Apple Fritters!

Nidhal's soccer team won tonight, 7-2. Nidhal scored the 3rd goal. Yay, Nidhali!

Earlier in the evening, I got a new watch from Target, and I am quite pleased with it. I need it for my observation of an ESL class on Tuesday (which I am not looking forward to). It's been a long time since I've been able to check the time without reaching in my pocket for my cell phone.

There was a nice employee at Meijer today. She gave us 8 doughnuts for $2.89. Mmm, doughnuts.

I'm sick of reading. That's why I'm watching The Nanny.

Well Well WELL

ABC's Modern Family is stupid. I watched it today on the internet, and the only funny parts were the ones with the red-haird gay guy. Everything else was pretty much stupid. And the dad (the one with three kids) is ridiculously annoying. There was no story, no plot. I finished it feeling like I hadn't seen anything more than a commercial.

However, ABC's Flash Forward looks promising. I'm definitely going to watch it again next week. Very intriguing.

And then there is Grey's Anatomy. Too bad George dies, but it was expected. And too bad it really was George. I guess I'd give it an "average". Nothing wonderful, but it was definitely nice to see a new episode.

On Monday, Heroes wasn't overly interesting. The first season was the best and it's been going down hill from there.

I've been looking forward to the new TV season for a while now. Exciting! And this year we can actually watch it (we didn't have cable last year) and enjoy it (because our TV more than doubled in size).

As for my classes, they are going ok. It's a lot of reading, but I'm kind of caught up now. I don't have my Saturday class tomorrow, so that takes a lot of pressure off of me for this weekend. My syntax class is interesting, and my second language learning class is getting more interesting. The grammar class is about as interesting as can be expected. I don't really like the observation one (the Saturday class). And I'm quite nervous about observing an ESL class next Tuesday. But I only have the Saturday class four more times (...12 more hours). I can't wait to get it over with.

Nidhal is playing soccer on Sunday nights. He enjoys it because he loves soccer, but his team is not good. They've lost three times so far. The last game, they were up 2-0, but that didn't last. It ended 2-6.

And I guess that's all.

Let's Go, Let's Go!

If I have the documents open on my computer, it's like I'm actually reading them. Yes, I think that's accurate...

So I don't want to do my homework. It's just reading and reading and reading. The titles of the three articles I'm going to try to finish tonight are "Parts of Speech Systems", "The Discourse Basis for Lexical Categories in Universal Grammar", and "Constituency, Trees, and Rules". These come together for a total of 148 pages. And this is just for one class. And this is just part of the reading homework for this one class. And this is crazy.

And yet I still haven't really started reading. (Well, I've read about 17 pages.) Blah blah blah.

Go BLUE!

The Week In Review

The official initial assessment of my classes: not bad but a lot of work. Two professors are nice. One is kind of nice but I think it's a fake, superior nice. The classes all have a lot of reading. For one class, I have eight chapters to read by Tuesday. For another class, there is one chapter and about four articles. And for my syntax class there are five articles to read by Wednesday. And then there's the class that I had yesterday for three hours. There were seven articles for that one and there are seven articles for next Saturday, too. Fun fun. Hours upon hours upon hours of reading. This past week, I have been occilating between sheer excitement and utter dread.

My cousin's wedding was Saturday. We couldn't make it because of my stupid class, but we were able to go to the reception. That was surprisingly fun. Nidhal got to know my cousins on my dad's side a little better. AND Nidhal asked me to dance. Aww. Dan was generous enough to use his points to get a hotel room for us in Saginaw. The room was amazing. It was a suite with a separate bedroom and living room, two bathrooms, and two TVs. I only wish we could've had more time to enjoy it. Around 12:30, Nidhal decided he was hungry, so we ordered a Tuscan six cheese pizza from Papa John's. Deliciousness. And this morning, I swam with Anna for a while. She's cute. Now we're back in the apartment and I have a ton of homework to do.

Es war eine lange Nacht.

Classes haven't even started and I'm already doing homework? At least the subject interests me. My classes are Syntax Analysis, Observation and Analysis of ESL Programs, Theoretical Foundations of Second Language Pedagogy, and Pedagogical Grammar and Phonetics of ESL. The last three are in my department, the first one is linguistics. I didn't really like syntax in my undergrad studies... phonetics and phonology were always my favorite... but we'll see.

Nidhal is currently learning the lesson of procrastinating on his homework. It is 1:47am and his homework is due tomorrow afternoon, and he is maybe half done. But I am also suffering with him because I will not go to bed and leave him to struggle alone. I am here to help, for better or worse. But all this waiting around for him to finish has given me time to improve my Flags of the World Challenge score (on Facebook). I've gone up over 100,000 points since this afternoon. I would probably still be playing it except that it went nuts on me in the last round of my last game.

Ich wünschte, wir wären niemals aufgewacht.

My favorite pies are apple and peach. Pecan is yummy too, and I also like shoefly pie.

And I have a new favorite song. I've had it on my computer for a few years now and as I was listening to my iTunes this evening, it came on and I thought, 'hey, I really like this song'. Don't you love how that happens? It's called "Kopfüber in die Hölle", and despite the unpleasant name, it's quite a good song.

I've spent around $100 on my books so far, and I found out today that I have to shell out another $137 for two more books. And then there is another class that I haven't gotten any books for yet. Expensive, but I love textbooks. If I had money, I would buy books for other classes that I don't have because those wonderful textbooks look so interesting and enticing. I spent some time tonight just looking on the bookstore's website at the different books required for various classes. Nerdy? Yes, I think so.

Happy Labor Day...?

Ondskan

Yesterday, I watched a movie called Ondskan (Evil). It's a foreign film... Swedish, I think, and it's surprisingly good. I would definitely recommend it. Amazon.com has this descirption:
Based on the novel, Ondskan, by Swedish author Jan Guillou, Evil questions the very definition of the term by telling the story of Erik Ponti (Andreas Wilson), a high-schooler who confronts his violent past in order to overcome it. Directed by Mikael Håfström (Derailed), the film opens with Erik being expelled from high school for fighting, then being transferred to the militaristic academy, Stjärnsberg, as his last chance for graduation. Having been raised by a weak mother and an abusive stepfather, Erik's worldview is skewed by a sensitivity to injustice, so that when upper-classmen bully him and his best friend, Pierre Tanguy (Henrik Lundström), Erik is plagued by his desire to handle situations violently. Once Pierre teaches Erik about Gandhi, Erik quickly grasps the non-violent idea of mind over matter since he was forced to transcend physical pain as an abused child. However, when Erik does get his revenge on both his father and his schoolmates, his violence is justified. Evil sophisticatedly examines violence from the perspectives of its perpetrators and victims, showing how violence breeds violence. In learning how self-loathing begets violent behavior, protagonist Erik Ponti does much more than become a better person in the film. He becomes a living example of how an "evil" person can be multi-faceted, thus complicating an oversimplified concept of good versus evil.

Nidhal and I watched Not Without My Daughter today. Now we're in the middle of Without My Daughter, a documentary focusing on the father and his side of the story. He died about two weeks ago at the age of 70 without ever seeing his daughter again.

Now there are explosions going on somewhere outside my apartment. Fireworks? The communists attacking? Meh.

Angeber, Gib Noch Ein Bißchen An Für Mich

The gelato is very, very yummy. Delicious.

Nidhal got me flowers for our anniversary. :) Wonderful husband.

We ran errands today. First was Eastern to do something with my ID and buy a parking tag ($75). We then went to the Ypsi post office because a package was supposed to be there, but it wasn't. On the way to WCC, we drove through Eastern again and stopped at the Rec center to look around. And then we went to WCC to buy Nidhal's books. 5 books, $185. Ridiculous.