Friday, March 20, 2020

20 Signs You Are a College Nerd

20 Signs You Are a College Nerd They say college can change your life and theyre not kidding. You might start college with the same mindset you had in high school but chances are youve done a full 180 (or three) by the time the first semester ends. Weve rounded up the Top 20 signs that your might be going down the path of Geek Chic †¦ or just plain Geek. 1. You set your alarm early for Back to School sales. Some people think the Friday after Thanksgiving is the most important shopping day of the year, but not you. No, you march to the beat of a different drum †¦ one that starts mid August with Back to School sales. Face it, you just cant pass up 10 for $10 deal on boxes of staples, oddly shaped push pins and novelty folders. 2. Texting, IMing or pinging your roommate is the norm. No matter if your roommate is off campus, at the game or just across the room – if you need to talk, you do it by device. 3. Arguments about Star Trek can change the course of your dorm life. If you can name all the movies, have a passionate opinion about best captain and crew or have ever requested to change rooms because your roommate was a â€Å"Picard Man† then youre deep within the College Nerd Quadrant. 4. Star Wars counts, too! Were you standing in line at midnight for the Collectors Edition Blu-Ray Bonus Digital Content release party? We thought so. 5. You skip classes to get a head start on the paper you know your professor will assign. After all, youve already read ahead seven chapters so why not get going on that paper you know will be due in five weeks? 6. You rotate the names for your WiFi. Usually you stick to the names of favorite alien races but sometimes you mix it up with your favorite Star Dates. 7. Everything runs off your PC. Youve set up your computer to control the lights, temperature and playlists so you never have to get up. 8. You have specific playlists for certain classes or projects. You cant crack a chemistry book without cuing up Weird Science and that Feminism paper isnt going to get done until youve made it through Aretha Franklins Greatest Hits. 9. Your friends ask you to audit their class just so they can have your notes. Between the pie charts, keyword breakdown and abstract you provide, what you get out of a lecture is better than the textbook. 10. You have textbook editors in your email address book. Looking for misspellings, outdated information and poorly constructed chapters is your favorite past time. Youre on a first name basis with editors though oddly enough they never thank you for your regular correction notes each semester. 11. You started offering to repair computers as a way to meet people. After a few weeks, however, you realized you preferred the company of the computers. 12. Class numbers can be an issue. Did you want to take Prehistoric Pottery until you found out the course number was even? Or did you only sign up for Modern Dance because that number was odd? College nerds put a lot of stock in lucky numbers. 13. Resolving arguments can be difficult. When you and your roommate or study group have a disagreement its usually resolved by Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock or Evens-Odds-Binary. 14. Your plans for a long weekend tend to be a bit different. While others might be planning for parties, bar crawls and concerts, youre packing your holiday weekend with LARPing, Star Trek RPG and a Harry Potter marathon. 15. If its worth doing, its worth tracking. Youve been following – and charting – your study to grade ratio since the first grade. 16. Your idea of a Care Package is slightly different. Other students may look forward to boxes of photos and cookies, but your family knows to send Anime DVDs and supplies for your next cosplay project. 17. Integration is everything. Youve made it your personal mission to work with every instructor you have to integrate Pinterest, Twitter, DropBox and 4Chan into the curriculum. Youre saving Flipboard, Seesmic and ProPublica for next semester. 18. Semantics are important. Theyre not dolls or action men, theyre collectible figures. Its not a waste of an entire weekend, its an Epic Dungeons and Dragons Campaign. 19. Your College criteria was highly specific. Some students check out concert venues, party spots or sports teams when considering college. You wanted to know how close the libraries were, how many bookstores there were and whether or not there was an active RGP/LARP/MMOG community. 20. Your friends can turn your room into a drinking game. Rules include one shot for every calculator and double shots for pamphlets or promotional materials for Starfleet Academy, Hogwarts and other not-technically-actual schools. If most the listed points above are true, congratulations one more college nerd is among us! To know for sure, you can also take the quiz to find out which type of student you are. Did we miss a giant red flag of college nerdom? Add your own nerd signals in the comments section below.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

How to Address Your Grandmother in French

How to Address Your Grandmother in French The familiar noun  mà ©mà ¨re, derived from the concept de mà ¨re (of mother) and pronounced may mehr,  has a bit of a split personality: It can be used in a very positive sense, and it can be used in quite a negative sense.   Positive Usage This seems to be the most common usage of the term mà ©mà ¨re in French.  To families with an aging or aged grandmother, it is a term of endearment for a loved one who deserves this long-awaited honorific. It is the name children give to their grandmother.  It is, in short, a term of love and respect. When used in direct address, there is no article, as in Je taime  mà ©mà ¨re! (I love you, grandma!)  And thats the way it is, for the most part, in French, French Canadian, and Cajun. In that positive context, it can mean, in English: granny, grandmother, grandma, old dear. Because the concept of a respected grandmother is so ingrained in French culture, it has many French synonyms:  mà ©mà © (the often used short form of  mà ©mà ¨re), grand-mà ¨re, grand-maman,  mamie (often used as mamie et papi (grandma and grandpa), bonne-maman, aà ¯eule (grandmother, forebear, ancestor).   Negative Usage Less frequently,  mà ©mà ¨re is derogatory when it  refers to someone who is not related to you.  It becomes quite offensive when you are not referring to someone specific. Mà ©mà ¨re can  refer negatively to an old stay-at-home woman or to a corpulent, lazy woman (insulting). It is very often associated with  vieille  in the pejorative  sense, as in vieille mà ©mà ¨re or  vieille mamie.   The negative meaning of  mà ©mà ¨re  can also be an old woman who is a gossip; the verb is mà ©mà ¨rer, which means to gossip or to be chatty. A French synonym  for the very pejorative sense of  mà ©mà ¨re could be une vieille dondon (an old fat person).  In Canada, a very negative synonym would be une personne bavarde et indiscrà ¨te; une commà ¨re (a nasty gossip who attacks the reputation of others);  commà ©rer is the verb to gossip). Examples and Expressions (Familiar) Faut pas pousser mà ©mà ¨re / mà ©mà © / grand-mà ¨re dans les orties. You shouldnt go too far. / You shouldnt be mean to people.On taime  mà ©mà ¨re. We love you, grandma.  Tu ne viens pas tasseoir avec ta  mà ©mà ¨re ?   Wont you sit a while with your granny?Au pire des cas, toi, mà ©mà ¨re et Pierre pouvez venir rester avec nous.   If worst comes to worst, you, grandma and Pierre can come stay with us.  Lautre jour, jai vu Anne avec des boucles doreilles de  mà ©mà ¨re. The other day, I saw Anne wearing grandmas earrings.(Pejorative) Viens, mà ©mà ¨re  ! Come on, (old) lady!(Pejorative) Je suis en retard cause que jai eu suivre un vieux mà ©mà ¨re sur lautoroute !   Im late because I had to follow an old woman on the highway!(Pejorative)  Cette  mà ©mà ¨re lui a tout racontà © ! This old lady told him everything!(Pejorative)  Chaque jour, ces vielles  dames vont au restaurant pour  mà ©mà ¨rer. Every day these ol d women go to the restaurant to gossip.