators

Calculators were made to make life easier, yet lately it seems that they make it increasingly difficult.

Near the beginning of the year, my TI-83 vanished completely, about two days after my best friend lost his TI-84. Graphing calculators are not cheap, so both of us freaked and vowed not to tell our parents. I found an old but effective, scientific calculator while he borrowed his girlfriend's old calculator that just so happened to be a TI-84 like his missing one.

This is the third calculator that was of no use to me. My first one, the one that's in the visual with the poker chips, quit working. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It just stopped in the middle of the school year, leaving my sister to gift me with her TI-83 from college statistics. At the end of that school year (two years ago), my shiny TI-83 vanished amidst a bunch of boxes. This brought me to a very practical scientific calculator that was only about $15, but ridiculously helpful. I used this calculator straight through last year and started off this year with it. Somewhere between now and then, my TI-83 arose back to the surface, so I switched back to using it.

Then came along the week of Vanishing. I went back to using the old calculator. It worked, but we needed the graphing function for my math class. My mom finally caved and was a paycheck away from buying me a new calculator when I found mine again.

In the meantime, I had to take the PSAT, and for some reason, the room I was in couldn't use anything more than a standard calculator, even though the test book said we could use our own, and I had borrowed a graphing calculator from a friend who wasn't testing.

The calculators, meant to make my life easier, just made it more difficult.

I ended up doing most of the PSAT math in my head, using the calculator only for finding oddball things such as square roots and exponents. It was the biggest waste of my time to even have the calculator.

Moral of the story?
Just do the math in your head if you can help it.

Simple English

Lately I've noticed a disturbing amount of adults and high-school students who FAIL at basic English skills.

A few days ago, we received the school's newspaper, and our entire school learned that our editor didn't edit anything at all. There were grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization errors abound, and a frightening amount of usage issues. This is a high school newsprint. I could understand if it were, say, an elementary school paper or something like that. I might even be able to forgive a middle school making mistakes of that degree, but this was ridiculous.

The thing that screws with me the most? They're/Their/There.

They're taking their kids there.

I don't know how many times I've had to explain this particular fallacy.

They're: A contraction of the words "they are" meaning that a group of people or objects are in a state of being. If you can't use this particular one properly, just say "They are..."

Their: A possessive showing that a group of people or objects own or have something. If all else fails, say that something belongs to them, if you can't use this one the right way.

There: A place, this usually acts a pronoun so instead of saying something was at a specific location, (e.g. The party was held at Rei's house.") If you cannot use this one properly, (e.g. The party was held there.") just say where the party was actually held.

That irks me more than you could ever know.

Another thing that kills me is when someone misspells something they've typed. For goodness sake, the computer has spell-check. If you use Google Chrome, it automatically checks your spelling as you type. There isn't an excuse for poor spelling in written print, and there's definitely not one for mistakes in type. I can understand screwing up a ridiculously long word, or even words that completely ignore phonetics, but things like "shrewd", "friend", "maybe" or "definitely" just make you seem dumb.

The worst possible crime, in my humble opinion, is when people use chat speak in everyday writing or speaking. This means the people, like many of my classmates, who say "L-O-L" instead of just laughing, or "R-O-T-F-L" when it's obvious they're not even laughing to begin with, or "G-2-G" when they're leaving. "Got to go" has the SAME amount of syllables as saying "G(ee)-two-G(ee)", for those of you who say it. It doesn't make you sound cool and it definitely doesn't make you sound smart; however, if you're aiming for sounding like a preppy bimbo, you've hit the mark on the nose.

I'll forgive the punctuation issues (those can get rather tricky), and even some of the grammar issues, such as "good" instead of "well" or "bad" instead of "poor" and situations with odd comparative and superlative adjectives (do I say "more green" or "greener?") but there isn't an excuse for some of the most common mistakes in the English language.

In the case of the editor, I just don't think she read over it, maybe she was in some sort of rush, because she would have phrases with odd spacing between words (e.g. "al lthe" instead of "all the") or she would only capitalize part of a name (e.g. "john Henderson" instead of "John Henderson"), so I'd like to think she knew better, just didn't pay attention. I'm not entirely unreasonable, I understand being swamped, but she should have slowed down some because it made the school paper a huge joke.

The moral of this story? Slow down and think: you have tools, use them.

Merry Christmas

So the other day we were driving through town when I realized they had changed the Christmas light display from "Merry Christmas" to "Season's Greetings." I understand a need to be politically correct and such, but the point is lost when less than fifty feet away stands a 3-story Christmas tree. (Which, by the way, I found this on the day of the town's Christmas parade.)

It is very silly how we try to appease everyone. In a nation where it's freedom of religion AND freedom of speech, it's rare to find a greeting that doesn't offend someone. People are so petty as of late. "Happy Holidays" isn't even safe anymore. There are people that don't celebrate any holiday in December. For example, someone from China. They don't really have any holidays at the end of the year. Same thing with Hindus. It's impossible not to tick anyone off.

Ten or fifteen years ago, it didn't matter what religion you were, you said "Merry Christmas" if that's what you celebrated, and if you didn't like it, you either ignored it or you responded with "Happy Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Yule/Solstice/etc." Whatever made your boat float, that's what you said. There wasn't any of this "Happy Holidays" crap. In a town where the vast majority is Christian or at least celebrates Christmas, you might as well say "Merry Christmas", especially if you're going to throw a Christmas parade that shuts down the city for a good three hours, at least. Unless you plan on throwing a Kwanzaa or a Hanukkah parade, it's pointless, we know where you stand, Small Town, USA.

The moral of the story:

If you have a problem with something someone says, you don't have to listen to them, or instead of whining about it so that people have to be politically correct, insert your views. Let's save the BS for the politicians.

So, from my viewpoint, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. Hope it's a great one.

Clothespins

MISSION: Find clothespins to secure tablecloth.

The other day, my mother and I were trying to arrange our kitchen for a Christmas party. She had placed a plastic table cloth that was red and decorated with candy canes onto our 50s diner-style, oblong table.
It didn't fit well at all.
It kept sliding off onto the floor, dragging the table decorations with it, and it would wrinkle in the oddest manner. Finally we'd had enough. My mother decided we were going to find a way to hold it in place. I jokingly mentioned duct tape.
She decided that she could use clothespins and curling ribbon to tie the tablecloth into place.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 0, n remaining.

This resulted in a fifteen minute hunt for clothespins.
She found three in the laundry room. She wanted four.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 3, 1 remaining.

I perused my house and found one lone pin in my closet.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 4, MISSION COMPLETE?

During the three-minute excursion, she had decided she needed at least two more, but four would be better.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 4, >2 remaining

I frantically search my house, as we had much else to we had to do. I can't find any at all, but reach for the scissors, only to find three clothespins behind them.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 7, MISSION COMPLETE?

We need one more, it is soon decided. I sit clueless, lost to any possible locations.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 7, 1 remaining.

My mother walks into her bedroom and pulls a handful of clothespins out of her dresser. They had been there the entire time. It was disheartening.

CLOTHESPIN COUNT: 8, 0 remaining, infinite resource, MISSION COMPLETE.

So we tie down the table cloth. It hands awkwardly around the table, so, frustrated, my mother and I decide it's not going to work. After I had crawled through and around beneath the table with ribbon and clothespins, my effort was wasted.

However, I have a solution to our new dilemma (or is it our old one?) I had mentioned duct tape earlier in a sarcastic moment; now, this would be our savior.

I crawled beneath the table one final time, and when I finished, no edge was left loose. No one can tell it's been taped in place.



The moral of this story? Why use clothespins when you can use duct tape?

On Real Life

I'm making this about real life.

Real things, not petty teenage drama.

I'm avoiding love-sick crooning or sentimental memorandums, this journal is simply of things that are real.

My disclaimer: I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm just making my views known. Nothing I say is absolute, there is an exception to every rule. If you see something differently, by all means, let me know, I love second (or third or fourth or fifth or seventy-fifth) opinions. Add a comment, tell me what you really think.

Real situations, real people, real issues.

A brief overview of some of the things I'm going to cover:

1. Clothespins
2. Merry Christmas
3. Simple Grammar
4. Calculators
5. Textbooks
6. Coffee cups
7. Parties

So let's move to my first post: Clothespins.

Note: This blog is named [[Sur]] Real Life for a variety of reasons.

1. Real Life was my original name for this blog, but it was already taken.

2. Surreal is my screen name for a variety of things.

3. "Sur" is the French word for "On"

4. Some of these topics seem a little unbelievable but are entirely real.