 Welcome to another week of Stuff We Like. Brought to you by Freddy, the letter V, and the number 8. Yes, this week is about my love for V8. I have liked it for a long time because it's something - as a person with food issues and allergies - that is good for me and helpful. Plus I think it tastes good. (What can I say? I appreciate tomatoey things.) My biggest problem was being able to have something to pack. The 12 ounce cans were too much. I could never finish one, and by the time I came back to it, the V8 was icky. That's why I love the smaller single serving sizes. Isn't it adorable? It's one tiny can, equal to one serving of vegetables. It's easy to pack for a lunch and not overwhelming to drink. It goes down much easier in fact.
So what can I say? I love my little can.
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Yes, I went there! Someone had to and I figured it was a good thing for the Aussie to do. Pokemon Go seems to be the craze that is not only sweeping the nation these days but the world. Gotta catch 'em all! Now, I'll admit to being a complete Pokemon novice. I didn't grow up watching it, or playing with the cards or any of the other pokemon associated items. The extent of my knowledge before PG came out was that Pikahcu was a little yellow Pokemon dude and that was about it. I had no idea how you went about catching these things, what Pokeballs were for or how battles were fought and won (I'm still a little iffy on the last one). But I decided not to let that stop me. The main reason I decided to download the game was I thought it would be a good excuse to get out of the house with my daughter and go for a walk around the city. See what we could find on out way, and it's been fun. I haven't bothered yet about doing anything in the gyms. I don't know if I ever will, even though there's one right opposite my building. I'm just enjoying catching the little cridders so far.
I know I'm not the only one out there playing this game, hell, I'm not the only Mischiefer playing it, *Coughs* Freddy *Coughs* Sorry, I had something in my throat there for a second. Anyway. Love it or hate it, I do like what the game is doing by encouraging people to get out there and exercise, just please, look up from your phones every once in a while and take in the scenery. ;) Till next time, catch 'em all!
Scott returns to talk about a new word he just discovered... Okay, so I was happily working through a response from one of my beta folks on The Great North, my latest novella, when I ran across a puzzling note. It seems that I'd sown a little confusion with my choice of town name - Manicoan. It was a bastardization of the name of a reservoir in Quebec - Manicougan, but the problem lay in the fact that it was also the name I was using for the people of the village, and this was causing some issues in the story. So I went looking for how the names of inhabitants of cities, states and countries are formed, and came across a word I had never seen before:  There may be a reason I don't know this word (aside from my general ignorance). According to an article at Dictionary.com: "The word “demonym” was coined by Paul Dickson, an editor at Merriam-Webster, in his 1997 book Labels for Locals." Demo means municipality in greek, and as for that "nym": "The suffix -onym, in English and other languages, means "word, name", and words ending in -onym refer to a specified kind of name or word, most of which are classical compounds." Going back to Dictionary.com: "In English we denote place of origin by suffixes. The most common suffixes that denote place are: -(a)n (Chicagoan), -er (New Yorker), -ese (Chinese), -ian (Norwegian), and -ish (English). Where did these suffixes come form? Latin, of course. -ish actually comes from Old English, which is why citizens of the British Isles have -ish demonyms: Scottish, Welsh, English, etc. The other suffixes came from Latin, though they each convey slightly different senses. -ese most directly meant “belonging to or originating in a place.” -(a)n and -ian are variations on the same suffix meaning “belonging to.” -er was used principally in the sense of “one having to do with a thing,” as in lawyer or villager. As with most vocabulary in English, they all now coexist and serve the same purpose." So back to my problem. Here's lake manicougan - a reservoir in the remains of an ancient meteor crater. Pretty, isn't it?  My town name is Manicoan. So using some of the standard endings, my people could be:
Manicoani Manicoanish Manicoanese Manicoanan Manicoaner Manicoanian They're all so fricking long, and I wasn't happy with any of them. Then my beta reader suggested changing the town name. And so my problem was resolved. The new name? Manicouga - closer to the original name. And the inhabitants? The Manicougans. :) Angel's back to explain something about her house... Hubby and I are both natural pack rats. It's just not in our natures to throw things away. So consider that A) we've lived in the same house for twenty-four years or so, B) we're both hesitant to buy new things if we don't have to and C) we both squirrel all sorts of crap away, our house has a lot of stuff in it. Add to that, he's a collectibles dealer and various rooms in our house are used for storage and...you get the picture. It's not as bad as an episode of hoarders but, yeah... Because of all of these things, we also have a tendency to repurpose objects.  That windowsill Sweetpea is lounging on? That's a reclaimed part of a bookcase that had some issues and part of a carpet remnant. (Yes. All carpet remnants are carefully saved.)  See the swing set down there? We haven't had a child young enough to play on a swing set for many years. (Child is grown and out of the house.) The swing is long gone but the frame remains as a wisteria support and arbor. The wisteria is quite a bit bigger now than in this picture, climbing valiantly across the old top rungs.  This is my desk. (I know, bit of a mess. Too bad.) Was this piece of furniture purchased as a desk? No. This was my first little kitchen table when I lived on my own. I like it because I can spread out, it doesn't block the window, and kitties can gather underneath during a thunderstorm. That's just a sampling, of course. We're not so bad that we think we have to keep everything. Compost bin and recycling take care of most of the actual trash, we do send things (occasionally) to Goodwill, and he does sell things every day as well, so some of the hoard comes and goes. But you get the idea. Maybe it's just old habits. Maybe it's leaning toward not quite right. We're just both happier if we can find a use for old stuff. :)
Freddy here with today's Stuff We Like. This is going to be short & sweet, and I've been thinking since last week how to present it. The whole reason I even thought of choosing AIESEC for SWL this week is because an old college buddy, and fellow AIESECer is visiting with me this weekend. It's been forever since we saw each other but we've kept in contact over the years, much like a lot of members from -- as what we and other LCs lovingly called us -- the Indian LC.  AIESEC is one of the largest non-profit organizations in the world, and it's mostly run by students between the ages of 18 - 26. It offers work internships abroad to help create multicultural understanding and cooperation.
See, it was originally formed just after WWII between France and Germany as a way to heal after all the devastation and death. The youth of that time wanted a way to find common group and learn. They felt the best way to do that was to work together. It has grown to be so much more. I I loved my time as an AIESECer. I built life-long relationships during my time at my university LC. I was part of OCX (Outgoing Exchange), which meant it was my responsibility to help with resumes and find placements for students wanting to work abroad. ICX was filled with students going to businesses and getting them excited about bringing students abroad to grow and expand their enterprise and thinking. When I was part of AIESEC the hotbeds of placement were India and Turkey because of the growth taking place in both countries, but one of my friends got an internship with Heineken in Greece. We even had a World Wildlife Foundation internship in Peru that we worked hard to place. They were everywhere you could look, in 108 different countries. There are now 126 countries involved with 2,400 universities represented, and 70,000 students. That's a whole lot of like minds interested in divesity and understanding. I was attending an university that was honestly mostly white and male. My LC, however, was made up of most non-white students. It was filled with mainly middle eastern students (hence the Indian LC nickname), some black students, Asian and a few white people. We laughed and cried together. Played softball. Ran fundraisers. Took classes and commiserated over finals together. Had a hell of a lot of chicken BBQs, and even celebrated a birth of a baby between two AIESECers. When 9/11 happened, and a government agency came to question one of our friends because he flew home to Dubai twice a year, we came together and supported each other, taking part in Ramadan as a show of solidarity. Because an AIESECer - part of an organization that has produced world and business leaders, and a Nobel peace prize laureate - is all about creating understanding and acceptance, not hate and divisiveness. We worked hard, we played hard, and we loved each other. And if you're in college, check to see if there is and AIESEC LC on your campus. They may open up a whole new world for you. It will be an experience you never forget. HEY AIESEC! |
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