Buckwheat

5 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

I'm sure you're not meant to call them odd.

 I just googled to check if I used the phrase right. Bad, bad Bear for making me doubt my language skills!

Although, honestly, I do have trouble thinking of the right words to type right now. I think I should post on the board more to practice my English.

Finally ... yes, what a funny joke. Ha. Ha. Ha.  

On 8/27/2023 at 12:53 AM, Pebble thats Stubby said:

What is spam never dies, but rises again stronger and spamier than before with added cheese.

Hear hear!  

On 8/27/2023 at 12:53 AM, Pebble thats Stubby said:

Oh  I wonder if we can finish this thread before sniffer finishes his research and chooses the thread name.   If this was the old days that would be a no brainer.

Is that a challenge for the old sniffer? @rocksniffer    Have some extra leery emoticons for enouragement!

On 9/1/2023 at 10:41 PM, The BlackBear said:

Hey guys!

How are you all doing?

Hello, Bear! Good, glad to see you post in here!

On 9/3/2023 at 11:08 PM, The BlackBear said:

This here bear has been dealing with a bad back, because I'm an old man 

I am sorry to hear about that.  

On 9/4/2023 at 2:06 AM, felice said:

But in general, I've managed to be something less of a hermit recently and actually interact with other people more than I've done for years. This is probably good for me.

Interaction with people in controlled amounts is good.

On my end, the new school year just started on the 1st of September and I already survived a three-day sleepaway camp where I was responsible for 20-odd teenagers. That was exciting and rewarding most of the time, but also really exhausting.

I just finished watching the second season of Good Omens. That was ... very unexpected.

In short, I haven't quite decided yet if I like it for what it is or if I am very disappointed because it is so different than the original (book and series 1).

Oh! This is still going on?  

Hi, everybody! *waves back*

3 hours ago, dog-days said:

I must be remembering the library staff room of a university I used to work for. Everyone joked that it hadn't been redecorated since the library was built in the seventies – well, they'd joke, then they'd pause and say actually and look at the grimy brown carpet.

Some of my older coworkers say they remember people smoking in the staff room a few decades ago. I cannot imagine that at all. Now we actually have a lovely decorated staff room and the whole building. And since my workplace is a secondary school (standing right next to a primary school!), there is a general prohibition of anybody smoking inside or outside on the school grounds.

43 minutes ago, dog-days said:

Thought that might be the case. Can they at least promise you comfy armchairs without nicotine stains in the staff room, and space in the fridge? 

Smoking has been prohibited for years in all public buildings, so I would hope so.

15 hours ago, dog-days said:

Good luck!  Hope they make the correct choice and employ you with multiple perks to keep you happy and motivated.

Thank you! I hope so too.

There are no perks though. These are all highly systemised public sector jobs. There is no such thing as negotiation for the pay or perks.

15 hours ago, dog-days said:

 Applied for a job last week and didn't even make it to interview, but on balance I'm not disappointed, because my current job is better suited to me and interests me more, even if it has its frustrations. If HR gave me a large pay raise, and would let me work remotely thus closer to my hometown, I wouldn't be looking for another job at all.

I hope they allow more remote work ij the future! Good luck.

I became a lot more used to going to job interviews recently - I was on three of them in the past two weeks, and am going on another one on Friday. Today, I got one rejection (I expected that, since I haven't heard from them for two weeks, when they said they would inform the chosen candidate sooner) and one job offer, which is sadly the one I only applied to ... just because? It is in a very inconvenient location and also not as good a place to work at, I think. I need to wait for the two other places to decide (the one I interviewed at last week and the one I am going to on Friday).

On 6/22/2023 at 12:42 PM, IFR said:

You can search the internet for different kinds of explanations on the same topic, and perhaps this will help. But the power of AI tools is continuous interactive feedback. I can immediately tell the AI that their explanation doesn't make sense to me, and that it should simplify further. I can ask them to provide different examples. I can put their explanation in my own words and see if I'm missing anything. The point is not to memorize information, but to build an in-depth, generalized model in your head that makes sense to you. Which takes effort, of course. And you can't expect to have experts at hand to spend all day explaining the nuance of everything to this point. But after you have a sufficiently solid model in your head, then you can test it for how well it holds up.

A teacher can do all of that. As well as ask you questions to make sure you understood the material and can explain it in your own words, use humour or anecdotes to make the material easier to learn and understand, as well as encourage you to work together with other students of the same topic ...

(Need to defend the role of teachers here.  )

Wait ... people actually notice other people wearing rings or a specific kind of rings other people wear?

Am I just weird because I don't check out people's hands all the time I meet somebody? I couldn't tell you whether most people I see every day wear rings or not.

On 5/23/2023 at 7:28 PM, IFR said:

What is some advice you would give to neophytes?

Speaking as somebody in the final stages of writing the dissertation and absolutely done and overwhelmed with the whole thing sometimes ... just don't. And I am only half joking. Or am I?

Seriously, it is exhausting, time consuming, and ... I don't know what field you are in, judging from most of the replies you are probably in some field where there is lots of group work, but for me, it was mostly a very lonely experience (researching in literary theory just has you sit long hours in the library without communicating much with anybody). A lot of that depends on whether you are employed by the university or you work in some other field and are doing the PhD on the side - in the latter case, your actual job that is what you are being paid for is going to take short-term priority all the time, making the work on your dissertation just something that you procrastinate with and it is going to hang over your head for years.

As everybody else said, good relationship with your advisor is important, time management is important, keeping your sanity is important but sometimes really hard.

Good luck with it all.

18 hours ago, Starkess said:

Oh fun! I just finished mine last year.

Congratulations!  

17 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

Spain, wtf?! They got even less public votes than Germany or Australia! Talk about the lowest common denominator...

I didn't like Spain, either. I can see the appeal of Germany being different than others, just not to my tastes.

But I really cannot grasp what is appealing about the Swedish song either. The tune and musical style are something really similar to the rest of the pop songs there, it is not unique. I have listened to it again today, and the tune still doesn't stick. The staging was weird, but more in a boring than in a fun way. Maybe even my dislike of her outfit and nails influenced my dislike of the whole thing. I think it is just not my style, so I cannot understand the appeal at all.

I think Portugal definitely deserved better, as well as Slovenia, France and Moldova. Croatia at least for the novelty.

But then I liked Jendrik last year or a few years ago or whenever that was, so maybe I just have a shit taste.

I am sorry, but Slovenia deserved better. I literally don't understand the public vote either. Seriously, Norway and the Ukraine on top now?  

24 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

The allure of Israel's song must have eluded me.

Same here, as well as Italy and kind of Sweden as well. As usual, I have no idea how to understand the jury votes.

7 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

Austria?

 

Slightly further to the south.  Slovenia.

(Although I did live in Austria for some time.)

I cannot believe this, but my country actually has one of the better songs. Something I can believe is going to play on the radio and on parties for some time.

Moldova looks like it is performing some kind of a shamanic ritual.  

I missed the beginning, but am now safely in front of the screen.

Do we have some chatroom this year?

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

I like their video more than what they did on stage. Still, fun quirky song. Should make it through.

I just went back to watch the video. That is ... something.

Definitely a song that stuck out amongst all the usual pop.

... okay, I seem to have posted too soon.  Austria, what is going on here?

Hmmmm ... the second semifinal doesn't seem as interesting as the first one was up to now. Nothing particularly crazy like Croatia od Finland were on Tuesday.

Update: The Slovene version of Siege and Storm does not have the shout out to the BWB in the acknowledgements. It only has the dedication (is that the right word?) to the author's mother and grandfather. Pity.

18 minutes ago, dog-days said:

Not a fan? I've heard of him, never read him. 

Oh, I love him. I am probably the most obsessed Moers' fan on this forum and am writing a dissertation about his novels. I recommend them to anybody and everybody.

Leigh Bardugo's Siege and Storm (second book of the Grishaverse trilogy) was recently published in Slovene, and I finished reading it yesterday. I really like the trilogy so far, as I rarely have time to read something of that simple fantasy and it comes as a pleasant distraction when I can. I hope the third one comes out soon. (As far as I understand, Six of Crows also takes place in the same universe, but later in the timeline, so I would rather first read the trilogy and then start with Six of Crows, although that one is available already.)

EDIT TO ADD: I have discovered old threads on this board that say there are acknowledgements with a mention of the BWB in the English edition. I am not sure that is in the Slovene edition I read. Am going to check if it is there tomorrow in the library. If the acknowledgements were left out, that would be quite odd!

Now it's back to my required German reading - Moers' Der Schrecksenmeister. It is always Moers.

On 4/23/2023 at 12:00 AM, Ran said:

Kind of enjoy Slovenia's Joker Out with "Carpe Diem":

Some of the teenage girls I teach love this band very much ... they have a crush on one of the band members, I think. So the group is quite mainstream in Slovenia now. At least popular with teenagers, that is.