Re: [lace-chat] Re: Katrina devastaion
On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 10:52:38PM -0700, susan wrote: i'm not sure who mentioned this wether it was weronica or you that poland ( and i guess poland is communists. i'm not good at political studies and only remember what you have written on this website) made all the people in the city take nature walks and go berry picking to show them what they could eat for survival tactics. i thought that was a nice idea, and they should try to get the innner city school kids here when they are in grade school to go on field trips to learn those things. you never know if later in life it could save your life. Definitely wasn't me. Teaching city kids enough to actually be able to survive in the wild would take a long course, not a walk with berry picking. Of course getting them out of the city once in a while is good for other reasons - I just don't think it would do that much for survival. Also, Poland hasn't been communist since 1989. And Russia since 1991 or so? The only communist countries in the world now are I think China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam. Weronika -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: coffee and tea preferences
No tea, no coffee. Except tea sometimes when my stomach hurts (very strange - then I suddenly get cravings for strong tea without sugar, which I normally hate; and it does make the pain stop!). I tried coffee once. Arabic, incredibly strong in a tiny little cup. Arrgh. Good thing they gave me lots of sticky candy with it. When I was a kid, my mom said I'm a freak because I won't drink tea... Everyone else in my family does. I like water, milk, hot chocolate, and random soft drinks. Ah, and Thai ice tea, but I don't think that counts. Weronika -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 07:34:12PM -0400, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: Polish, OTOH, still happily uses dual number (if in very few instances) and group number, baffling foreigners who attempt to learn it... Which is why Polish'll never become the international language of communication :) Dual and group number, really? I can't think of any examples... Of course, the plethora of little do-dads - over the letters, under the letters - doesn't help either; one wonders how come both Latin and English managed to escape those altogehter :) Latin, by inventing their own alphabet; English, by just giving each word a randomly chosen Latin alphabet spelling in no way related to pronounciation... G Texting is a separate system of spelling on its own I wish I had enough brain cells left to follow the development of texting - it looks fascinating. But, when my son tried to give me an example (granted, texting is almost allien to him too, since he's 28 g), it left me totally baffled. All I'd want to learn how to text is: duh? What is texting? Weronika -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] fwd: It may save...
I guess the moral was don't open your car to a stranger for any reason... Which seems obvious, but I did find this particular story useful - I don't think I've ever thought of the possibility that the bad guy could act so nice and come up with such a smart trick. Weronika On Tue, Aug 23, 2005 at 08:31:39PM -0700, Bev Walker wrote: It was approximately 5:15 A.M. in Opelousas, La. I had stayed with a friend there and was on my way to work. I stopped at the Exxon/Blimpie Pie station to get gas. I got $10 gas and a Diet Coke. I took into the store two $5 bills and one $1 bill (just enough to get my stuff). so - what is the moral - be careful at 5:15 am, don't go to Opelousas LA, and if so avoid the Exxon/BP - buy Pepsi next time not Diet Coke... of course you can't be too careful, these forward-to-everyone stories clog the inboxes though... :( -- bye for now Bev in Sooke, BC (on Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada) Cdn. floral bobbins www.woodhavenbobbins.com To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] .......And flying things
I don't think you necessarily need to worry about self-inflicted pain... I used to do that a lot as a kid, and still don't think there was anything unhealthy about it. I just wanted to be tough and to develop my pain resistance - I wasn't being suicidal or self-hating or anything, and only used methods with non-permanent effects (nettles were a favorite). As for flying things, I have a childhood story about that too... We had some really old Christmas hard candy that we didn't want to eat, so me and my brother put in out on the windowsill (is that the right spelling?) and opened the window so the wasps could get to it. The wasps were really happy about it, and we ended up with *lots* of them crawling around our window for several days. We had a net on the window so they couldn't get into the house, but we'd put our hands under the net all the time and play with them, and they never stung us. To full of candy, probably g. Weronika On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:07:19AM -0700, susan wrote: i think you can be sure no one here will try that at home! it's good to know she wasn't completely insane. a mother would have to worry about a child if she liked inflicting pain on herself! -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: ......And flying things
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 10:17:16PM -0400, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: No wonder the two of us hit it off like a house on fire, despite a 34 years difference in our ages :) And I don't think it's something specifically Polish (as in dumb Polack), either... I remember being at camp (aged maybe 10 or 11), where a group of us decided to form an Indian tribe. As every child in Poland knew, Red Indians were noble and stoic, indifferent to pain, and feared nothing at all... So. In order to qualify for membership, one had to pass certain tests, which we devised ourselves. Some were simply skills - races, climbing trees (the fastest and the highest. I had an advantage there, being skinny; even the high limbs didn't bend under me g). But some amounted to self-inflicted pain - running over sharp objects, rubbing with nettles, hitting yourself with pine bough (needless part) till your hand bled and then swinging the hand till the blood *ran* - useful for blood oaths, where you were supposed to mix your blood with that of someone else's We were a bunch of very well-read young savages with great imaginations :) Wow!!! I wish we had that!! Most of the kids my age weren't that much into Indians, just me and one friend, so we'd go off by ourselves and spend the whole afternoon in tests involving nettles, cold water, and what not... We did all have lots of fights (organized for fun, not angry fights), which was fun too. And good job with the chief's wife part!! VBG It really is continuously amazing how well we fit together, Tamara. Weronika -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] I completely forgot to tell you all about my wedding!!
I just remembered that I don't think I've written on arachne about anything that's been going on in my life for the last few months... Which is quite a lot! I one week, middle of June, I graduated, got married, and moved to the Bay Area. Some of you may know I was actually already married for a year - the way that worked is that we quietly got legally married in the City Hall last year, for practical purposes, but this year we had a big ceremony and reception with guests and such. One of the reasons for that was to get graduation and the wedding in the same week so my parents could visit and see both, which they did. They've never been in the US before, since the trip from Poland is expensive, so it was nice that they could finally come. The wedding went very well, sometime soon I'll put info about in in my journal (http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika/, click on JOURNAL) - I'm still behind on that. But there are pictures (http://vole.stanford.edu/images/wedding/). It was all in a botanic garden, very pretty, and we designed the ceremony ourselves (neither of us is religious, and legally we were already married anyway, so we could do whatever we wanted). I did wear a dress, which is a rare thing... G I didn't manage to make any lace to wear for the wedding, but Tamara made me a beautiful Milanese bracelet! Pictures of that in my lace journal (same webpage, click on the Journal link under LACE). Thank you, Tamara!! Soon after that, me and Geoffrey moved into Stanford couples housing, so now I'm permanently in the Bay Area, can go to Cathy's Lace Museum classes every week, and all sorts of good things. I did not get into grad school, which I'm actually pretty happy about - now I get to relax and make lace for a few months, and I'll look for a job after the summer. Life is good. Weronika -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] French: was: [lace] Re: Query
English got its habit of French interjections from a little event in 1066 -- but where did Polish pick it up? Several centuries later... Around baroque, I think, maybe? My history is pretty bad, but I remember French was very fashionable for a while. Do you also have latin stock phrases? (e.g.: etc., i.e., q.v., Q.E.D., gustabis non disputandem est, habeus corpus, quid pro quo, carpe diem, . . . ) Yes, we do, although not as many as in English. We had very little contact with actual Romans, so these come from the Middle Ages, when Latin was the learned language. There is some German, too, unsurprisingly. And I'm sure there are lots of influences from other Slavic languages, but these are hard to pick out. Ah, and Italian, too, from when one of our kings married an Italian woman and she introduced things like cauliflower ;-) Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Whither US?
On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 11:30:13PM -0500, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: On Feb 3, 2005, at 1:01, Weronika Patena wrote: This is the first thing I've ever heard that I could seriously apply the adjective mind-boggling to... Really scary, too. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4225013.stm Yes, but only up to a point... It *is* scary, because those kids mouth off what they'd heard at home, which gives you an insight into what US (supposedly s much for liberty... All the while hating liberals g) *really is* - as bigoted as any other country. But you also need to adjust it for age group These are highschool teens. They've not been taught freedom of speech at home... Quite the opposite, they've been taught to keep their mouths closed and follow the party line. How many parents on this list, however liberal/progressive, have, never-ever, used the phrase: don't you dare speak to me like this! to a sulky child? The -accepted by necessity and excused by necessity - parental disregard for individuality is easily transfered to *other* authority, be it a priest or a president. ??? Since when do teenagers actually think this sort of parental behavior *is a good thing* and want more of it from the government in their adult lives?? You'd think it'd just make them even more against any authoritarian tendencies... And, of course, those kids may never get the chance to grow up into thinking individuals; the current administration does not encourage individual thinking any more than the Polish/USSR communist governments did... Fortunately, even under the communist government we ended up with a decent fraction of thinking people... Perhaps even more decent than usual, since it was so obvious that there was something wrong with the way the administration was doing things. Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Whither US?
On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 11:49:42PM -0500, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: What I have observed - myself, my friends, my son, my friends' children - is this: the parents and the kids can fight - tooth and nail - on every issue under the sun. But ask them a question of *judgement* that is outside their direct interest/knowledge - something I tend to term philosophy/politics (are men or women better drivers? Are Whites, Asians, Latinos, or Blacks the smartest segment of the population? Abortion? Gay marriage? Gun control? Freedom of speech? Etc, etc)... Any and all of those issues they have never really given any thought to, because the immediate reality (is Amy gonna invite me to her b-day party, and will Bobby be there? If so, what sould I wear other than makeup?) is more important... Short term is where it's at when you're a very young human being, just beginning to think :) So, faced with big issues, they're likely to spout back whatever they'd heard - either the latest or the most often repeated. And home is where they hear it :) If home, school, church and government (TV) all agree, that's splendid, since it requires no thinking at all, just regurgitation, adjusted for hopefully, this is what you want to hear. If the're a discrepancy, they chose the view they've heard from the least objectionable parent... I still find that unintuitive - my default response to most questions, if I didn't think about it, was to spout the *exact opposite* of whatever was most often repeated at home or in school... I still haven't managed to get rid of this attitude - I find myself having problems with completely harmless things (like a white wedding dress) just because that's how it's traditionally done. Reverse regurgitation doesn't require much thinking either... But I can believe that most teenagers choose the opposite route, if they don't have any basic world-view conflicts with their parents... I was thrown into adulthood prematurely, but even I was unable to - totally - escape this paradigm; until I was 16, I was still fine-tuning my Mother's point of view (discarded my father's at 12, the government's at 6 - at my Mother's instigation - and never thought the church knew what it was talking about, having gown up as an atheist) I was raised Catholic, but decided it makes no sense in early high school, which would indicate some thinking... Still had to go to religion classes until I turned 18, since my parents refused to sign the papers to let me not to. And my problems with the religion were mostly of the abortion, gay marriage, etc. sort, not of the church is boring and I don't see a point sort. Bush's restrictive system may, actually, have the same backlash result in the long run that the communist goverment's did; it's so obviously *wrong*, people will start objecting on principle, even if they don't *quite* know what they're objecting to... That seems very possible right now... Of course, we did know our history (and its bizarre turns), while Americans don't seem to care about past lessons... :( Their history doesn't seem to be nearly as painful, so it's probably harder to remember. Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Whither US?
This is the first thing I've ever heard that I could seriously apply the adjective mind-boggling to... Really scary, too. Weronika On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 12:30:37AM -0500, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: An interesting bit of news... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4225013.stm -- Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] German Amazon order translation - help!
Hi, I'm trying to buy a book on the German Amazon website, but I don't know German... Could someone who does help me? I'm getting this message: Wichtige Nachricht! Bei ihrer Bestellung ist ein kleines Problem aufgetreten (siehe unten). Dieser Artikel kann leider nicht an den gewunschten Ort versandt werden. Sie konnen entweder die Versandadresse andern oder den Artikel aus Ihrer Bestellung loschen, indem Sie seine Stuckzahl auf 0 setzen und dann den Aktualisierungsbutton unten anklicken. What does that mean?? Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] German Amazon purchase - need go-between
Hi, I'm trying to get a book from Amazon.de, and for some reason it refuses to ship to either my US address or my Polish address. I'm not sure why or what addresses it would ship to, but presumably German ones and maybe some other European countries? Since I can't do it and that's the only place to get the book (Russian Lace Making by Cook, which has been out of print for a while), could someone in Germany or maybe elsewhere in Europe let me use their address for Amazon and then mail the book to my US address when it arrives? I'll pay back for the shipping cost (I'm not sure what a good method of transfering small amounts of money between countries is - maybe PayPal?). Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] measuring a child's coat
On Sat, Dec 18, 2004 at 09:18:28PM -, Margery Allcock wrote: Weronika wrote: Can anyone explain why children always have to wear mittens and not real gloves?? Maybe it starts when a child is a baby - can you imagine a mother dressing a wriggly baby in tiny gloves with separate tiny fingers? Mittens do simplify the process. And the mother keeps on giving the child mittens until it's big enough to put its own gloves on or complain about the mittens? Just a guess ... That all makes sense. I was wearing mittens long after I complained about them, but that might've been because you couldn't buy child-sized gloves in Poland when I was a kid... Well, or just because my mom believed kids should wear mittens g. They do keep you warmer, except when you're a 9-year-old who really cares about making good snowballs and so you take them off all the time to play in the snow, like I did... g Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Lace and fairy tale
On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 09:06:52PM -0500, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: And, on the subject of a missing sleeve... Wasn't there a story - in the Brothers Grimm collection - about a girl who had to make 12 shirts for her brothers who'd been turned into ravens? I remember one with swans... And the girl had to make the shirts out of nettles at night at a graveyard. And there were additional gruesome effects, I think, but I don't remember. The fact that those used to be stories for children tells you something about how life must have been then... Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] measuring a child's coat
I never minded feeling like a child (I was the I never want to grow up type, and in fact still am to some extent), but I hated mittens too. Do really bad things to your manual ability. The string was mildly annoying, but not nearly as bad as the mittens themselves (plus, I did lose things a lot, so I realized it made sense). Can anyone explain why children always have to wear mittens and not real gloves?? Weronika On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 08:31:11AM +1100, Ruth Budge wrote: Dear Bev, Your question brought back memories! Let me say upfront that I understand the need for strings to connect mittens, especially for a young child, but as a young child, I *hated* having a string To keep my little hands warm in an English winter, I had a pair of fur mittens (my mother had fur gloves...and how I wished I had gloves too!), and I would walk along the street pretending my mittens were, in fact, grown-up gloves just like Mum's.But the biggest stumbling block to my imagination was that dratted string (in fact, a long piece of elastic, which allowed me to stretch my arms without too much trouble). It rubbed the back of my neck, it tangled round my arms in the coat sleeves, but, worst of all in my opinion, it spoilt the look of my mittens (because I could see where the elastic had been sewn onto the mitten) and made me feel like a child! Nothing worse for a 4 or 5 year old - to feel like a child!! Ruth Budge (Sydney, Australia) - Original Message - From: Bev Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 4:32 AM Subject: [lace-chat] measuring a child's coat Hi everyone, especially those within reach of a child's jacket I need to know how long to make the 'string' to connect a pair of mittens I've knitted for a 2 yr-old. The pattern directions helpfully tell me to make the cord 'the desired length' - ok...I don't know the kid's wingspan, and I would like to present the mittens + string 'complete' - if someone with a winter garment for a 2 to 4 yr. old could please measure the distance from cuff to cuff along the shoulder line, I would be grateful. It would be better to make it a bit too long, than too short. Too, too long would be cumbersome. TIA for any help! -- bye for now Bev in Sooke, BC (on Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada) Cdn. floral bobbins and New Christmas Bobbin www.woodhavenbobbins.com To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] measuring a child's coat
That makes sense... But what age are we talking about here? I was still wearing mittens in 1st-3rd grades, and I find it hard to imagine that children who can write and do math can't put on gloves... Weronika On Sat, Dec 18, 2004 at 01:30:59PM +1100, Ruth Budge wrote: Because it's actually very hard (and I speak as a mother of three here!) to ease a small child's fingers into gloves! Young children don't seem to have the manual dexterity to fit each finger in each hole, or even the mental capability to envisage which finger goes into which holeso you end up with a child who's managed to put the thumb in the thumb-hole OK, but who has then managed to insert the second finger into the third hole, and the third and fourth fingers into the fourth hole, and who have a finger left over, with nowhere to go - or some similar mess!!! Ruth Budge (Sydney, Australia) - Original Message - From: Weronika Patena [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ruth Budge [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 1:19 PM Subject: Re: [lace-chat] measuring a child's coat I never minded feeling like a child (I was the I never want to grow up type, and in fact still am to some extent), but I hated mittens too. Do really bad things to your manual ability. The string was mildly annoying, but not nearly as bad as the mittens themselves (plus, I did lose things a lot, so I realized it made sense). Can anyone explain why children always have to wear mittens and not real gloves?? Weronika On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 08:31:11AM +1100, Ruth Budge wrote: Dear Bev, Your question brought back memories! Let me say upfront that I understand the need for strings to connect mittens, especially for a young child, but as a young child, I *hated* having a string To keep my little hands warm in an English winter, I had a pair of fur mittens (my mother had fur gloves...and how I wished I had gloves too!), and I would walk along the street pretending my mittens were, in fact, grown-up gloves just like Mum's.But the biggest stumbling block to my imagination was that dratted string (in fact, a long piece of elastic, which allowed me to stretch my arms without too much trouble). It rubbed the back of my neck, it tangled round my arms in the coat sleeves, but, worst of all in my opinion, it spoilt the look of my mittens (because I could see where the elastic had been sewn onto the mitten) and made me feel like a child! Nothing worse for a 4 or 5 year old - to feel like a child!! Ruth Budge (Sydney, Australia) - Original Message - From: Bev Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 4:32 AM Subject: [lace-chat] measuring a child's coat Hi everyone, especially those within reach of a child's jacket I need to know how long to make the 'string' to connect a pair of mittens I've knitted for a 2 yr-old. The pattern directions helpfully tell me to make the cord 'the desired length' - ok...I don't know the kid's wingspan, and I would like to present the mittens + string 'complete' - if someone with a winter garment for a 2 to 4 yr. old could please measure the distance from cuff to cuff along the shoulder line, I would be grateful. It would be better to make it a bit too long, than too short. Too, too long would be cumbersome. TIA for any help! -- bye for now Bev in Sooke, BC (on Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada) Cdn. floral bobbins and New Christmas Bobbin www.woodhavenbobbins.com To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Thanksgiving (was Christmas of old)
Thanksgiving is not a holiday I grew up with, so I've only ever paid scant attention to it - no more than I *had to* (like going to the bank and PO a day before or forget it till Friday following). Yeah... Maybe next year I'll finally remember to organize some food before Thanksgiving instead of finding out all the restaurants are closed and eating bread... In Poland of my childhood and teens, we had something like harvest festival (dozynki - gathering of last strands of grain), but we all thought it was something contrived by the Communist government seeking to promote the rule of workers and peasants Really? I've always thought it was older than the communist government... We still had them when I was a kid (later we moved from a village to a city, so I don't know if villages continued to have them). BTW, someone sent me some info on Polish Christmas customs, which said they differed in different parts of the country. They sure did, but the website never mentioned the one I grew up with - that the gifts were brought by the First Star of 24th. At least one side of my family had that one too. Really, we had a combination: On I think Dec 6th, which is St. Nicholas Day in Poland, we got presents from our immediate family from St. Nicholas, and then for Christmas we all visited our grandparents and got presents from our extended families from the Star. The Christmas Eve dinner started when the kids saw the first star (really annoying when it's cloudy), and we got to open presents after dinner (according to my friends you do in the next morning in the US - is that right?). It really is sort of strange that all the fun of Christmas was actually on the day before, and then on actual Christmas Day we just ate leftovers and had to go to church G. A subtle reminder that the same star announced the gift to mankind of the baby Jesus (if one's beliefs go that way). Nevertheless, the gifts were dropped off under the tree, not under a stable trough... :) Is that a custom anywhere?? Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Fw: The LITTLE Things
All these lists really make me wonder how many people weren't actually supposed to be in the Twin Towers at the time but were there and died because of similar little things... Weronika On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 10:59:22AM -0800, Lorri Ferguson wrote: I don't know how true any of these statements are but it does make one think. Lorri After Sept. 11th, one company invited the remaining members of other companies who had been decimated by the attack on the Twin Towers to share their available office space. At a morning meeting, the head of security told stories of why these people were alive. and, all the stories were just: L I T T L E things which include the following: As you might know, the head of the company got in late that day because his son started kindergarten. Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts. One woman was late because her alarm clock didn't go off in time. One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident.! One of them missed his bus. One spilled food on her! clothes and had to take time to change. One's car wouldn't start. One went back to answer the telephone. One had a child that dawdled and didn't get ready as soon as he should have. One couldn't get a taxi. The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today. Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone ... all the little things that annoy me. I think to myself, this is exactly where God wants me to be at this very moment. Next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow getting dressed, you can't seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light, don't get mad or frustrated; God is at work watching over you. May God continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose. Pass this on to someone else, if you'd like. There is NO LUCK attached. If you delete this, it's okay: God's Love Is Not Dependent On E-Mail. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Black Squirrels
I know Stanford has both black and ground squirrels, and they both seem to be doing fine. The ground squirrels are much more numerous - in fact on average there's at least one in sight wherever you are on campus. I'm not sure about brown tree squirrels though. At Caltech we have lots of brown tree squirrels (I think that's what they are, anyway), and I think a few black squirrels, but again the brown ones are much more numerous. So as far as I know black squirrels don't drive the other ones out. Weronika On Sun, Oct 24, 2004 at 09:21:05AM -0400, Webwalker wrote: I live in NE Ohio -- about 60 miles in from both the N and E borders. About 20 years ago, a community of black squirrels were living about 20 miles north of here--and were prevalent. No one I knew had ever seen black squirrels before. Now there are black squirrels where I live--both black and brown. Do any of you have black squirrels, and if so, do you know if they drive out the other squirrels? Susan Webster Canton, Ohio To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] celebrations
We have some exciting news. DD1 became engaged to her boyfriend last night. Congratulations! He came and requested DH's permission a couple of days ago. We were really honoured that he would do that in these times. What did DD1 think about it? I must say, if Geoffrey did something like that, and then asked me to marry him, he sure wouldn't get a yes. He has been lay-bying the ring for 6 months. I can't wait to see it. What's lay-bying? Weronika -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] :-) I'm Older 'n Dirt
And I, being only 21, can still tell very similar things about my childhood in Poland! We definitely ate at home, all the time. Or in the school cafeteria. I was picky, so I often ended up sitting there for an hour or two not eating my food before they let me get up. We lived in a flat. Only one family on our floor had a phone, so we all used theirs - even better than a party line, huh? g. My grandparents did have a party line phone - I think it was actually for the whole village. Also, you didn't dial at all, you just lifted the speaker part and told the phone person who you wanted to talk to. Also, there was a little handle on the side of the phone, which you had to turn to make it work - I don't remember whether you had to do it all the time or just at the beginning, but I remember it being an important part of the process g. Once, my father and his friend decided to get a TV *and* a video casette player. They couldn't afford to get both, so they both rotated between our houses every month. The TV was, of course, very small and black-and-white, although as a child I swore I saw colors on it, and when we finally got a color TV much later, I was very disappointed, because the colors were all wrong g. It was hard to get basic food products. I remember once standing in line for rice. The line went out of the store, down the stairs, and about the length of the block. Me and mom switched places so that one of us would stand in the line and the other could go sit down for a while, since it took hours. The guy right before me in the line bought the last two bags of rice. And once, when Dad came back home on a break in his mandatory army training, he brought home ORANGES! We had lots of power outages and similar stuff. Sometimes all at once. Once, in the middle of winter, the power and the gas (i.e. the stuff that worked your stove) went out all at once. And since power was needed to pump water up to the flat, no water either. For about a week. Me and my dad had to go to the well every day to get water. I was probably about 10 years old, the buckets were heavy, so I always spilled some and it froze on my clothing before we got home. Being a kid, I actually thought it was a lot of fun. I called it The Ice Age g. So, apparently, I'm also Older 'n Dirt! And I bet if I told those stories to Polish kids 8 or 10 years younger, they'd have just as hard a time believing it... Weronika On Sat, Aug 28, 2004 at 06:18:38PM +0100, Jean Nathan wrote: This was sent to DH. Change the currency and some of the words, and you could be in the UK apart from the revolving charge card. My parents belonged to various shop's clubs - paid in a bit each week until there was enough money on the card to pay for a pair of shoes or whatever the shop sold. I am Older 'n Dirt!! -- Weronika Patena Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Civics/Citizen education
I lived in Poland up to the end of high school. We did have citizenship education, but nobody took it seriously - that was the class we used to play games under the table or do homework for other classes. It was pretty boring, too. I'm not sure how true that really is, but it seems to me that in Poland there still isn't much concept of citizenship, because our goverments have been our enemies for so long. Most people I know, my age at least, don't regard the law as something very important (it's practically good to follow it sometimes, because bad things may happen if you get caught, but it often seems to have no particular ethical value). I think part of the reason (or maybe it's the effect...) for that is that we have lots of laws that aren't enforced - high school kids get drunk on a regular basis, bus ticket-checkers take bribes, etc. Here in the US I haven't developed much sense of citizenship yet (makes sense, given how I'm not a citizen g), but I might given time - I intend to stay, and I like a lot of things about the country. One thing that seems to me strange in terms of citizenship is how the voting system is set up so that in most states voting is pointless, since everyone knows what most people in the state will vote for anyway. The two-party system is sort of strange too. We don't have to take any citizenship education at Caltech (most people do take law or at least economics, but I'm trying to stick to psychology). Weronika On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 08:57:53PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am taking part in some classes and salons on the philosopher-citizen as a decision maker and it came up that citizenship is a concept in flux: that it has different meanings in other states or countries and that it was taught so very differently in the past. I would love to hear from all of you, particularly those in different states and countries (I'm in California) about what citizenship means to you and what citizenship education you received in school at all or various levels. (It would then help to know ages.) For instance, I have heard but don't know if it is true or how it would be enforced, that it is illegal to not vote in Australia. Thanks, Sue Ellen To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Civics/Citizen education
It is illegal not to vote in Australian elections, if your name is on the electoral role and is not crossed off at the election then you get fined. Someone tried to publicise some way of making a stand against the compulsory voting without the possibility of getting fined - they got fined for doing that. That's amazing... You can understand why they make it compulsory if you could see the ballot paper for the Senate (Upper house) it seems to get larger every year, last time I think it was about 3ft by 1 ft. The paper is divided into 2 sections you can put one cross in the upper section which is basically voting for a party. Or you put numbers 1 - 10 in the lower section which has the names of each candidate in the order of your preference. It seems like that would just make people vote randomly, since they didn't want to do it in the first place and it's so complicated... Maybe they should try to make it simpler instead of forcing people to do it. In the UK where I originally hail from voting is not compulsory - I think I only ever missed one local election. Citizenship is not taught at schools, as such, depends I suppose on what you mean by citizenship. Part of education, partly by school and mainly by parents is what it means to be a good citizen - I suppose I talking morality and ethics. I'm not sure how much that's related. It seems perfectly possible to be an ethical person and an anarchist... Then again, maybe that just shows my personal idea of citizenship g. But I really don't see countries as very important - both the people you interact with and people in general seem to be more important groups to be ethical towards. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] RE: civics/citizenship
I know that my kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance each day at school - they're going into 3rd grade and 1st grade. They both had to learn the Pledge in preschool, to recite at their Pre-K graduation. I'm not sure that it makes you a better citizen, but it does make you aware of your responsibilities as a citizen. Or make you significantly more annoyed with your country, as it would probably do with me. I hate reciting things, even if they make sense. I don't think you have to have proof of Citizenship to be a good Citizen - to me it's a 2 part thing. The Official Citizenship (ie passports/papers, etc), but it's the other part - what comes from within, and what you contribute to society in terms of teaching and obeying the laws of the society you live in, and your good work in the community - even if it's a couple of hours a month in your Kids' school or being a driver or companion to an elderly person or whatever. But that seems like it's just being a good person, not necessarily a good citizen. My kids' school has a programme for the first graders, that voluntary, for kids to go to a local retirement home/assisted living centre, and read and talk to some of the elderly residents. I signed my son up for it, as I thought it was a worthwhile thing to do - his GGrandmother is in a similar place, and she's lucky as we visit her regularly (I take her books on tape weekly), but I explained that there are many who aren't as fortunate as their family don't live nearby, or are all dead or just don't care. It wasn't his most favourite activity, but it was a good lesson in being part of the community, and giving back. I definitely agree that's a good thing. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Eyrope in a wheelchair
Where do they proprose to wash? Presumably in public toilets - good luck to them - I wouldn't. They'll need good street maps to show the location of them. In Poole (and I think this is a case in a lot of towns), public toilets have been closed because of the filthy state they get in, drug abuse in them and vandalism. Now I see why in Poland you generally have to pay for public toilets and there are actual people there who take your money, and hopefully prevent you from doing anything unpleasant. Larger stores have toilets for public use, but I don't think they'd be too happy to have vagrants using them to have a strip wash. Well, Claire needs special facilities to do anything of this sort anyway, so there probably won't be very much washing involved in the sleeping in parks period. She's cutting her hair very short. Presumably they intend to eat more than just bread - I don't know how long it takes to develop scurvy if you don't get enough vitamin C. I'm sure they'll get hungry for stuff they're not getting before anything particularly bad happens. Plus, they'll probably have more money than they thought, anyway. I'm sure there a lot of things that they haven't thought of. Of course. The fun of traveling. g Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Re: Europe in a wheelchair
Well, she'll have a brother with her most of the time. And I'm not sure how dangerous sleeping in random places really is - I've done quite a lot in Warsaw, which is not supposed to be a very safe city, and I've never had any trouble. Plus, the stories are so much better g Weronika On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 06:08:41PM +1000, Helene Gannac wrote: You've got a friend who's in a wheelchair and wants to sleep in parks in Europe I suggests she read a few European newspapers articles before she goes!! The incidence of thefts, rape, accidents in Europe for ordinary travellers is bad enough without planning to sleep in parks! Good grief! I thought I was a seasoned traveller, but I wouldn't have been game even when I was in my twenties!! My instinct would be to say Stay home until you have enough money to sleep in hostels at least! Good luck to her if she goes. She must be game, but I think there is game and there is foolhardy... To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Re: swivel windows
On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 05:59:02PM +1000, Helene Gannac wrote: Weronika wrote: I'm not sure how Tamara's swivel windows work, but the ones we have at home in Poland can open normally (i.e. like doors), and if you twist the handle up they'll open at the top and stay attached at the bottom, but only open a little, so you can leave them like that to get some air but not be cold. Since all of the opening happens in one direction, mosquito screens should work with those. Yes, that's how my mother's work too, but then, you can't put Venetian blinds inside to keep the sun out, and in Australia, we certainly need them! Hmm. I'm again not sure what Venetian blinds are, but in our house there were things called zaluzje (Tamara?), which kept the sun out. I looked at some venetian blind images, and it looks like they're the same thing, but maybe normally they're mounted on the wall above the window? Ours were mounted directly on the window, so they just moved with it when it opened (unfortunately no longer kept the sun out then). Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Mosquitoes
Louise Hume [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: only the male mosquitoes sing, to attract the females. So... if you hear a mosquito singing, it is a male and will not bite. I have read this, too, but apparently the mosquitoes in Michigan haven't. I don't know if male and female mosquitoes have a different pitch, but I can definitely hear the ones that bite me. Then again, perhaps this is a species thing, with some mosquiteo species quiet and other ones buzzy. I've also heard the female-biting thing, but I've definitely had some buzzing ones bite me. I think maybe only females bite in the large mosquito species and all of them bite in the small one? That is assuming those are different species at all. Louise in Central Virginia, where we have had so much rain in the past month that the mozzies rise up in clouds when one walks across the lawn. Ouch. Living in the desert has advantages. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Insects meet their fate
Hmm. I don't have a flyswatter, but I use paper or such for flies, or just open the window and try to get them to leave. I deal with mosquitoes the same way you do. Especially effective when they're trying to get at you in bed at night and you don't want to get up and turn the light on. I'm not sure a flyswatter would work on a hornet. Anyway, with most insects it's enough to open the window and direct them to it, since they're banging against the glass and trying to get out anyway. Flies, bees and such. Mosquitoes try to get in, and I guess fruit flies and such just stay in, but no point in trying to kill single fruit flies, just have to take out the garbage (or, in the case of my apartment-mate, perhaps wash the dishes). What's a flour moth? If it's very small and reasonably slow, clapping hands is my instinctive reaction too. And then there are people like my boyfriend, who show off by catching flies alive g Weronika Out of curiosity... When I see a fly or a bee/wasp/yellow jacket/hornet in the house, I reach for the fly swatter. When I see a mosquito, I wait for it to come into my parlour (ie alight somewhere on me) and then slap it flat. When I see a flour moth, I chase all over the kitchen after it, trying to smash it between my clapping hands. Most unsatisfactory method, but one which seems instinctive... Do other people do it the same way? --- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Lives of the cat
All I can remember is that a cat always falls on 4 legs, ie lands safely. In extensio, that would mean that a cat never dies at all g and a piece of buttered bread always lands butter side down. So if you strap a piece of bread, buttered side up, on a cat's back, and drop the cat from a height, then both the cat's feet and the buttered side of the bread will want to land first and hey presto, perpetual motion! Or maybe they disappear into some alternative universe where you can have down be in two directions at once... I guess it could happen in our universe too, if you had two planets colliding or something. Well then, if we just attach a tracking device to the cat, we have a new method of detecting colliding planets and other strange things! Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] :-)) Interesting exercise
Hmm. Narwhal? My spelling is probably wrong, but I'm pretty sure it starts with an N. Weronika On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 08:39:06AM +0100, Jean Nathan wrote: I didn't get any further than thinking of a letter - I just couldn't think of an animal that began with the letter N. I could only come up with a nant, a nalligator, a naarvark and a nelephant. Jean in Poole To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: This is for Real - humour
Weronika, The culture confuses ME, and I was born and raised here by very non-international parents! I'm not sure whether I should be happy that my problem isn't abnormal, or unhappy because that means it'll probably never go away... g Except for The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, Master and Commander (because we liked the books) and Minority Report, I don't think we've seen any movies in the last five years. I find myself watching lots of movies now, because for some reason my friends want to see them. Like Spiderman and such. In Poland I used to only go see movies I knew were going to be really good, but here people seem to do it much more often, college students at least. Well, I can tell you you're not missing anything g Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Catching up with my reading of lace-chat digests
If anyone wants to see the house that we are going to live in for the next phase of our lives, you can go to : http://oruvilla.ee/eng/index.html DH is wearing a blue shirt in the 3rd photo on the History page. A few things that appeal to us about living in Estonia, are the simpler lifestyle, more exercise less driving, healthier food less candy junk food, no mortgage to pay off!! We think that we are very lucky to have this adventure ahead of us. The boys don't like the idea of moving but they'll adjust in time. That sounds great! I like the US a lot, but I do wish I could live is some more foreign country - the US is pretty similar to Poland other than details (like much more money g), and I bet Estonia is more different despite being much closer. How old are your boys? I remember when I was in primary school my dad got an offer to go to an African village with his family for 3 years to teach English, and I thought it was the greatest idea ever! Unfortunately we didn't go. I hope you enjoy the new phase of your life! Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] friend going to Europe
Hi, everyone! A friend of mine at Caltech is planning to go to Europe over the summer, but doesn't know where she should go and where she can afford going. Since you live all over the world and probably even go to Europe for lace events, I thought you might know. So she's planning to travel around Europe for I think two months, most of the time with her brother. They don't have much money, so are planning to sleep in parks and eat bread. The current plan is to fly to London, then go to Paris, and then sort of move in the direction of Central and Eastern Europe using trains: some German cities, Vienna, also Amsterdam, and then Krakow (I told her about that), Budapest, Prague, maybe Sofija, and hopefully down to Istambul, and then somehow get back to London (probably by plane) and fly back to the US. Or the other way around. But this is very tentative. So what cities do you think she should see, what sort of cheap transportation is there, is it safe to sleep in parks, how hard is it to find people who speak English? Also, she's on a wheelchair - what's the situation with curbcuts (I think that's the word - the way sidewalks ramp down to level with the street on corners in the US), accessible buses and trains, etc.? By the way, the idea of traveling around Europe sounds great. I should do it sometime g Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace] Re: [lace-chat] The culture shock
Everybody gets confused over whether 12:00 is ante meridian or post meridian. That's a relief - it's not just me being a confused foreigner... g Sensible people say that the time one minute after 11:59 AM is twelve noon, and the time one minute after 11:59 PM is twelve midnight. Sounds reasonable. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] windows
Tamara, obviously, you don't have many mosquitoes or flies in your part of the country!! You can't put mosquito screens up with swivel windows. I know the ones you mean, my parents have them in Provence, and I love them, but if I had them in Melbourne, we'd be invaded by flies during the day, and mosquitoes after sunset!! I'm not sure how Tamara's swivel windows work, but the ones we have at home in Poland can open normally (i.e. like doors), and if you twist the handle up they'll open at the top and stay attached at the bottom, but only open a little, so you can leave them like that to get some air but not be cold. Since all of the opening happens in one direction, mosquito screens should work with those. I have no problem with mosquito screens as such, I just wish they opened or had an easy way to take them out and put them back in (I took the ones in my apartment out once and now I can't fit them back in!) Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] The culture shock
Ouch. Ah well, I'm sure I'll live, and Alaska is just the greatest place on Earth anyway (and that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it's where my boyfriend comes from g). Weronika On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 11:15:12PM +0200, dominique wrote: Hi weronika` i'm ready to bet there will be in the summer and the further north they are the greedier they are too G... some mosquitoes managed to sting through our trousers and socks in a wood near Paris and they were huge .. argh! I remember seeing a film about the artic and there was that herd of reindeers running through vast meadows trying to escape swarm of mosquitoes .. they didn't even stop for a bite ... still feeling like going to Alaska ??? ... just kidding ... dominique from Paris, france .. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Weronika's Matlab
(Also, my Matlab program just returned out of memory, arrgh) Hi, Weronika - Programming's like hitting your head on a brick wall - lovely when it stops! G g. Actually programming isn't that bad, I just wish I had someone to debug it for me! Plus, I spent most of last summer dissecting fruit fly larvae - programming really isn't that bad. At least you can be pretty sure there's nothing disgusting in your coffee g. And a programmer is a machine for turning coffee into code - is that still true for the newer generations of programmers? I'm the rare non-coffee-addicted Techer, but in general, yes. Even worse for the electronics people, it seems. Two years ago during finals a friend of mine locked himself in the electronics building basement for I think 5 days, without sleep or food, in order to finish his class project. BFN, What does that mean? Weronika (Caltech, Pasadena, California) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] The culture shock
In Michigan (very recently wet, rainy Michigan), if you didn't have window screens, you'd be eaten alive at night by mosquitoes. Even with the screens, sometimes the mosquito-whining from outside the screens drives me crazy, and if one of the little devils has sneaked into the house, into the bedroom, it has to die before I can sleep. Does the US really have that many more flying, stinging insects than elsewhere in the world? Given how big the US is, it's quite probable that some part of it has more of them than at least anywhere in Europe. I wouldn't be sure about Africa and South America... But there are pretty much no insects here in California, and we still have the screens. Well, there are ants, but the windows don't keep them out at all... We have some mosquitoes in Poland, especially the lake region - one summer I lived in a little wooden summer house right next to a lake for a few weeks, and the mosquitoes really were everywhere. We closed all the windows and doors, but once someone left the little bathroom window open a little, and the next time someone opened the door, a huge *cloud* of mosquitoes flew out and tried to kill us g. I'm going to Alaska in two weeks - I wonder if there'll be mosquitoes there... Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: This is for Real - humour
Hi everyone! I'm back from visiting my boyfriend for the long weekend, and I think I'll sit down and answer all of my accumulated Arachne email now. It's a great thing to do while waiting for my Matlab program to finish running and tell me what silly programming error I've made this time... True, there doesn't seem to be, although I always thought that was just because I've never dealt with sex in Polish. Possibly a vicious circle: there's no ordinary language to talk about it, because nobody talks about it? I was assuming Polish people having sex with other Polish people (which I never ended up doing) do talk about it, although I might be wrong g. (of course the idea of using condoms wasn't even mentioned, since the Caltholic Church doesn't allow them, for no reason that I ever managed to understand). The first and foremost reason for having sex is procreation, not pleasure; pleasure is icing on the cake, and not strictly necessary. By using a condom, you turn that principle upside down. But then why is contraception by charting your cycle and only having sex during non-fertile days acceptable? Then, too, the Catholic Church is ruled by men, and it's men who object the most to using condoms, so, who knows what the real reason is :) I think the assumption is that the men who rule the Catholic Church don't have sex, with or without condoms... g I don't know anything about Ann Landers either. Too late now; she'd dead and burried. But she used to have a syndicated advice column, which used to be published in half the newspapers in the US. The other half of the newspapers published the advice column wrtitten by her twin sister (Amy van Buren? The Washington Post had Ann Landers, so her name is more familiar to me). I used to love Ann Landers when I first came here; her replies to all sorts of questions (some totally bizarre) was so no-nonsense and straightforward... Reading the column gave me many a chuckle (as well as some insight into what American society at large was like). Sounds interesting... I need insight into American society. Especially since Caltech has very little in common with the rest of it, it seems. In the US I get in lots of conversations I'm completely lost in... Tamara, does this ever go away? No, not really. Ouch. Plus, my asking a question about things which are natural to every born-and-bread American but obscure and esoteric to me, is likely to make someone's day, providing the explanation, so, why not? Yep, that works well. Weronika (In Caltech, Pasadena, USA, once again unbearably hot from my Polish point of view) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: This is for Real - humour
Weronika, the problem of getting lost in conversation doesn't only occur when moving to a country with a different language! I'm sure it doesn't. I'm fine with most of the language, it's just the culture that confuses me. Especially when people my age start talking about music and movies and such... Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Language and culture (was: This is for Real - humour)
And on the matter of cultural differences... Quite apart from the fact that an American window is still not a proper window to me (the sash-horror g), What's wrong with the windows? There's plenty wrong with the windows around where I live, but I didn't know it was a common American thing g 31.5 yrs down the American road, I still have *vital* problems with the American *calendar*... :) The week *starts* with a *Sunday*?!?!? Oh yes. I can't get used to that. And isn't Sunday part of the *weekend*?? Sunday is the day of rest, *after* a week of labour; that's how God set things up, and even the communists knew it :) Although I remember somewhere in church hearing that Sunday is the first day of the week - even the Catholics don't seem to be very consistent on that one. And, please, don't tell me that its because Sunday is the Sabbath... Christians have moved the day of rest to Sunday *long* ago, and, linguistically, neither Saturday nor Sunday has anything to indicate the Sabbath in English. In Polish and in Russian, there's at least a vestige of it (sobota and subota, respectively), and it's the only foreign day's name, with no roots within the language. But it is, definitely, *Sunday*, which is a no work day in both languages, and Monday is the day after the no work day. And, Tuesday is the second day, just in case anyone missed the point on Monday, with Wednesday being mid day, and Thursday and Friday being the fourth and the fifth, respectively... :) It is a very reasonable naming system. *Every time* I look at a calendar to find out what day of a week a particular date is, I look in the wrong place, because the arrangement has been moved by one... Oh yes. I get the time confused as well - in Poland we sometimes say 4 when we mean 16 or 4pm, but we pretty much always write 16, so when I see pm hours in emails, I often miss the pm and show up 12 hours early... Weronika (confused in Caltech, Pasadena, USA) (Also, my Matlab program just returned out of memory, arrgh) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Arrangement of dates
And the arrangement of dates? Don't even get me started...Where's the logic of having month, day, year sequence??? Only the U.S. does that, the rest of us do day, month, year. I have a strong suspicion -- Weronika? -- that Poland is now aping the custom (along with many others). Not that I know of. When I was growing up, the dates were not only written in the day, month, year sequence (the logical progression from the smallest to the largest unit), but the month was written in Roman numerals, just to make everything perfectly clear. So, today, would have been: 28.V.04. This was still the usual version when I left, although the all-Arabic one was also used, especially on official forms that look like they might be computer-read or just have fields specified as DDMMYY. Sometime after I left, the month began to be written in Arabic numerals. I expect, with the school week being reduced from 6 days to 5, there was't enough time to teach kids Roman numerals g When was the school week 6 days?? We had Roman numerals in primary school though. In fact from what I can tell from my younger cousins, we're still not aping the American school system - there's more and more stuff to learn and it starts earlier and earlier. One of my cousins had astronomy in 3rd or 4th grade! Works both ways... :) The commonly used (in Poland) word for email is emalia. Which, in Polish, *means* enamel, but sounds somewhat similiar to the original English. My mother sometimes says emalia, but most people my age just say email like in English. Same for many other English words, especially the computer-related ones. I wonder whether they'll ever evolve Polish versions, or just stay like this. I've seen a GREAT list of Polish synonyms proposed by various people, but I doubt it'll catch on, which is a pity - you can do amazing things with the Polish language if you try. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] :) Fwd: Californians
1.Your co-worker has 8 body piercings and none are visible. Ah yes. The tongue piercings just keep surprising me. 2.You take a bus and you are shocked at two people carrying on a conversation in English. Yep. And I don't have a car... 4.You can't remember.is pot illegal? No, no... Who cares? 8.A really great parking space can totally move you to tears. Sometimes I'm really happy I don't have a car. 9.A low speed police pursuit will interrupt ANY TV broadcast. And there are helicopter pursuits over your town at least once a week. 10. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S. Really? 14. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into S M, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag. And judging by the parties, *everyone* is really bisexual. 16. It's barely sprinkling rain, and there's a report on every news station: STORM WATCH. Oh yes. And also, even if it is barely sprinkling, the puddles are so large you could drown... 18. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cells or pagers. Actually, I was surprised - fewer of my American friends than my Polish friends have cell phones. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] The culture shock
I promise -- cross my heart -- never to do this again, Ah yes. Please complain to me freely if I start writing about something uninteresting or otherwise unsuitable. I am, according to my friends, clueless g. In fact, I could just send this whole email privately to Tamara, but since I already put this disclaimer on top and I want people to tell me what I should avoid writing, I might as well send it - don't read on if you're not interested in small things foreigners can find annoying/surprising in the US. I wonder whether they'll ever evolve Polish versions, or just stay like this. I wonder myself... We now have a mikrofalowka (microwave) but, can we zap or nuke our food in it? Not as far as I've been able to determine... :) I've never had one in Poland - I suspect not. Verbs are harder to assimilate. which is a pity - you can do amazing things with the Polish language if you try. That you can... But, usually, it takes up much more space; just look at the number of pages in any Dickens volume, in the original and then in Polish :) Yep. Another amusing difference - we have much longer sentences. Many of my professors complain about the length of my sentences (once the question said: answer in three sentences or less, and I wrote about half a page...). Tee hee... So, on my 2nd day in Lexington, I go to a Hallmark store, to buy a box of stationery, to write my parents more than I could put in the telegram (anyone remember *those*? g)... I pick a cheap-o box for $2, go to the cashier and she says: that'll be $2.08 (our tax was 4% then; it's 4.5 now)... Say *what*??? Some very small things can be confusing too - American cashiers always say how much money you just gave them, which is a good idea, but I often think they're trying to tell me I didn't give them enough money or something... in the US there aren't any small grocery stores There *are*, in some towns; as a matter of fact my son lives within a 5 minute walk of one (Palo Alto, CA) and uses it all the time. But it's still not like in Poland - in Poland I could find a grocery store pretty much anywhere if I walked around a bit, which was good if I wanted some cookies or whatever. Doesn't work like this here. But they *are* more expensive than the stores which shift merchandise in great bulk, so you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is to shop there on a regular basis. They're mostly more expensive in Poland too, but a lot easier to use as far as I'm concerned. Although Polish farmer's markets are still cheaper than anything else. *And* you have to be willing to walk -- there and back (loaded with the groceries). Which, not all Americans are (including some who run, daily, for exercise g). Go to a mall parking lot, and observe: some people will spend more time circling around, looking for a near spot, than it would take them to park far away and walk. Oh yes. I always wonder whether all those people I see running in the morning (quite a lot of them, which is good) drive everywhere during the day... Don't know what's wrong with *yours*, but... To me, windows ought to have two -- large and unbroken (to allow for maximum light and for a dead air cushion, both in summer and in winter) -- glass panes. And they should open *out*, on hinges, like doors (so-called casement windows). Or, if you go for a more modern version, on a swivel, which allows you to open the top in, and the bottom out, and vice-versa. The Danish windows are a miracle and a delight, in that, you can open them *either* on the mid-swivel, *or* at the side... g All the windows, around where I'm at, are *sash* windows (you move half of it up or down, and it -- *always* -- gets stuck). And each half of the window is divided into 8 cutsey little panes... A practice which made a lot of sense 600 yrs ago, when glassmaking wasn't all that well developed and big sheets of it were an impossibility but, *now*??? The ones here are sash windows too, which is mildly annoying, or very annoying if they get stuck, which mine definitely do. Also, they have only one sheet of glass and no rubber stuff on the sides, so they're nowhere nearly as soundproof as the ones we had in Poland, which is very annoying here. Also, the ants can get through, and it's really easy to open the windows from the outside without breaking anything. Ah, and they all have those insect nets, which isn't a bad idea, but the nets don't open or come out! I like to be able to lean out my windows... At least they aren't divided into small pieces. But then windows in California generally aren't very big to start with, it seems. I was really hoping I could get real windows when I bought an apartment/house... DH says that, should a neighbour's kid lob a ball into one's window, it's easier to replace a small pane than a large one. True. But, in my 31 years here, we had *one* case of a kid (with a
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Arrangement of dates
On Sat, May 29, 2004 at 09:19:06AM -0700, Lorri Ferguson wrote: I have a strong suspicion -- Weronika? -- that Poland is now aping the custom (along with many others). I've never heard the month/day/year version before coming to the US, so no. Sometime after I left, the month began to be written in Arabic numerals. I expect, with the school week being reduced from 6 days to 5, there was't enough time to teach kids Roman numerals g I've seen both Roman and Arabic, often Arabic for forms and such because it's probably easier for computer reading, but mostly Roman for normal usage. Tamara, How was it arranged when spoken? We say 'May 28, 2004', would you have said '28th of May, 2004? Yes, that's how we normally say it in Poland. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: evacuation
I spent a summer in Israel (mostly Haifa) a few years ago, and there was a big bomb scare - it was an organized scientific workshop sort of thing, and for the last week they didn't let us off campus at all! I got the habit of crossing the street whenever I see anything without an obvious owner. Nonetheless, Israel is definitely the most beautiful and interesting country I've ever been to - I hope I can visit it again at some point. Weronika On Thu, May 27, 2004 at 11:15:54AM +0300, Avital Pinnick wrote: Living in Jerusalem, I've been around real bombs a couple times, usually when they've been detected and detonated. I haven't been in the vicinity during a real bomb attack, although I think Miriam was around when the refrigerator bomb went off in Zion Square in the 70s. We had a suicide bomber on our bus line once (I wasn't on the bus at the time). Fortunately, he was caught before he blew himself up. Avital British citizens I have, in the past, been evacuated from the university, theatre, bus stations etc because of bomb threats. While bomb scares tended to be empty threats (the real ones came with no warning) all had to be treated as potentially dangerous. Patricia in Wales To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: This is for Real - humour
!
This is really horrible! I always thought this sort of thing was over
earlier than the 60's... Tamara, was it like this in Poland too?
Nope, and I doubt it had been like this in Poland even in 1860's... :)
I thought so. Good...
And the post WWII communist rule only strengthened the trend:
women had to work, same as men did (the salaries were calulated on the
basis of *two* people supporting one family), so were less likely to
go, willingly, through the pretense of you are more important than I
am.
Yep. Even though I think communism is completely wrong as a political
system, after coming to the US I realized that it did do a couple of
good things for Poland.
I'd estimate that 98% of all the sex
education I received (school, friends, books, parents) was couched
either in strictly biology textbook terms, or those from the gutter;
the first were too boring, the second too embarassing. But there was
nothing in between, no every day language to bridge the gap, until I
learnt enough English...
True, there doesn't seem to be, although I always thought that was just
because I've never dealt with sex in Polish.
As for sexual education, there was an additional element in my
childhood: in I think 6th or 7th grade we had one hour of class with a
Catholic sexual educator. It started and ended with a prayer, and
mostly consisted of giving reasons for never having sex outside of
marriage - including great ideas like if you have sex with different
men, you will become allergic to sperm and won't be able to have sex
(of course the idea of using condoms wasn't even mentioned, since the
Caltholic Church doesn't allow them, for no reason that I ever managed
to understand).
I also have some doubts about the text having been written by a woman;
sounds to me more like something concocted by a man in a wet dream.
I don't know. If no women believed in this sort of thing enough to
write it, they wouldn't do it either, and it seems that at least a
decent percentage of them did, or else the social order wouldn't work
the way it did... I doubt you could force half the human population to
act inferior if they didn't believe it was right.
As early as The Forsyth Saga, when Soames insisted on his
marital rights, the book manipulated one's sympathies towards his wife,
who resisted...
I don't know what the Forsyth Saga is... When was it out?
I'd love to be able to lay my hands on a big book of early Ann Landers
responses; by the time I got here ('73) she was very level-headed and,
while she preached compromise, she preached it to *both* sexes
(something I entirely agree with)
I don't know anything about Ann Landers either. In the US I get in lots
of conversations I'm completely lost in... Tamara, does this ever go
away?
Weronika
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Re: [lace-chat] This is for Real - humour
! This is really horrible! I always thought this sort of thing was over earlier than the 60's... Tamara, was it like this in Poland too? Weronika On Wed, May 26, 2004 at 02:23:46AM +1000, David Collyer wrote: GOOD GRIEF ! 'Lay back and think of England' This is an actual extract from a sex education school text book for girls, printed in the early 60's in the UK, written by a woman. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] :)? Fwd: fundraising
That is really scary... Although, when I think of it, it might be the result of the law that where political parties get their money from must be public (I think there's a law like that, although I'm not sure, maybe I'm getting my countries confused again g). In which case it seems like pretty annoying misuse of initially reasonable information. Weronika On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 11:57:05PM -0400, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: Got this from DS, and am forwarding to the chat-at-large (rather than through the subterrenean route), because, while somewhat political, it's unbiased, just reporting facts. And, I suspect, it's also fascinating (if I could only learn how to navigate it properly and milk it for all the info it contains g). It is also an interesting addendum to the -- periodically resurfacing on chat -- issue of privacy (and how much of it we have. Or not. As the case seems to be g). Having your lace postings bandied on Google may be unpleasant and, personally, I'm not overfond of the yearly Visa summary of my spending, but this is something else. To people who still have illusions of being able to keep themselves to themselves, it's *beyond* a bit scary... I had no idea that a track of the *checks* I write is a matter of public record; just as well I never could afford (or justify g) big political donations :) From: D.D. Dunno if you've seen this site: http://www.fundrace.org/ The money maps are pretty cool [...] The site also lets you look up what people have contributed, by address or by name. See who's contributed how much to whom in your neighborhood and bake them a cake / toilet paper their yard! (Yes, it's a bit scary.) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Freeway Lace Guild meeting
Hi, Last Saturday (i.e. the one before yesterday - I'm never sure what last and next mean in English) I went to the Freeway Lace Guild Meeting. I had lots of fun - thanks for everyone who was there and is on arachne! I started a bookmark, and spent exactly all of my money on a new pillow, tools and colored thread - fortunately one merciful sould gave all my new stuff a ride so that I didn't have to bike home for half an hour with two pillows hanging from my back g. I got to see other people's work, pretty bobbins and such - also I now know what tatting looks like. And one lady did the most amazing thing with her lace pillow - she needed the bobbins for something else, so she unwound the thread from *38 pairs* of bobbins in the middle of making a lace piece with them, and just left all of the thread there by itself. It looked very scary... I was too busy running around and trying to look at everything at once to do much work, but I got started on a bookmark and learned lots of new styles of spiders. Meeting other lacemakers was great! I'm really looking forward to meeting other lacemakers in Alaska and Sunnyvale in the summer. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] The peculiar languages
That's very interesting. Even though it doesn't use spaces, Japanese does have a pretty clear concept of a word - or maybe they just made it up to teach to foreigners ;-) Don't know about that... But I do remember that my students (I taught ESL to some Japanese girls, for a year, about 10 yrs ago or so) used to have those funny dictionaries... When I tried to understand how the dictionary was arranged, they told me it was according to the *number of strokes* drawn in a particular ?hieroglyph? used for a word (or phrase)... I found that method even more intimidating than Roget's dictionary of synonyms/antonyms before it went over to alphabetical listings... As bad, indeed, as the yellow pages in the phone-book or a 'putert search (how on earth do you *begin* to guess???) The hieroglyphs are called kanji, and what they look like doesn't have any clear relation to how they're pronounced (plus they tend to have several different pronounciations depending on context), so if you see a kanji you don't know and want to know what it means or how it's pronounced, you have to find it in a dictionary only based on what it looks like, i.e. number of strokes, component shapes, etc. I only know about 100 kanji, so fortunately I don't have to use a kanji dictionary yet. There are also dictionaries that go the other way and are more similar to ours - you find the word's pronounciation (written in the syllabic alphabet, so the dictionary is arranged alphabetically like the English ones) and the dictionary tells you the meaning, corresponding kanji etc. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Hi! One question was about the history of punctuation and she said it came from musical notation and was first used in Greek plays. They had marks to tell the actor when to take a deep breath before a long speech (or a medium or small breath). Interesting. I never wondered about punctuation, but when you think about it it does seem non-obvious, other than the period. Also the book is being adapted into Swedish, Japanese and and other languages. Can't be translated for obvious reasons. So, wise lace chatters, please tell me where is the punctuation in Japanese? I don't recall seeing any punctuation but maybe I've only see the calligraphy and not much..Wait, I just got out my Japanese Battenberg lace book and I see commas, parantheses and periods (like little os). Once again I missed something right in front of my eyes G. As far as I know (currently taking the third term of a Japanese course, so I may well be missing things), these are the only punctuation marks in Japanese, and the periods normally look like little o's. Periods work pretty much like in English and Polish. The commas are a little vague (either that or I'm just vague on how to use them). Ah, right, there are quotation marks too sometimes, which look like little corners: |_ before and _ | after. The most confusing thing about Japanese is that there generally aren't any spaces, other than in books for little children. I just recently got to the no-space stage... Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: :) Fwd: proof that girls are evil (fwd)
My objection is to the first x, which *should have been* a +... I quote from the site: First we state that girls that girls require time *and* money. Girls=Time x Money. Last I heard, and meant plus, not times. So, time and money should have been written out as Time + Money. The rest of the proof falls flat on its face because, as Robin Panza said (she's not on chat, sent the message privately): Actually in math and is times and or is plus. The quote 'Money is the root of all evil' is incorrect, if that helps. The actual quote says that 'the love of money is the root of all evil' I don't know, I always heard the version without love. Weronika Patena (a student at Cal Tech) wrote: Not refutable, other than the absolute value comment someone already added on the same page. Which, by the way, means that either girls = evil or girls = -evil, so it's not that bad g And Liz Beecher wrote: Being a mathematician - I am sorry to say that the mathematical equations are absolutely correct and that it does appear that I am evil. Seems to me, if you include my own objection to a wrong sign being used, it's: Language Arts: 3, Mathematics: 0. g Robin, who spotted the mistake in translation (from English to math language), is a scientist herself, but of the generation somewhat closer to me in age than either Liz or Weronika. I am a little disturbed that the young ones are so careless of context, so willing to focus narrowly... Math will do that to you g. Robin throws in another interesting equation (philosophical, this time g): [...] anything we value requires time and money, so everything of value is evil. Of course g Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: :) Fwd: proof that girls are evil (fwd)
Actually in math and is times and or is plus. In my school days (40+ yrs ago), and was +, times was x, and or, being very indefinite, belonged not to mathemathics, but to philosophy (and to history, and to daily budgeting g) Ah, right, I didn't go to school in the US, so I missed this one. But in math fields like logic and is multiplication and or is addition, because 1 or 0 is 1 just like 1+0, and both 1 and 0 and 1*0 are 0. I don't know, I always heard the version without love. Very few of us read The right stuff at all, much less read it carefully these days; we're in too much of a hurry... I myself knew the original quote, but didn't think to question the one supplied, as that's the one in common circulation I must say the original version makes much more sense than the common one. There's nothing wrong with money, really. You can buy bobbins with it g. Weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] :) Fwd: proof that girls are evil (fwd)
Not refutable, other than the absolute value comment someone already added on the same page. Which, by the way, means that either girls = evil or girls = -evil, so it's not that bad g Weronika On Tue, May 18, 2004 at 12:30:25AM -0400, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: Math's not my strong point, so I'm can't refute this myself, much as I would like to; hope someone else will be able to do it for me. All *I* can do is object to the + (plus) looking like an x (times)... From: D.D. http://www.anvari.org/fun/Gender/Proof_that_Girls_are_Evil.html --- Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) Healthy US through The No-CARB Diet: no C-heney, no A-shcroft, no R-umsfeld, no B-ush. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] how my roommate thinks lace is made...
Hi! I just had the greatest conversation with my roommate. She finally got curious enough about what I was doing to come and ask, so I told her I was making lace. And she said: Ah, so that's how you make lace! We've all heard this one, I'm sure. But then she said: I always thought you just took a big wool cloth and some machine punched holes in it I wonder what that would look like g. And I can't figure out why her first choice for a lace material was wool... Also, I'm just finishing a Torchon doily (very small) which I sort-of designed. I'm very proud of myself, although designing in Torchon is just about the easiest thing ever... g. Plus, I forgot to pull all but one of the starting loops, so the finishing is pretty nasty. And I'm going to my very first Pasadena lace group meeting on Saturday! Weronika (Caltech, Pasadena, California) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Nancy Drew books
When I was a kid in Poland, we didn't have TV for a long time, and even now only 3 channels, so I never watched much - read insane lots of books instead (I had to hide from my mom because it was bad for my eyes). I really hope my children will read... Actually I probably won't even want a TV in the house (I'm doing just fine without one now) - that should help g. As for memorization - again, that's almost all that happens in Polish schools. *Lots* of memorization. You're right that some is good for you (the idea of not being able to multiply in your head is just horrible), but believe me, too much is really bad. For one, you forget everything immediately in order to make space for the new stuff, and you forget the important stuff along with the unimportant - I had to memorize too many dates in my history classes and now I have no idea when the French revolution was... Also, it just makes you want to never have to learn anything again, and that attitude is really a big problem later. That said, some memorization really is good. I'm very scared of sending my kids (if and when I have some) to American high schools. Weronika On Wed, May 05, 2004 at 07:58:39AM -0700, Lorri Ferguson wrote: I read the Trixie Belden series. Owned a few and got the rest from the library. It is too bad our kids and grand-kids have television so handy as reading was much better for the mind. I also think that the memorization we and our parents (I'm 61) were required to do was 'exercise for our mind' just like PE (physical education) was good for our muscles. Memorization 'strengthened' the brain. Too bad they don't even require kids today to memorize the multiplication tables, just use a calculator. I still enjoy reading when I have the time. And Mother is reading again. She lives in an assisted living apartment and the bookmobile comes to them. She has almost given up knitting, says 'she is lazy' but I think it is the arthritis. Lorri To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Thank You Debbie Mouzon!!!
More beginner's questions: what are Secret Pals? Weronika On Mon, Apr 19, 2004 at 09:15:25AM -0700, Shirlee Hill wrote: Debbie Mouzon was my Secret Pal! Thank you, Debbie, for being such a great pal! Looks like we have quite a few things in common other than lacing. I, too, am 50 years old, married (28 years instead of 29, though), have two children! My husband I used to live in Florida both of our children were born there (St. Petersburg). How lucky for you to have lived in England for 6 years! John (DH) I are planning a trip there this fall ... our first visit! Guess what I'll be brining home in my extra suitcase? Lol! Thank you so much for the lovely spangles, the beautiful bobbin, of course the bit of beachfront property : ) Do contact me via email if you'd like let's keep in touch! Thank you again for being such a great Secret Pal! Shirlee To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
