I had a weird dream. My dad and I were at a book store and suddenly he says “Hey, there’s a Robert Heinlein book over there.” (Heinlein writes scifi.) I don’t see anything so we go closer. I don’t see anything still. He picks up a thin paperback that was behind some other books and shows me the picture of a decorated shield on the book’s spine from which he recognised it was Heinlein (there isn’t one on the real books, but this is a dream, remember). I said to that “It’s the same as if I recognised David Duchovny from an eyebrow.”
Hmmm… bummer, I don’t.

@ 20:16
Finished XIII. Pretty cool it was. Maybe I’ll start it over with a more difficult level.

Kat and I have been pen friends for 9 years now Whee

I should be doing my bachelor’s thesis… but naaaaaaah. I’ve been doing the more interesting translation research. I’m a bad bad girl! Too bad the translation thing I’m doing can’t be a major…
And when I’m done with this, I’m going to play some XIII

@ 23:49
I just got a mail from my aunt. I had written her to tell that I’m working most of this summer so I can’t be there to look after the kids; one of them is my godson (5 yrs old) so I usually go there to help when the “official” baby-sitter (or daycare at a family close by) is having her own vacation and my aunt and her husband are not on their holiday. Anyway, my aunt wrote me that she had told my godson that I’d be coming over this summer and he’s waiting for me, so she asked if I could come in August for a “normal visit”. Awww… my heart melts. My godson wants me to visit him.

Been cursing: my TV

Updates: To celebrate (see prev.), I decided to join the Dogs & Puppies fanlisting

My sister keeps chatting online so I can’t play XIII because my computer is the one connected to the Internet. I’m not sure if my computer can handle both the internet and the game. I dare not try. *sob* AND, I’m getting tired! Dammit!

@ 22:45
I finally got to play XIII. It’s great, especially because XIII is the character you play with and Duchovny’s done that voice. I thought XIII would be the bad guy #1 who you’d have to fight with in the end Better this way – much better

And no, he’s not the only reason I want to play that game.

It’s all over!
Yes! It’s over! I wrote the four pages on “Problems in dividing natural language generation into separate stages”!
Yes! I finished all the 5 assignments with all the 11 files (perl scripts, XSLT style sheets)!
Yes! Now I can finally play XIII!
Yes! On Monday I gotta work my butt off again!

Updates: I finished reading the Talisman today, next I’m starting “Talisman II” i.e. the Black House.

I’m always shocked (not in a bad way) to see a professor use smileys… In an email I received there was a <=O]
hehee…

Today I stayed at the department because I was supposed to go see a prof about my training/job but we (the studies coordinator and I) didn’t get to see him. Oh well, good thing I stayed doing assignments though, cause I finally got my natural language generation pipeline working properly (well, I haven’t made the pipeline which is Java, but the XSL transformations). I had done something very odd in the beginning when I was just learning the stuff and it messed up the whole system. Now there’s only a few “polishings” to do and I can send all the assignments/files to the professor (for whom I’m doing the course, it’s sort of “extra curriculum” but has to do with my bachelor’s thesis). I do, however, have an essay to write by May 1st, but that I’ll do on Friday. Today I have to check what I’ve done wrong in an assignment cause it was so easy (probably haven’t done anything wrong, mind you)

@ 23:27
Updates: Joined the Talisman Fanlisting

I have an exam tomorrow about “changing English”, we were told to bring our notes and papers with us. I’ll just read through the papers quickly tonight and I’m set. Better catch some shuteye, too…

Whee, can’t wait for tomorrow morning and the bus ride. I’m going to start reading Black House (that’s my “backpack book”). Geek? Me?

XIII arrived today but I can’t play it until this Sunday (at the earliest) because I have SO much to do so I can’t waste time playing (as wonderful as it would be… *deep sigh* Duchovny…).

But, a bit happier thoughts: I finished the assignment for Semantic Web today (due today, too, but anyway) quite effortlessly. Also managed to do the assignment (due Thu) for context-free parsing methods today, so I dared to allow myself meet Grandma tomorrow after text analysis exam. We’ll go eat and chat.

Today I’ve been reading for that exam (booooriiiing) and cursing my tv/video. It keeps turning off (and the cassette comes out) every few minutes. I’ll be rich (yeah, right) after this summer so maybe I could buy a new tv + video, perhaps digital tv because I’m going to have to anyway someday (by 2007, was it?). I can’t live without a TV and a properly working video (thank gawd the X-Files isn’t running…).

This morning I went to the library, because I needed to get a book with normal 30-days loan period. There’s a website where you can reserve a book and get it brought to the library of your choice. It’s a good service, but when I tried to reserve the Finnish version of Everything’s Eventual (Maantievirus matkalla pohjoiseen) it kept reserving a book with a 14-day loan. Not enough. Plus, if you call a library to reserve a book, you need to go there to get it. Only the staff could reserve a specific book and get it brought to a specific library. So I went to the library and told the lady there that I need a normal loan-period book. She reserved one for me and I went happily to the department to do an assignment because I needed a graphical program — Protégé — for it (couldn’t do it today so I have to plan it well for Monday and go to the dept. well before a lecture), and I just thought I’d check if I can see the reservation in my info. The librarian had reserved a book with a 14-day loan period AND it wasn’t even available yet! The due date was May 5th! I knew the book could’ve been found in many libraries around the neighbouring cities waiting in the shelf. So what’s the logic?! I was angry and annoyed (and not to mention stressed with all the stuff that’s piling up) and cancelled the reservation and accidentally also cancelled the English version of Carrie that was on its way (and probably at the library here already…) so I had to re-reserve it and now I have to wait for THAT to arrive. At least I have books to study while I wait.
Then I checked if Maantievirus was in any library I could get to and luckily it was. A kind student I know and often chat with told me how to get to the library and off I went. When I got to the library it took me a while to find the right – horror – section and there was a man flipping through King books. He finally stepped aside a little to read a book more carefully so I got to browse through the shelves. I realized Maantievirus wasn’t there so I tried to see if the man had it. I asked him if it was the book and it was! He asked if I needed it and I said that I did and had come all the way just for that book (stupid me I didn’t say I needed it for a translation studies research). He said I could have it and he can get some other book. I couldn’t believe it and I was really really really happy. I hope the man found something to read. Good taste he has, at least.
So, now here it is, beside me. Maantievirus matkalla pohjoiseen translated by Ilkka Rekiaro. And I can keep it for a whole month. I couldn’t be happier.

Last night I struggled with an assignment until I was feeling pretty hopeless, but today during the break on Context-free Parsing Methods I got it (head-driven phrase structure grammar on ProFIT) working. Hurraah!

Yesterday I got a topic for my translation report. When I went to the lecture (“translation difficulties caused by culture”), I only knew I wanted to do it on Stephen King’s books (surprise surprise) and I had had in mind something about “Americanisms” or realia in a more academic term. So, I’m comparing the first translation (Carrie, 1976 in Finnish) and the newest translation (Everything’s Eventual, 2003 in Finnish) and studying how they differ in the way the translators have decided to translate things that are of the American society (history, culture…) and that might be unfamiliar to Finnish people.
Pretty neat
At the moment (literally), I’m listing words in Everything’s Eventual, cause I have it English Carrie is arriving to our library any day now, my sister was kind to borrow the Finnish Carrie today for me, but I have to list the English words first. And the Finnish Everything’s Eventual is a tricky one. I have to go to the library and ask the staff to order it for me cause I need a specific book – a month’s time to keep it, not 14 days. It’s so new that some of the books are still “quick loans”.

I have *never ever ever* read so grammatically incorrect text before (and there’s no good excuse, I mean that it’s not e.g. written by a 6-year-old or something like that). Pheew. Now, I won’t name any names… But I just had to get that out of my system
*continues reading*
Maybe it was written in the middle of the night, tired. There’s gotta be something…

Oh, by the way, I’m doing *another* layout for all things me. Shame on me I wish I was a web designer (not that I have any competence)