Amen Brotha'

Quote of the day:

But more than anything, Obama is a product of the US political machine - from Harvard to Chicago to the White House. And you don't go through that meat grinder and come out at the other end with many principles left intact.

--Mark Levine, Al Jazeera op-ed piece about the future US veto of the Palestinian state-hood bid

so that's what it's called

In Australia, people don't use a final serial comma in their writing. Honestly, I find the practice to be an eye sore. But I thought it was just me. I thought I had internalized the 'wrong' rule and that no one had ever bothered to 'put me straight'. But then today I was informed that there are just two ways of writing lists--one with a final comma and one without! Whew.

I just grew up using the Oxford comma!

For those of you who were as confused as me, please see this enlightening visual aid.

Thank you Language Log.

"one in eighty-five thousand"

Yup, that was us last Sunday. Vincent and I, Agnes, Isa and Erik, Ruth, and Andrew and Anica fended off the masses to find our places in the 2011 City2Surf. We felt soooooo special and unique.



As the first official race since my surgery, my goal was simple: don't die and run pain-free. Vincent had a more ambitious time-oriented-goal, that I could not even hope to keep up with. Where's the love, right?!

The 14km (8.7 mile) route started in Hyde Park and made its way through the bays of Sydney ending with a 2km descent into the northern end of Bondi Beach. A bit hilly for my taste...well, rather, for my knees. But the 84,999 other people helped make everything exciting, so I told my knees to hold it together.

We all ran well. Vincent ran very well-- 1:01:01! I did alright too with 1:25:06--I'm happy because that's a sub-2 hour half-marathon pace, which is what I'll be aiming for in a month and a half! (Plus I didn't die and nothing hurt!)

The lovely morning was followed by pizza and beer in the afternoon. Sigh, can it get any better than that?

Next up: the Melbourne Half-Marathon on October 9th! Let me know if you're keen to join!

rain rain go away

It rains a lot here. And I'm not talking the occasional drizzle or afternoon shower. I'm talking about buckets and buckets of water pouring from the heavens for DAYS.

Even though today has brought a rare afternoon of sunshine, the luck is not to last.


brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald

NB: Yesterday, the same calendar had at least two more days of sun.

NBB: 'Low chance of rain' and 'high chance of rain' mean the same thing in Australian English.

NBBB: Come to think of it, so do 'chance of rain' and 'complete and utter sunshine', so really--maybe we're in for a month of winter paradise.

Time will tell. . . time will also beckon my Methods chapter toward completion. A week and a half baby!

puffins are dangerous!

And so are infectious air-borne diseases... and clownfish. I am not making this up. They were all items listed as prohibited from being brought into The People's Republic of China. Don't worry though, pet poodles are okay! If you subject them to a quarantine with needles and people in masks. What a relief right?! What is a country if it doesn't have poodles!