Tag Archives: language

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

A belated Happy New Year to all! 2018 has brought changes in several areas.

I discussed kindred (vampire) biology with my bestie and science editor, Mad Doktor Matt, and realized I need to make the following changes:

  • The faction of kindred my characters deal with has a worldwide system of government, but is just one example of kindred culture and government. As kindred spread across the earth along with humans, they would have developed different cultures and governments.
  • I got a bit too enthusiastic about borrowing from camels’ water and heat management techniques. It didn’t occur to me, for example, that 30 gal of water weighs 250 lbs! So being able to drink 30 gal in 10 min would be impossible for a human-sized being. I’ll also have to lower the hydration requirements.
  • We came up with a 12 hour time limit between blood feedings in a late night brainstorming session, imagining a dramatic death scene. On further examination, if kindred evolved in parallel with humans from shortly after the evolution of humans, this wouldn’t work. In order to get enough blood to sustain themselves and avoid detection, kindred would have to be able to travel between settlements. Since they primarily require white blood cells, I’ll change the time limit to 13-20 days + a week. So I’ll also have to recalculate their carrying capacity accordingly.
  • Matt mentioned the feeding allergy part sounded like a game mechanic. It makes more sense to have the sensitization occur over a series of feedings. So one way to tell there’s a vampire around is if a lot of people start getting anaphylaxis.
  • We discussed what happens if a kindred turns into a flock of bats or mist and some of the bats get killed or someone sucks up the mist with a towel. We decided that the kindred would transform back, but be more emaciated, having lost an equivalent amount of mass. For example, a kindred turns into a flock of 10 bats and an enemy kills 1. When the kindred changes back they will have lost 10% of their mass.

I’m glad we had the discussion. These all serve as great examples of how every writer has blind spots.

As I mentioned previously, I’m having another release surgery. All burn survivors need such surgeries periodically as the scar does not grow with the rest of the body. Burn scars actually contract over time. I’ll be getting a combination of z-plastys and laser treatment tomorrow. Right now I’m bummed I’ll have to stop work on my cross stitch project so I don’t leak all over it, but it helps to have gone through all this before. Here’s a shot of my work in progress:

I’m a little over halfway across the top. I still haven’t filled in the background on the chart’s second page because the post office lost my floss. Hopefully they’ll find it!

I plan to use some of my downtime to fulfill a childhood dream and learn Русская (Russian)! I think I was attracted to the Cyrillic alphabet. I’ve also always loved Russian fairytales. I’ve always wanted to learn all the languages in the world! It amuses me that once I learn Russian and Italian, I’ll know all the axis languages. (Totally unplanned!)

While I’m healing, I wish all of you tranquility and joy in abundance.

Joy wreath from Christmas to Color by Mary Tanana, colored by yours truly.

日常のある一日

今日私は毎月の診察のために、ペインクリニックに行きました。この外出は私の犬、パンダベアにとっては長すぎるです。彼女は家にいなければならず、悲しんでいました。私が家に帰った時、彼女は私をキスして覆いかぶっさった。私は彼女がいなくて寂しかったが、それは面白い旅行だった。私の医者から良い助言を得ました。今日、私たちは美しい秋の天気を楽しみながら、屋外で会いました。それから、スターバックスでアイスティーを購入して、ポケモン・ゴーをしました。急襲してテンタクルーをやっつけるために三回試みた。毎回、非常に近づくのですが、いつも勝つことができませんでした。あんたはポケモン・ゴーをしますか？
その後、後でコートハンガーから彫刻を作っている男に会った。彼に何ができるのか尋ねた。彼が「なぜあなたは知りたいのですか」と答えたとき、私は驚きました。
「興味があるから」と言った。
「兵士だよ。」
「すごい。頑張って仕上げてください。」
「なぜですか？あなたがこれを仕上げますか？」
「いいえ。早く完成させて、あなたが目標を達成できることを願っている。」
「もし私がそれを終わらせなければ、どうしますか？」彼は好戦的に続けた。
「それは偉大な彫刻のように見えるので、それは悲しいだろう。」
彼はついに笑って喜んだように見えた。面白いやり取りだった。

Today I went to see my pain doctor for my monthly checkup. It’s too long a trip for my dog, Panda Bear, to accompany me. Therefore she had to stay home and was sad. When I came home she covered me with kisses! Even though I missed her, it was an interesting trip. I got good advice from my doctor. We met outdoors today, enjoying the beautiful Fall weather. Afterward I got iced tea from Starbucks and played Pokemon Go. I tried three times to beat a Tentacruel in a raid. Every time I got very close, but I couldn’t win. Do you play Pokemon Go?
Later I met a man who has been making a sculpture from coat hangers. I asked him what it was going to be. I was surprised when he answered, “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just curious,” I said.
“It’s a soldier.”
“Cool. Good luck finishing it.”
“What? You’re going to finish it?”
“No. I hope you finish quickly and achieve your vision.”
“What if I don’t finish it,” he continued belligerently.
“That would be sad because it looks like it will be a great sculpture.”
He finally smiled and seemed pleased. It was an interesting conversation.

髪

一年ほど前、私の頭のすぐ近くで髪をカットした、バズカットのようにです。何年もそうしたいと思っていましたが、最終的にはそれを行うために勇気を出しました。素晴らしい見えた！これは私がジェンダー・フルイドであることを受け入れるのに役立ちました。寒い日ので頭皮にお茶の蒸気は素晴らしい新しいと平和な気持ちでした。髪を成長させている。それぞれのストランドは同じ長さなので、今はレイヤードルックが美しいです。今私のバングは目の中にあります。悩ます！私の顔の外に保つためにボビーピンを使います。これは日本のヘアアクセサリーが不思議に思った。どのが人気ですか？アメリカの中で弾性バンドまたはヘアクリップは長い髪のために一番の人気する思います。ボビーピンまたは小さなバレッタは短い髪のために一番の人気です。スパマロットまたはドラッグストアで買います、でも美容またはアクセサリーの店でより多様があります。アメリカでは、クレアは有名なアクセサリーチェーン店です。あなたはどこヘアアクセサリーを買いますか？

A year or so ago, I cut my hair very close to my head, like a buzz cut. I had wanted to do so for years and finally worked up the courage to do it. I looked fabulous! This helped me embrace that I’m gender-fluid. Steam from my tea on my scalp on a cold day was a wonderful new and peaceful feeling. I have been letting my hair grow. Now it has a lovely layered look because each strand is the same length. My bangs are long enough they get in my eyes now. This is so annoying! I use bobby pins to keep it out of my face. This made me wonder about Japanese hair accessories. Which are popular? Here in America I think elastic bands or hair clips are most popular for long hair. Bobby pins and small barrettes are popular for short hair. You can buy them at the supermarket or drug store, but you can find more variety at beauty or accessory stores. Claire’s is a famous accessory chain here in America. Where do you buy your hair accessories?

魔法使いクロスステッチプロジェクトはほとんど終わりです！

Edited according to corrections from my Lang-8 friends:

今週は投稿が遅くなりました。 クロスステッチプロジェクトに気をとられていたので。もう少しで終わるので、中断することはとても難しかったです！後バックステッチだけが残っています。私は、このプロジェクトを約7年前に始めました。もう少しで出来上がるので、とても幸せです！ドラゴンを召喚する浮遊キャンドルに囲まれた魔法使いの写真です。あなたは私のブログ、honeycombsbeehive.wordpress.com、で進行中のいくつかの写真を見ることができます。先週私が書いたカボチャパイの写真も見ることができます。完成したら私のプロジェクトの写真を掲載します。そして、私の親友ジュリーの結婚式のクロスステッチプロジェクトを始始めるつもりです。

I am late writing a post this week because I was distracted by my cross-stitch project. It is almost finished, so it has been very hard to stop! I only have the backstitching to do now. I started this project about seven years ago, so I’m very excited I’m almost done! It is a picture of a wizard surrounded by floating candles summoning a dragon. You can see some photos of it in progress on my blog, honeycombsbeehive.wordpress.com. You can also see a picture of the pumpkin pie I wrote about last week. I will post a picture of my project when it’s finished. Then I will start on a cross stitch project for my best friend Julie’s wedding.

カボチャパイ

Edited to reflect corrections from Lang-8. Special thanks to my friends onkoro jp and Tetsu for their help!

今週、私は母とパンプキンパイを焼きました。スーパーマーケットからかぼちゃを購入し、種子を取り除き、薄切りにしました。それから、皮をむきやすくするため、蒸し器で蒸しました。次に、皮を外してピューレ状にしました。最後に、そのピューレを少し使って、パンプキンパイをゼロから作りました。残りのピューレは冷凍しました。
私はカボチャパイが大好きです。アメリカではカボチャパイ風味の食べ物や飲み物がたくさんあります。私のお気に入りはカボチャパイアイスクリームです。
今年は日本人がカボチャに何か特別なことをしていますか？日本人はハロウイーンに何か特別なことをしていますか？

This week my mother and I baked homemade pumpkin pie. We bought pumpkins from the supermarket, removed the seeds, and cut them into slices. Then we steamed them in the steamer until they were soft and the skin came off easily. Next we removed the skin and pureed them by hand. Finally we used some of the puree to make pumpkin pie from scratch. I froze the remaining puree for later.
I love pumpkin pie. In America there are a lot of pumpkin-pie-flavored foods and beverages. My favorite is pumpkin pie ice cream.
Do Japanese do anything special with pumpkins at this time of year? Are pumpkins and pumpkin pie popular in Japan?

一番日本語でのエントリ！

Cross-posted from Lang-8.com.

Thank you to my Lang-8 friends for correcting this post! Here is the correct version:

こんにちはみんな！私は約二年間もこのウェブサイトから離れていました。体調がとても悪かったです。今は少しよくなりました。毎週ここに書きたいです。かなり実践から離れていました。だから、我慢してください。下手でもがまんしてください

English version:

Hi everyone! I have been away for about two years [from Lang-8]. I was very sick. Now I’m a little better. Every week I want to write an entry. I’m very out of practice. Therefore, please be patient with me!

Blog News

Hello, dear readers! Thank you for the warm welcome to the blogosphere!💖 I appreciate every like, comment, and follow I’ve received. I hope I always have the same giddy response to each interaction and that you continue to enjoy my posts. I’ve been intimidated by the current requirement for writers to have a “social media presence”, but y’all have made it a lot less scary. It feels doable and fun now! Blogging has also helped me develop a habit of writing something every day.

I do have to make some small changes to my blogging schedule. I’ve realized I don’t have enough energy to blog and work on my novel in the same day. So I’ve decided I’ll post on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and devote the other days to novel writing.

I also want to devote more time to studying Japanese.🇯🇵 I want to increase my mastery of reading and writing in particular. So I’ll also post on Lang-8.com once a week and copy it here. If you also speak Japanese, please join me on Lang-8! I’m Rosemerry Song (ロズメール サング) there, too. Please be patient with my mistakes. 😊

(NB: As of this writing, there’s a freeze on new sign-ups to Lang-8 while they promote their new mobile app, HiNative. So if you’re already on Lang-8, I’ll see you there! If not, I hope to see you after the freeze is lifted.)

What is Addiction?

Inside Rehab Fletcher

I started reading Inside Rehab by Anne M. Fletcher and was surprised to learn that “the word ‘addiction’ comes from a Roman law having to do with ‘surrender to a master'” (11). I checked the OED and learned it’s derived from the Latin a dicere, which means one who is dictated to.

There’s debate in psychology circles about whether someone can be addicted to a person. I’ve always held that the answer is yes from personal experience. It looks like this was an original sense of the word.

Another sense of the original Latin tells us that one can be addicted to anyone or anything which dictates one’s actions. This supports the experience of many people from abusive relationship or cult survivors to Internet porn or social media addicts.

I call this debate settled.

Fletcher, Anne M. Inside rehab: the surprising truth about addiction treatment: and how to get help that works. NY, NY: Viking, 2013.

Evolving Irregularities

I just tweeted a link to The Guardian’s excellent article “To boldly go for it: why the split infinitive is no longer a mistake” (do follow me @RosemerrySong). Loved it!

But it did make me think about a grammar evolution that’s one of my pet peeves: the incorrect conjugation of irregular verbs. English is a difficult language to learn because it’s a conglomeration of many languages. Irregular verbs don’t help.

The two irregular verbs I see misconjugated most frequently are “to shine” and “to dive”. “To shine” is extra tricky because it has two past tenses: shoes were shined, whereas light shone. More and more I’m seeing sentences like, “The assassin dived behind the wall,” and, “She shined the flashlight into the tunnel.” Grates on my ears! But I realize that applying the “just add a ‘d’ after an ‘e’ to make past tense” rule to every verb ending in an ‘e’ is much easier than learning all the irregularities.

I have a feeling that ‘shined’ and ‘dived’ will become standard grammar in a decade or two. As I type, the WordPress grammar-checker doesn’t flag them as incorrect, indicating how much they’ve already been normalized. I’m not aware of any research on this topic, so if you, dear reader, know of any, please let me know in the comments.