Meals during schooldays

This year I have 8+ hour school days and I’ll need my energy if I want to maintain my good grades. It’s my 3rd year of university and I still haven’t gotten my meal routine down yet. This year is going to be different.

For one, I really don’t like preparing and eating breakfast in the morning. So I’ll prepare breakfast the night before, and eat during the bus ride to school.

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal – Oatmeal, yogurt, frozen fruits, chai seeds
• Fruits – Cut fruit (apples, bananas, pears, etc.)

Snacks:

• 2 scoops of whey (180 calories each)
• Fruit Smoothie (Kept cold in my insultated water bottle) – 200 calories
• Trail mix

Lunch:

• Salad
• Sandwich or Taco

Dinner:

• Sandwich or Taco

 

A Rose for Emily

Reading an excerpt of A rose for Emily by William Faulkner, there was a line that ringed in my ears.

“She would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.”

To give context, this line is referring to Emily in shock. She is denying that her father is dead. Her father had denied men interested in marrying his daughter. He in effect had denied marital lives from her. The father soon died and left nothing to Emily who is now as plain as the common girls in town.

I think it so much truth is conveyed in this sentence. From this we learn that:

• Emily is broken
• Emily’s role in life is to please her father
• Emily mind is directionless without her overseer father
• There is no acknowledgement of her that she can live a different life

 

Restrictive and Non-restrictive clauses

Restrictive:

My favorite uncle who has the same name as you, visited my family last night.

I finally saw the green elephant which was by the golden monkey.

Non-restrictive:

My great uncle Tom, who I barley knew, is an heir to a grand estate.

I finally saw the green elephant, which was a fun experience.

Could

I’m not sure if I would say I don’t love him anymore but I definitely resent my dad. He shot himself 6 days before my 14th birthday which first of all as petty as it sounds really right before my fucking birthday. But it’s seriously messed me and my sisters up, I feel like since my dad didn’t love me no guy ever will which is why I always end up in terrible relationships because I think I don’t deserve love. It’s hard for me to love him because I still have all of this resentment towards him and how he could just leave

I was thinking while reading this reply to a topic “Those who hate your parents, why?”

the choice of the modial verb could: “…how he could just leave” vs. “…how he just left.”

there is an assumed power when could is used, as oppose to a more factual statement from the perfect past.

 

Qui vs. Que

Both Qui and Que are relative pronouns. Their function grammatically is to reduce redundancy.

Que = Relative pronoun + subject + verb

Que is the direct object.

Quick refresher:

A direct object is a person or thing that receives the action of a verb. An indirect object is a person or thing in a sentence.

• Le train que j’ai prend = The train that I took
• Le livre que j’ai lu beaucoup fois = The book that I read many times

Qui = Relative pronoun + verb

The function of qui is to be the subject for the subordinating clause

• L’homme qui etait le plus grand = The man who was the tallest
• Le chat qui habite dans la cave = The chat that lives in the basement

Another function of qui is to replace indirect objects.

• La fille à qui j’ai parle est…
• L’homme à qui j’ai vu est…

Demonstrative determiners

Demonstrative determiners(This, that, these, and those) can be used to accomplish a variety of linguistic techniques. Here are a few that I’ve noticed.

Sign of intelligence

Determiners can be used to signify a level of intelligence. Take this scenario as an example: There are two men in one room, both are on other sides of the room but both notice the same lady entering room.

The first man says:

Look at that.

The second says:

Take a look at the girl in black that just walked in.

The first man uses that to completely describe his observation. The person he’s talking to has to look at the first man to see where he’s looking to understand what he’s talking about. It can be assumed the first man speaks from a personal point of view, and does not care about attention drawn to his stares.

The second man describes his observation. The person he’s talking to does not need to look at the second man. The person can simply look around the room for the girl in black. It can be assumed the second man is more coy, and more intelligent.

The usage of demonstrative determiners can be used to portray people who are more sensory-focused than verbal. Similarly to children at a restaurant who point at menu items and say:

I want that.

The above comes across off as unintelligible. Compare this to how parents order at a restauraunt:

I’d like to try the Shrimp Alfredo please.

The next two topics are concepts I learned from a linguistic class. The book is cited at the bottom of the post.

Given vs. New information (Short, 266)

Using the demonstrative determiners in prose can indicate prior knowledge of the topic, and thus a level of rapport.

To begin a conversation with:

The school…

Begs the question, what school? If a male professor is telling his wife a story and begins with, “The school” then it can be assumed the wife knows which school he’s talking about. If the addressee is not mentioned in the text beforehand, then we can still assume a level of rapport between the addressor-addressee because of the use of the demonstrative determiners.

The same can be used for pronouns:

He did it again…

This could be in reference to a lethargic student continued to sleep through another lecture.

She’s out of control…

This could be in reference to the poor behaviour of their kin at school.

In media res (Short, 267)

The in media res is the using the concept from before (given vs. new information) but using it to achieve a sensory reaction (suspense, fear, excitement) from the reader not knowing what the speakers are talking about rather than a level of rapport.

The deal went through.

What deal? Is it drug-related? Why is the speaker being vague? There must be something illegal going on.

We can’t let that happen again

If the scene starts off like this, immediately our interest is piqued. What are the characters talking about? Let what happen again? Was it so bad that there must be an agreement between people to prevent the same event happening twice?

Books Cited:

Short, Mick. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1996.

Parts of Speech

There are seven functional parts of speech:

1. Nouns
2. Verbs
3. Adjectives
4. Adverbs
5. Pronouns
6. Conjunctions
7. Prepositions

1. Nouns

Nouns are defined as a person, place, or thing. There are different types of nouns:

• Proper nouns (Abraham Lincoln, John McCain, Sir Wilfrid Laurier)
• Common nouns (president, presidential candidate, prime minister)
• Pronouns (I, You, He/She, They)
• Indefinite nouns (a dog, a cat)

2. Verbs 

A verb is used to express an action or a state of being. There are two types of verbs:

• Action Verbs (Donald laughed, Jane wrote a novel)
• Linking Verbs (Donald is funny, Jane is a writer)

All verbs have three tenses: Past, present, and future.

3. Adjectives

There are two roles adjectives can have. Adjectives in italics, Noun in bold:

1. Noun modifiers (An awful noise, That dreadful old man)
2. Predicate adjectives (The play was terrific, That old man was dreadful)

Noun modifying adjectives have determiners. There are five determiners:

1. Articles (definite – the; indefinite – a or an)
2. Demonstrative (this, that, these, those)
   • Stylistics usages of Demonstrative determiners
3. Number words (Cardinal – one, two, three; Ordinal – first, second, third)
4. Possessives used as adjectives (John’s, Mary’s, Kim’s)
5. Quantifiers (Some, many, several)

Noun modifiers can take the form of comparative and superlative:

• Comparative (John took a smaller piece of pie than I did)
• Superlative (John has the biggest piece of pie)

4. Adverbs

Adverbs have three functions. They modify verbs, adjectives, and another adverbs. We’ll begin with how they can modify verbs.

Modifying Verbs (Verbs bolded, Adverb italicized)

• I ate there yesterday.
• I walked quickly.

Modifying Adjectives (Adjective bolded, Adverb italicized)

• The really big sandwich
• The terribly hot afternoon

Modifying Adverbs (Adverbs bolded, Adverb italicized)

The adverb that modifies another adverb can be easily spotted by a simple test. Try removing either adverb and see which makes sense. Generally, if the sentence does not make sense, you’ve removed the adverb that does not modify another adverb.

• I always answer my calls very promptly.
  • I always answer my calls very. <= Adverb-modifying adverb
  • I always answer my calls promptly.
• The student answered the question quite easily.
  • …answered the question easily.
  • …answered the question quite. <= Adverb-modifying adverb
• Harvard fought rather fiercely.
  • Harvard fought rather. <= Adverb-modifying Adverb
  • Harvard fought fiercely.
• I did even worse on the test than I had expected.
  • I did even on the test… <= Adverb-modifying adverb
  • I did worse on the test…

5. Pronouns

There are four types of pronouns that exist:

1. Personal
2. Reflexive
3. Indefinite
4. Demonstrative

Personal pronouns have three groups: Subject (he, she, they), object (him, her, them), and possessive (his, hers, theirs).

Reflexive pronouns end with -self or -selves and require an antecedent.

You cannot say:

• The queen looked at the dwarves and myself.
• He picked them and myself.

But you can say:

• I looked at myself in the reflection of the water.
• The girl imagined herself winning the gold medal in her mind.

Indefinite Pronouns are used to refer to unspecified persons, things, or groups.

• All, another, many, most, several, other, none

But they must not be confused with Adjectives.

• I would like some
• I would like some water
• I saw several
• I saw several people
• I would rather have the other
• I would rather have the other option

Demonstrative Pronouns are composed of four pronouns: this, that, these, and those.

As with indefinite pronouns, demonstrative pronouns must not be confused with demonstrative adjectives.

6. Conjunctions

There are two types of conjunctions. Coordinating and Subordinating.

Coordinating conjunctions join words of equal status. FANBOYS is an acronym for seven single-word conjunctions.

• For
• And
• Nor
• But
• Or
• Yet
• So

There is a subgroup of coordination conjunctions called correlative conjunctions. Correlative conjunctions are two-part conjunctions. For example:

• They had both cake and pie for desert
• I had to ether exercise more or eat less
• Not only was this fun, but it was educational

7. Prepositions

Prepositions are always bound together with their objects to form prepositional phrases.

• In the morning
• Under the bridge
• By Shakespeare
• To them

Some common prepositions are by, to, with, about, over, etc.

Grammar Study

I’ve been wanting to study formal grammar for a while now. This is because I want to write fictional stories. Learning grammar could also help me get my point across in my university essays.

I already own E.B. Grammar mini book which helped a little bit. After doing some research, it was highly recommended I choose a more thicker read. I’ve chosen to go with McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage.

My goal is to cover all that’s in this book. I’ll be editing this post with a table of contents. The book itself has organized the information nicely, but I think the umbrella terms used are fairly arbitrary. I’ll be comparing my book to online courses and creating my own syllabus.

I’ll be publishing a page of information on each topic of grammar I choose to write about in typical fashion, contrasting verb tenses to other verb tenses, and writing how the topic can be used to influence a different meaning in a sentence (Mostly to do with syntax, which is naturally interesting as a writer).

I hope you join me on my journey to learning english grammar.

Happyness and Success

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

I’ve thought about the relationship between happiness and success. We generally want both things. But how can we be either, if we are neither? If we are presently unhappy and unsuccessful, what do we do? Can we make something from nothing?

First, lets define happiness. There are many hues of happiness but the most commonly identified concept of happiness is achieved by result-based success. These people are only happy if they are successful in areas like: friendship, romances, academia, the workplace, or attaining materialistic possessions.

Then there’s behavior-based happiness. One that is achieved when you do positive and productive behaviors. Like exercising, eating right, sleeping early and getting up early, working hard in both school and work, dressing well.

Both types of happiness have the same goals, and we’ll use the example of romantic relationships as an example to show the differences between the two systems of happiness. Lets say two people both exercise and dress well. This increases their chances of finding a romantic interest. A person who subscribes to a behavior-based system of happiness will be happy after only exercising and dressing well. A person who believes in the result-based system will not feel anything unless they engage in a romantic relationship. So although both persons actions are the exact same, their goals (good behavior vs. good results) affects their happiness.

If someone is in a result-based system and is finding results, are they wrong? Well no, but they are reliant on an external source (results). What will happen to them if they no longer find results? Will they continue working as hard, getting up as early, exercising as long?

The answer is probably not.

Result-based people compare themselves to an image of who they should be. They have a clear concept of the types of friends, romances they should have. How successful they should be in academia and the workplace. The glamorous materialistic possessions. The social status.

When these expectations are not met, they will feel inferior, depressed, anxious, and an onslaught of other negative emotions. These negative emotions weigh us down like anchors. How can we swim if we’ve got an anchor chained to our foot?

Is the answer to think ourselves plain and remove our ideas of an exceptional self? No, we’ve just got to rewire our brain so that we can function to achieve those things we want, without relying on success to be happy. Our happiness cannot be result-based, it must be behavior-based. Though our end goal, materialistically, may be the same, choosing the right routes can be the deciding factor of achieving our goals.

Just a rough idea on my mind this Monday afternoon.

League of legends

I’ve finally started to like this game again. All that I needed to do was to stop taking the game so seriously.

Why does it matter if I demote? Why does my ranking matter in the grand scheme of things? It won’t change anything today, tomorrow, or even months from now. What’s the difference between staying Diamond 3 for 3 weeks versus fluctuating low diamonds and climbing back to Diamond 3 at week 3?

My ladder ranking doesn’t mean anything to me. My ladder ranking doesn’t tell me how good I am. All my ladder ranking is good for is to pair me up with better players, making the game more challenging.

All I know is that I’m going to keep on trying my best, and keep on performing on what I think is a challenger tier skill level.

It’s funny how we can use lessons learned in video games for real life.