The $%*! frustration thread

[ZombieBucky]

Ask ZachiKarky what the best cure for insomnia is. She'll tell you the same thing I will, because she took my advice lol.

Melatonin. Go grab a bottle of 3mg capsules of Melatonin, take one, and lay down. You will be asleep soon.

Melatonin is the natural chemical that your body produces to make you feel sleepy, and it's available as a supplement. I love it and swear by it.

hell yeah man. that stuff is the best. coupled with a glass of milk... im in dreamland in just three seconds sometimes.
right now im frustrated because firefox is acting up again. because of this, it took it like ten minutes to start up, so now im a bit late in everything. oh well. good news is... i dont know if its legal and should be mentioned here lol

[Sajainta]

Yeahhhhh...after tonight I need that melatonin ASAP.  Day 2 of no sleep!    /passes out in class

Speaking of classes...  (this is just as funny as it is frustrating).

I'm taking a French course.  It's an accelerated course that lets students finish up what would otherwise be two years of French in one year, to fulfill the foreign language requirement.  The problem?  We have to do in-class speaking assignments.  You know, pair up with the person you sit by and ask a question.  I sit next to this guy, so I'm stuck with him as a partner.  So yesterday I asked him "Do you like chemistry class better or physics better?"  The answer was simple, or it should have been.

His response::  "Ummm...I like chemistry because physics is too repetitive and boring."

The problem?

Half of it was in English.  Only he was saying it in a French accent.

So it went like "Ummm [French] I like chemistry [/French] becuzz la physics est too re-pet-te-tay.  Re-pe-te-tee.  Et est tres bor-ee.  Bor-ay.  Bor-ay-on."

And I know this kid was serious.  I was trying so hard not to laugh.  Look kid, just because you can say "repetitive" and "boring" in a French accent DOES NOT MAKE IT FRENCH!  He sounds like Harle!  Except that she actually uses French words!

I mean I can do that too.  I caan talk en zis terrrrible Frrrrrrench accsont all day, mon petit chou-chou.

[Lord J Esq]

He was speaking English in a French accent for French class? Oh, stars, that's awesome!

[Uboa]

Yeah, that sounds classic.  I would have had trouble keeping a straight face.  That he was serious is amazing.  We would try to get away with sticking "o" on the end of every word in my high school Spanish classes when we didn't want to really speak Spanish in class, but we were well aware that we were being lazy smart-asses.

[Sajainta]

I KNOW.  I could hardly believe it.  And he was talking in such a pompous manner too.  Like "look at my advanced French communication".  I just hope there's an oral exam at some point.  Hell...I hope I can watch him butcher said oral exam.  That would make my entire year.

[Thought]

And he was talking in such a pompous manner too.

Wait, isn't that just the standard French accent?

Sorry, I couldn't resist such an easy dig on the language. To be fair, I've been guilty of similar sins myself. Back when I was learning both German and Greek at the same time, I'd occasionally use a Greek word in my German class, or vice versa. Though if I was being tested and couldn't think of the real German word, taking the English version and trying to Germangle it was a fairly good way to guess (not so much for Greek).

[Sajainta]

Wait, isn't that just the standard French accent?

Haha!  Truth!

I speak two languages (not including French, because my French isn't that great) and I mix them up in speech often.  Sometimes words in the other language will come out when I think I'm speaking in English.  And I'll have no idea until the people I'm with will tell me that what I'm saying is definitely not English.  XD

Were you learning modern Greek or ancient Greek?

[alfadorredux]

Screws. Specifically, the itty-bitty-teeny-weeny little screws used to secure computer cases
in place, and the ittier-bittier-teenier-weenier little screws used to secure hard drives,
etc. in place.

Being perilously close to overrunning the capacity of my old 200GB IDE hard drive, I bought an
inexpensive second-hand 250GB SATA drive to supplement it with. I knew I had all the necessary
cables, so it didn't particularly worry me that all I was getting was the drive itself in an
anti-static bag.

I'd forgotten about the screws.

Fast-forward to 7:00PM and me staring into the guts of a computer case. The DVD drive had
been secured in place with five screws, so I appropriated one from it, but that still
left me several screws short.

I have three desktop computers, so "Ah-ha!" thought I. "I'll just borrow a screw or two
from each of the others to fill out my total. I hardly ever use that middle-aged Pentium
anyway..."

And that was when the real fun began.

A word to the wise: do not attempt to open three mid-tower cases simultaneously when you're
working in an amount of desk space that barely has enough room for them. Especially do
not set the screws that normally hold the casing of the oldest comp in place on an unstable
surface and then lean on it. (I did eventually manage to retrieve all four of the little
bastards from the floor, but there was a point at which I thought I would never see two of
them again.) I got my screws, all right, but it took me two hours to perform what
should have been a simple operation.

Miraculously, the new hard drive survived all the fun and games and is being correctly
detected by the BIOS and by fdisk, and I'll be partitioning it in the morning. Oof.

[Thought]

Were you learning modern Greek or ancient Greek?

Ancient Greek, so I can't really speak it as that wasn't a focus of the class. Course, I can't really speak German either and that was a modern language (I tend to be much better with the written portion of foreign languages).

One of the great things about learning a foreign language is that it makes learning yet other languages even easier. If I hadn't taken German and Greek first, I would be having a horrible time learning Latin.

[Truthordeal]

Bah, don't remind me. German is going to be my one problematic class this semester. Not because its hard; because I learned everything he's teaching us three years ago in high school German I. And my high school German teacher was far more demanding. One would think that this is an advantage, but its just so boring.

And I can't get bumped up to German 201 either, because the way the guy paces it makes it so that I'll be missing a couple of important things if I were to go up two levels. Foreign language is not something you can teach yourself either, unless you happen to be living in a place that speaks that language.

[Sajainta]

Yeah...language learning can be really tedious.  The grammar.  Ugh, the grammar...  -_-  Just think of your German class as a GPA-booster.

[Sajainta]

I'd love to learn Latin someday.  Ah, when I get the time and resources...

Are you studying the classics, Thought?  I would ask if you were a classics major, but I didn't want to sound patronizing in case you're getting a post-graduate degree, heh.  I like your Janus avatar, by the way. : )

[Lord J Esq]

The most frustrating thing in the world is when I forget something simple, like a musical idea, usually in mere minutes from when I first think of it. I'll try to get it back, and if I can't do it quickly, then, although it's right there on the edge of my memory, I know that it's probably gone for good. Grr!

So, guess what happened just now? 

[Thought]

First, my frustration of the day: The Dallas Cowboys. In the words of Weird Al in his song, Gonna Sue Ya: "Aw, do I even need a reason?"

Truth, actually, it is very possible to teach yourself a foreign language, particularly in the modern world. The Rosetta Stone software is particularly good for this, I have heard. I'm essentially teaching myself Latin as well, with the aid of the foremost text in the field, Wheelock's Latin (though as I mentioned, if I hadn't previously learned foreign languages in an instructor-based environment, I would be having trouble now).

Sajainta, it isn't just a Janus avatar, it is a very specific bust of Janus: those faces are of Herodotus and Thucydides, the fathers of History. I'm like a Classicist, only less useful. I'm a historian! I'm studying Latin in hopes of getting into a Ph.D. program in history for Fall 2010. Why Latin? Because apparently knowing German, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, and Greek wasn't enough. And after Latin I'll probably move onto French, then Arabic, then Icelandic, then to variations on these languages (Middle English, Medieval Latin, etc). All spoken, of course, with a horrible American accent.

[Romana]

Really sore throat. I've been coughing like crazy.