On being taken by surprise

Living with an autistic sibling can have its frustrations, but it can have some really cool moments too. Once in a while, my brother PJ takes us by surprise when he says something totally unexpected, showing you that he may actually be paying attention to the world after all.

This evening, while watching TV, a commercial for the new film Gran Torino came on. PJ took one look at Clint Eastwood and said, "Look, it's Dirty Harry." I was shocked. I'm not even sure if a non-autistic kid of his age could recognize Clint Eastwood. Since the kid talks about nothing but spiders (including Spiderman) all day long, it's cool to know that he likes other things too.

On a related note, PJ also loves Lifetime movies. He calls them "Good Guy Bad Guy movies." I don't know if he gets the plot, but he realizes that there's one guy who loves the girl and another guy who's out to get them all, and there's danger lurking around the corner at any time. Again, I don't know of many guys of any age, autistic or otherwise, who enjoy watching Lifetime movies!

So you don't have a ranty post for Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

On crap airlines

I'm too tired to formulate a full-out rant, so I will just say this: Delta sucks. I'm a bit concerned that they've merged with Northwest, because I kinda liked Northwest and am now worried that they will suck too.

RBOC: Bored Edition

• It's sooooo boring here now that everyone's left. I'm one of the last few people to leave. The Europeans tend to go home much later than the Americans and Aussies, as they are usually a short 1-hour plane hop home.
  
• I go home on Wednesday and return around the 13th or 14th of January, so I'll be spending roughly 4 weeks at home.
• I can't motivate myself to do work at the moment because I won't see my supervisor until April - he's on sabbatical this term. Maybe I'll do some on the plane, and definitely I'll do some at home, but I just can't get anything done now.
• I have, however, been doing some of the little administrative tasks that I've been meaning to do. I've printed out 150 pages of essential readings and am putting them in a binder. I made a new Junior Dean flyer since we have a new Junior Dean, so we need her name and photo on it.
• While putting together the flyer, I decided to pick a new photo for myself. You'd think it would be easy, considering all the photos I have of myself on Facebook and Flickr. But it actually took a while. I decided on the one that is my current Facebook profile pic in the end.
• All of the Junior Deans sent me photos of different sizes and resolutions. I got them all to be roughly the same size, but the newest JD's photo is going to be pretty close up. I hope she doesn't mind.
• Yesterday I was out and about when at about 3:30 pm I realized I was starving. I hadn't eaten anything so far except for a handful of cereal. I ended up at MacDonald's, primarily because it was the closest option. Sometimes when you're starving it seems like judgment takes a back seat.
• Another food-related bullet: I was in a cafe having a sandwich today when a guy asked if he could sit in the other seat at my tiny little table. I wonder if that's a European thing, because I don't think people in the US would ever sit at some random person's table. If I look in a cafe and see all the tables filled with at least one person, I think, "all the tables are filled," not "oh, let me sit with one of them."
• I have to do the stupid cleaning up tasks before I go too. I have to clean out my fridge, do laundry, and get generally sorted out.
• I also do weird stuff like rearrange my wallet. I take out any of the smallest change before I go, as the Bureaux de Change places do not take coins and I hate getting them all mixed up anyway.
  
• Dear God, I hope the airport's not crowded on Wednesday. I always try to fly in the middle of the week to avoid crowds.
• Only twice have the airports been really crowded when I've been there. Once it was because Virgin Atlantic's computers were down, followed by a really slow security line, and I ended up running to my gate. The second time was just before Easter, and they managed to move the massive security line pretty quickly.
• I think airports make sacrifices if it helps them move people through quicker. I wasn't charged for my overweight baggage the time Virgin's computers were down, for example. Also, if the lines are long for security at Heathrow, you don't usually have to take your shoes off.
• Actually, the security at Heathrow is better than the US in a lot of ways. Taking the shoes off isn't always required, and you don't have to take your laptop out of your bag. Perhaps this is because Heathrow has the largest international passenger traffic each year, and they need ways to move people through quickly.
• My return trip this time is through JFK (I haven't been there in 10 years), and my next one is through Philadelphia.
• I was delighted to hear that Northwest will be reintroducing its Bradley-Amsterdam flight, which was mega-convenient the last time I did it. If they bring it back, I'll buy in bulk.
  

WANT

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before:  I would like a job in academia, but not as a professor or researcher.  I'd even do high school if I didn't have to be a teacher.  If I couldn't go back to educational technology, I'd love to be a director or dean or chair of something - these days they have all sorts of programs and centers and groups that are designed to make sure students are happy and studying and not feeling homesick/stressed out/brokenhearted.  I totally think I could do that.

Anyway, while perusing the web this evening, I found a job I think would be perfect for me.  It's the Coordinator of a University Honors Program.  I have all kinds of experience that would make me qualified for the position.

The thing is, it starts this March.  I don't think I'd be ready to pack everything up and start so soon - I was kind of looking for next year.  Part of me wants to apply just for the hell of it, to see if I could be shortlisted.  

The other thing is, part of me wants to buckle down and finish this degree.  I feel like if I got a job, I'd have no motivation to finish because, well, I'd have a job.  

Arrrrggghhhh, the frustration.

On the gender issue you've probably never thought of before

I'm a big fan of a cappella groups.  My old uni had several groups (including an all-Jewish group and a Barbershop group), and some of them performed in competitions, which is why I've heard of a lot of different groups.  Actually, I first heard of Oxford's most famous a cappella group, Out of the Blue, while at my old uni - one of our groups was performing with them.  The various Oxford groups also perform in competitions, so I've been able to expand my fandom across the pond.

So anyway, I noticed something very weird recently.  If you watch all-male and all-female groups, you'll notice that they have very different approaches.  All-male groups often lean towards the funny side - they sing weird songs, have silly choreography, crack jokes between songs and give each other weird looks as they sing.  All-female groups, on the other hand, tend to aim for sex appeal.  The all-female group at my old uni used to sing "You're Makin' Me High" by Toni Braxton, which included some parts where they moaned seductively.  Whenever they had a performance, their flyers would make some mention of that song ("You know you love hearing us moan...") or would mention how hot they were.

I'm not saying that one is right or wrong, but I just found it interesting.  I wonder what it would be like if each group tried the other's tactics - could all-female groups be funny, or all-male groups be "seductive"?

This is something I've thought of before, but it came to mind again last night after I came back from the Welsh National Opera's performance of The Barber of Seville.  I tried looking up some of the songs on YouTube, when I found the famous overture performed by the King's Singers:

When you're done, click on their performance of "Short People" in the "Related Videos" menu.  These guys are fantastic!

Yet another celebrity sighting

Today's celebrity was Julie Walters, better known as Mrs. Weasley from the Harry Potter movies. (I believe she was also in Mamma Mia!) She also wrote a book this year, and was at Borders for a signing which coincided with the release of J.K. Rowling's Tales of Beetle the Bard.

This is my fifth celebrity sighting this term: first was Geri Haliwell, then Roger Moore, then Kevin Spacey, then Jorge Cham (creator of PhD Comics). Unfortunately, the lady who took the picture did a crap job, but at least I have the documentation.

Ummm, no.

My Spanish word of the day for yesterday was gaviota, which means seagull. Here was the sample sentence that they used:

A veces hay gaviotas en la playa, pero normalmente se esconden de los turistas.
Sometimes there are seagulls on the beach, but normally they hide from the tourists.

Yeah, right. Have you ever seen seagulls hide from tourists? No. They swarm all over you and steal your potato chips. Who makes up this stuff?