dictionary of exeter language

rediscovered a long lost favorite today: the dictionary of exeter language.

both my dad and my uncle went to exeter, and my uncle gave me his copy of the new dictionary of exeter language (circa 1977) when i went to exeter in 1998. as the name suggests, it was this great book of terms, many unique to the exeter lexicon, and their humorous definitions. it's where several of my favorite sayings originated, including 'beer goes well with more beer' and 'nothing in particular, everything in general'.

i gave my copy to a family friend when she went off to exeter, and haven't been able to track down another version since. was talking about it with charlo in boston over the weekend and decided to do some googling. i found the 1960 version of it online, and while this version doesn't have some of my favorites, it's still pretty great. exeter, like dartmouth, has a lot of slang and i'm still not sure why the dictionary of dartmouth language hasn't been published yet. maybe everyone figures the d has this covered with their 'shmen issue for incoming frosh each year. could be a missed opportunity.

a couple of my faves below. full listing here:

• New Hampshire:  a state in the far-northern United States; notorious for its cold food, cold weather, and cold women.  " She was pretty good-looking, in a New Hampshire sort of way." 

• Latin:  a linguistic system abandoned by its inventors long ago, but it still persists at Exeter.  "It is Latin, it cannot be read." — old Greek saying.

• Exeter Summer School - Exeter without the work

• C:  what most of the brains call a mediocre mark, the faculty calls an average mark, and the rest of us call a damn good mark.  "But the school average is C-and three-fifths!" – telephone conversation at the end of the marking period

• diploma:  a little slip of paper that admits begrudgingly that you have finally paid your debt to society and are free to leave Exeter without out-of-town permission, provided that you don't do anything ungentlemanly within forty-eight hours after receiving it; some are allowed to end their Exeter careers without benefit of this certificate.  "Four years, and all I get is this?" — any new alumnus. 

• cross country: the only legitimate reason for being in the woods

• kinda nice:  useful description of anything from town girls to Sunday-night suppers.  Synonyms:  nice, not nice, attractive, rather attractive, unattractive, cute, kinda cute, not cute at all. 

• Yale: a school for people who enjoy grinding so much they want to do it for four more years

• Study Hours:  enchanted hours in the morning, afternoon, and evening when almost everything stops, at least anything of any great importance.  Not to be confused with class hours, during which the world stands still

• suck seat:  either of those sets immediately adjacent to the professor.  “This is a very comfortable chair.” — Nye Stevens.

• ya well:  no one is sure of the exact meaning of this handy phrase, but its usefulness in situations where there is nothing else to say is beyond doubt

ruminations

things under my desk at work:

1. my new jeggings! - never been the skinny jeans/jeggings type, but these fit like second skin (literally - had to peel them off) and are a great gunmetal gray color. psyched to try them out

2. my halloween costume - going to be a lady bug. or whatever the opposite of lady is (tramp? tart? preying mantis?) with ripped fishnets, a flask and maybe some leather if i can swing it

other things in my life:

have a dinner for work tonight but i am really not excited about it. work things mean you have to be game on and i would rather be game off as it's pouring and i didn't get any sleep last night

did not get any sleep last night b/c we played flip cup with a large group of coworkers whose job is maritime insurance aka they underwrite risks of somali pirates hijacking freighters. this one kid was telling me about it (actually quite interesting) and kept using the word 'vessel' when describing boats. i laughed every time.

lastly - 'i've really grown up a lot since before dinner when we last talked' from wet hot american summer is resonating. behaved like a spoiled brat for most of the last week but i think i've gotten it under control now. at least enough to rein in the drunk dialing . . . 

these pants are washable

quick update:

• my brother is moving to ct! he starts in a few weeks. or as stoebe likes to say, hurricane jason will be making landfall in the tri-state/new england (depending on who you ask) area. selfishly i am excited about this b/c it is my dream to be related to someone with a car in ct (related b/c it means they have to give me rides and we can carpool home for thanksgiving and stuff.) yaya!

• i've been craving chicken caesar salads lately. what food group am i missing that needs to be filled by lettuce, cheese and calories?

• had a delightful sd mini-reunion weekend in philly with ceppos, diana and glassman and then caught up with allette last night in nyc. hooray for girl time.

• going up to boston this wknd to hang out as it's been way too long. hoping to see christine, boxa, caroline mulley, charlo and diede along the way. again, hooray for girl time (and phoenix landing)

• today is vin's birthday - it may already be midnight in london but send her bday wishes any way and she'll be back in nyc in a few weeks. happy birthday!

guest post: everything is illuminated

never read the book 'everything is illuminated' but i've always loved this quote:

"this is love, she thought, isn't it? when you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? more, even, than you love his presence?"

and now: 

"do you think i'm wonderful? she asked him one day as they leaned against the trunk of a petrified maple. no, he said. why? because so many girls are wonderful. i imagine hundreds of men have called their loves wonderful today, and it's only noon. you couldn't be something that hundreds of others are."

*swoon*

the stories we can tell

thinking a lot about stories today. rowena invited me to a storytelling event at city winery as part of an ad campaign for an italian car company. we heard five stories from men and women, ranging from the serious (some guy was almost stabbed to death) to the fortuitous (the power of saying yes). they were all pretty hilarious, as was the emcee - he made a joke about cavemen and cranberries from nantucket. i think i was the only person in the room that got it. 

but i was ruminating on these stories, and thinking about how at one point or another, all these stories that we were hearing were huge, big things that had taken over someone's life and now they were in the past, reduced to memory and reflection and could be summed up in five minutes. all of life is like that i think. i had this intense, epic break up situation my senior year of college and now it can be reduced to 'he's my exbf'. helps keep perspective.

i think that's why the jimmy buffett song 'the stories we can tell' (which is actually a cover of an everly brothers song - was sad to find that out) resonates so much with me. it's about perspective and adventure and no matter what happens, if it's a good story, then it's worthwhile. and everything can eventually be reduced to a story. not all are good, but that's what life is made of. stories. 

'and if you ever wonder why you ride this carousel

we do it for the stories we can tell

and if it all blows up and goes to hell

i wish that we could sit on a bed in some motel

and listen to the stories we could tell'

 

 

me against the music

recent downloads:

1. don omar - danza kuduro 

2. britney spears - how i roll - took some time to grow on me but really liking it now

3. milkman - words - techno but amazing patterns

4. jason derulo - pick up the pieces - JASON DERULO!!

5. foster the people - pumped up kicks - weird message if you listen to the lyrics but so catchy!

6. avicii - fade into darkness - wish i could rock out to this in the sd basement

7. flo rida - good feeling - can the man make a bad song?

8. kenny chesney - you and tequila - 'you and tequila make me crazy, run like poison in my blood, one more night could kill me baby, one is one too many, one more is never enough'

9. mohammed raffi - jaan pehechaan ho - features prominently in the heineken commercial 'the date'

10. florence and the machines - shake it out - new single from their upcoming album. hasn't been released yet but i like it a lot

11. fleetwood mac - paper doll - hard to find to download but i really like

fab fall weekends

hi! it's me! been on like a three week bender - so much going on every night and of course it all revolves around drinking and consequently, hangovers and not sleeping.

last week was a bday party for the old coworkers, a trip to a gay bar in hell's kitchen for drag queen open mike night with brogiin and huyett, the ad week closing party at wollman rink in central park with hopper  and hearn, fooseball and my brother's unexpected 10 hour appearance in nyc, another apt party on the UES (tons of time in the old hood) and then patriots viewing and long weekend-like behavior even though i did not have today off. i pretty much have zero voice and my boss was basically like go home but in the back of my head i knew why and always sort of feel like i have to suck it up b/c it's my own damn fault.

the party on thursday night was sponsored by linkedin and in a fantastic marketing move they were offering party-goers that chance to get their linkedin profile pictures taken. you could even get your make-up done by a professional before the picture. had been meaning to do this forever, but when do you ever take normal, sober pictures solo looking professional? right - never. thought it was genius though. 

did two day trips this weekend - first up was to new haven on saturday for the dartmouth-yale football game with stein. we went to a breakfast reception with president kim and the new athletic director, and then to the yale bowl. we were stunned b/c it seems like not only do people in the yale community go to yale football games, they tailgate. this was such a radical departure from dartmouth that we couldn't get over it. it was a blazing hot, sunny, indian summer day so we soaked up the sun (safely with sunscreen) and watched dartmouth play terrible football (they lost 30-zip. no parties at gamma delt on sat night).

we cut out around the 4th quarter to go road tripping through the middle of connecticut to the jones family farms for some wine tasting and pumpkin loving. it was gorgeous out, the wine tasted delicious and it was lovely to catch up!

sat night after the apt party we hit up session 73 on 73 and first. not sure why we never went there when we lived down the street, esp since it was a great party. 80s cover band, red balloons when nina played and hair banging to pour some sugar on me. def want to go back.

sunday rowena and i checked another item off the nyc bucket list by trekking out to the queens county farm museum. while i was under the impression that 'queens' and 'farm' was an oxymoron, it turned out that there really was a working farm on the very edge of queens that had a multi-acre corn maze. we've discussed doing a fall trip to vermont for awhile now, and since the weekends keep getting away from us, we decided it was the next best thing. the corn maze was a blast - took us an hour to get out - but it was another gorgeous sunny day, and the dj (yes, only in nyc do corn mazes have dj's) was playing great music and inspiring us all to persevere, hydrate and make it across that victory bridge.

i've really enjoyed playing the harry potter lego game for the iphone. $5 on itunes, great reviews, and so far a lot of fun. it's very true to the books and you learn spells along the way that you execute by tracing on the touch screen. so far i know reducto, reparo, wingardium levorosa, incedo and how to fly and i just defeated the troll in the girls bathroom. :)

next up is an sd mini reunion trip to philly this coming weekend to hang out with diana, ceppos and glassman, and we're hoping allette joins as well. haven't hung out in philly really ever (i don't count post jb concert number one soph summer when we were there for 10 hours) so excited to check that out and spend some quality time the girlfriends.

definitely needed some downtime tonight to take a break and think about what i've done, but on the whole, it's been a blast and i can't wait to see where my life takes me next. here's to the great adventure. ;-)

guest post: maya angelou

'when someone shows you who they are, believe them'

'i've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage and tangled christmas tree lights'

'people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel