crapstain: Oooooo Preeeeetty

Friday, October 10, 2008

Oooooo Preeeeetty

When I was five years old, my dad gave me my first real dictionary. It wasn't one of those "kid" dictionaries with small words and big pictures. It was a big, thick, grown-up Webster's. The cover was red. Inside, my dad wrote: "To Sandra Lynn. Love Daddy!" I would open the sturdy cover and flip the delicate pages, taking in the glorious words. Even into my 20's, I would still sit and read the dictionary for fun. For my birthday a few years ago, Todd bought me a behemoth Unabridged Dictionary. Heaven!

I guess you could say I have this thing about words. I love them. I collect them. I get A Word A Day and save my favorites in their own little folder. Today's word I found exceptionally good, so I'm sharing it with you here. Pay attention to the meaning; love that! There's also a quote at the end; sometimes they're fabulous and sometimes just okay. Today's is pretty good. Enjoy!

(This is completely copied from the AWAD email; hope that's okay, Anu!)

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

serein
PRONUNCIATION:
(suh-RAN [the second syllable is nasal])

MEANING:
noun: Fine rain falling from an apparently cloudless sky, typically observed after sunset.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French serein, from Old French serain (evening), from Latin serum (evening), from serus (late).

USAGE:
"She must have caught a chill from the serein, that's all!"
Raphael Confiant; Mamzelle Dragonfly; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2000.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Journalism is publishing what someone doesn't want us to know, the rest is propaganda. -Horacio Verbitsky, journalist (b. 1942)

~~
Be cool and help a girl out. Buy a cool Skin for your iPod:

GelaSkins Inc.

1 holla'd back:

Anonymous said...: It's dictionary readers like you who make Scrabble a miserable game......lol.; Friday, October 10, 2008

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Quotableness

"This above all: to thine own self be true." -Wm. Shakespeare

"Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you can't eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away." --unknown

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming 'WHOO HOO what a ride!'" - unknown

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Enneagram

Type Seven in Brief

all info from http://enneagraminstitute.com

Sevens are extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over- extended, scattered, and undisciplined. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. They typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness. At their Best: they focus their talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.

We have named this personality type The Enthusiast because Sevens are enthusiastic about almost everything that catches their attention. They approach life with curiosity, optimism, and a sense of adventure, like “kids in a candy store” who look at the world in wide-eyed, rapt anticipation of all the good things they are about to experience. They are bold and vivacious, pursuing what they want in life with a cheerful determination. They have a quality best described by the Yiddish word “chutzpah”—a kind of brash “nerviness.”

Although Sevens are in the Thinking Center, this is not immediately apparent because they tend to be extremely practical and engaged in a multitude of projects at any given time. Their thinking is anticipatory: they foresee events and generate ideas “on the fly,” favoring activities that stimulate their minds—which in turn generate more things to do and think about. Sevens are not necessarily intellectual or studious by any standard definition, although they are often intelligent and can be widely read and highly verbal. Their minds move rapidly from one idea to the next, making Sevens gifted at brainstorming and synthesizing information. Sevens are exhilarated by the rush of ideas and by the pleasure of being spontaneous, preferring broad overviews and the excitement of the initial stages of the creative process to probing a single topic in depth.

Sevens are frequently endowed with quick, agile minds, and can be exceptionally fast learners. This is true both of their ability to absorb information (language, facts, and procedures) and their ability to learn new manual skills—they tend to have excellent mind-body coordination, and manual dexterity (typewriting, piano playing, tennis). All of this can combine to make a Seven into the quintessential "Renaissance person."

Ironically, Sevens' wide-ranging curiosity and ability to learn quickly can also create problems for them. Because they are able to pick up many different skills with relative ease, it becomes more difficult for them to decide what to do with themselves. As a result, they also do not always value their abilities as they would if they had to struggle to gain them. When Sevens are more balanced however, their versatility, curiosity, and ability to learn can lead them to extraordinary achievement.

Take the test and find out your number :)