WWW: Inimitable

Exhibit A: My younger brother pretending that I'm not taking photos of him at the train station.

(Today is his birthday.  He's turning 20.  Twenty.) 


Exhibit B: My younger brother testing out the photobooth.

(Apparently it's his birthday today and he's turning 20.  I'm having trouble grasping this concept.)


Exhibit C:  My extremely old younger brother's natural facial features.

Today's Wonderful Word of the Week is dedicated to the birthday boy.

WWW: Dissimulate

According to my sketchy records, the last Wonderful Word of the Week appeared at the beginning of November.  I think I remember explaining the lack of WWWs as a result of studying too much literature and too much sociology at university level.  There were so many big words flying around I didn't feel up to squishing any more into my brain.

I just applied for graduation at the beginning of the week which means I'm definitely on the homestretch of this BA.  Soon I'll be able sign my name like Anne Shirley does in Anne of Windy Willows:

(Letter from Anne Shirley, B.A., Principal of Summerside High School, to Gilbert Blythe, medical student at Redmond College, Kingsport.)

I may not be studying literature in this final year, but I have a few more politics units to go.  Politics units don't really bombard me with new big words.  But when I was writing out an answer to a quiz question last week, I realised that I needed a new big word to describe a new problem caused by the study of politics.

Dissimulate {v}  /diˈsimyəˌlāt/ 
Conceal or disguise (one's thoughts, feelings, or character)


I chose the word dissimulate because the word 'fudge' didn't sound intellectual enough.
You may recognise some of the other synonyms of dissimulate... pretend, sham, mask, hide.

Hands Up if You've Eaten a Mulberry

Firstly, I need to make a few housekeeping announcements.

You may have noticed a noticeable lack of WWWs lately (for those who are not in the lingo WWW stands for Wonderful Word of the Week.  (It may also stand for something else v. well known, but I choose to ignore that.)

That was intentional (i.e. I have not forgotten that I was planning on expanding my vocab on a weekly basis), but I decided to take a little break because my vocab has been challenged without my own doing.  It's called studying too many university course texts and readings.  The definition of a university course reading is as follows:

A document of around 22 pages written by an academic who is trying to convince you of his or her own opinion or theory.  Is always peer-reviewed and contains words which have probably been invented by the author themselves while formulating their theories on which they are now trying to convince you.  Very hard to understand and must always be read multiple times, and with the knowledge that you are never going to fully comprehend what was written.  It's a given.

You can't even use a normal dictionary as an aid while reading one of the above.  No, you need a specifically academic dictionary related to your discipline:  the theology dictionary, a philosophy dictionary, or in my case, a dictionary of sociology.

What I'm trying to say is that I just don't have it in me to attempt a WWW for a little while.

I'm sticking with the simple things in life...

WWW: Commiserate

This is a very belated post which was held up by one week of organised chaos which ran from last Monday to this Saturday.  Yes, the Children's Institute is an oxymoron like that. 
Rewinding the clock...let us imagine that we are back at last Tuesday (when I actually started to write this post). 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

"AFTER a near-perfect home and away, Collingwood has been unable to win on the day that it mattered, losing the Grand Final to Geelong by 38 points at the MCG."
From CollingwoodFC.com



Wonderful Word of the Week had to be directly related to all the messages of condolence I have received since Saturday.
 
I was expecially impressed by the fact that one caring friend bothered to email all the way from the Solomon Islands, just to make sure I hadn't sunk into depression.

"My" team lost.  Oh well.  Has anyone noticed the amazing Melbourne weather this week?  Are there any good movies coming out these school holidays? 

Ok, now seriously, a follow up on last week's prediction for Saturday:

I did yell.

I did not attempt to study at half time.

WWW: Lilliputian

On the first day of spring - September 2011 - I took the following photos:

These green parcels appeared on the previously bare branches practically overnight.

A word comes to mind...

WWW: Piquancy

Whenever I write a description of myself, like the little blurb in the 'About Me' section (which I deleted, hah.), or if I find myself filling out one of those generic questionnaires (in which I could never tell the difference between 'Hobbies' and 'Past times'), or maybe I'm writing out an imaginary letter to an imaginary pen pal...in Italian.

So, whenever I'm drumming my brain for things I actually like to do as opposed to things I just do...  I always put 'shopping'.

Mi piace fare lo shopping (qualche volte con gli amici).*

Yes, the Italian word for shopping is the same as the English.  No, that is not because Italians were not innovative enough to come up with their own word.  No, that is not because Italians don't even like to shop, and hence why have their own word for it?  No.

There are actually several Italian translations of our English verb 'shop' (because, in reality, Italians are some of the best shoppers in the world.  Oh yeah.)  It all depends on what type of shopping you are doing, what your looking for how, how driven you are going to be, and how much yelling at store keepers you are going to do.  But that's another post.

I have a theory as to why the English word 'shopping' stays the English word 'shopping' in languages other than English.  It's a baby word.  

Stay with me.

WWW: Vim

I think I missed a word.  Last week...  whoops.

Trust me, I was surrounded by lots of words all week.  Essay words, research words, words about Australian history and Beowulf words [see last post if that seemed like a particularly random thing to say].

I finished Beowulf by the way.  It was long and tedious, but mostly worth it.  Maybe I'll review it someday to make sure it all sunk in nice and deep into the literary consciousness of my brain.

Today I began a new subject with Open Universities Australia.  It's all about popular culture.

I like to call it pop culture.  Hopefully I'll work out what pop culture actually is in the next few weeks.

Moving right along...

Today was Monday and on Mondays I babysit two little boys.  You can read all about the way it goes here.

Apparently little boys like these sorts of things:

John Deere toy tractor.

It has peddles, so the little boy can propel himself along...theoretically.

WWW: Mythicise

[This post comes to you through metaphorical blood, sweat and tears.]

The Mouse struggled for days to overcome the great force which had surrounded her.  It was sucking her in, like bathwater down the plughole, gurgling, pulling and pushing until she had no choice but to succumb to the vortex and be washed away in a wave of lectures, readings and outlines.

Tossed around like a leaf in a book of English Literature that weighs 2.2 kg, The Mouse finally found the strength to surface and answer the calls of her neglected blog.  Pushing aside over 100 freshly printed PDFs which threatened to drown her in dry ink, The Mouse used her mechanical pencil to fight off duelling due dates and crawl towards the computer.  She hacked her way through a forest of Word Docs and Google Chrome tabs, hitting the red 'x's with super precision, until finally... she found herself in a safe haven of friendly photos and cute fonts.  A place she could truly call her own.  A Kingdom for a Mouse.

I'm thinking this is a good kingdom.

WWW: Wamble [and cherry blossoms]

Hello.  It's been a while.

At least it feels like it's been a while.

I'm pretty sure I'm just now emerging from some blurry place between conciousness, smothering doona covers and slices of dry toast.

I have to say I'm pretty sure since I haven't been sure of much these past few days.

Stomach bug.

WWW: Muliebrity

I've just spent a few days with one of my bestest friends.  I have no idea if she will read this, but she knows who she is... (woohoo beeeatch-h ;) 

This partially explains a lack of posts this week.  It also partially explains the build-up of posting material in my edits, on my camera and in my brain.

End of mid-year break is looming so I'm cramming in lots of people time before I disappear from the world.  I can't say 'hide under a rock' any more since I've had express orders not to do that this semester.  Whatever!

Anyway, I made a discovery while at this particular friend's place.

Actually 'discovery' is probably the wrong word (and we're all about words in this post, right?).  More like 'recovery'.

Chick flicks.  Maybe I should put that in hot pink.  Chick flicks.

Let's get something dead straight here...my favourite ever movies are all historical dramas.  Especially ones set in the 1920s-1940s.  I watch them just for the costumes and sets.

Now, little fact: Mouse lives in a house in which all movies have to be pre-approved by father and brother.

WWW: Parlous

This week we've been watching a man called Bear Grylls.  He gets [literally] dropped into a desolate place and then has to [literally] find his way out of it...while remaining alive preferably.

Dad borrowed the series on DVD from the library...you know, Man vs. Wild.

I can tell you now that in Mouse vs. Wild, Wild would win hands down.  No doubt about it.

WWW: Rumbustious

Wonderful Word of the Week no. 3

Rumbustious {adj.} /ˌrəmˈbəsCHəs/1. Boisterous or unruly

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Rum, rum, rummmmmmbling.  That's rumbustious.

I came across this word while trying to spell rambunctious.  Even now the spell check in Blogger is giving me a little red squiggly line.  What?  No rambunctious?  I love that word!  Turns out RUMBUSTIOUS will do just as well instead.  Doesn't come up as misspelled.

(see the difference there?)

Noisy, loud, rowdy ...and in. your. face.  That's rumbustious.

Sid the Sloth

Uproarious, tumultuous, clamorous...

Rather than explaining the above in further creative ways, how about we look at what is NOT the essence of rumbustious-ness. 

Snails of the garden variety.  Tulips, or basically any other type of inactive plant.  Getting out of bed on cold mornings.  Whispering in libraries.  My Internet connection.  Sheep.  Calm, still waters.  Molasses.

Oh, and sloths.

WWW: Extempore [and law firms]

My vocabulary took a great big leap yesterday...in all things commercial law.

I'm really enjoying this mid-year break.  I have no idea what is about to happen next.

Last week I was eating ice cream from Dairy Bell in the sun overlooking Docklands Melbourne.
Then suddenly I turned 20.
Before that I walked down the driveway of my childhood home in Thornbury for the first time since I was seven years old (can't even describe how that felt).
The weekend before last I was helping a group of children sticky tape bits of paper to more bits of paper.  And rescuing my skirt from a pair of scissors.
I went to a health conference and came back swearing to take my vitamins regularly.  I've made more lasagna with my nonna, I've vacuumed the house, I've sewed a little, shopped a lot, written more of my novel, vacuumed the house, lay on the couch for an entire weekend (winter sickness - must take those vitamins), and vacuumed the house.  I worked in a law firm for the day, and read Northanger Abbey in the city library.

Only a few things remain constant amidst the madness of unscheduled life.   The wood fire (ah, must go chuck on another log), the dust I'm always vacuuming in the house, and chai lattes at McDonalds (sorry authentic chai fans, but McDonalds is everywhere and hot drinks on cold mornings keep me sane).

WWW: Morpheme

WWW no.1

(Wonderful Word of the Week number one)

A word which everyone who likes words should know.

Morpheme {n.}  A meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word, such as man, or a word element, such as -ed in walked, that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts.

Fascinating.  And meaningful.

While it may sound like a hefty pain-killer, a morpheme is so very technically linguistic.  It brings me right back to my battles with grammar.
Considering those battles were long, drawn out and painful, it is very brave of me to choose something like this to include in my vocabulary.

One quick Google search later reveals to me that that a morpheme is actually very boring.

The tiniest unit of expression in any language.  It can be a word, or it can make up a word.

Basic, basic, basic.  Like the logs in our wood fire, or the bricks in the base of the Statue of Liberty, or the potatoes on a plate with filet mignon, or... you get the picture.  A bit blah and boring, but very necessary.

It's so blah that I think I broke my favourite quotations-finder-website when I searched for a quote - any quote! - containing the word 'morpheme'.  Whoops.  It told me to try a more general word...

Scratch that, let's move on to something a little more unorthodox.

A2Z Word Finder!

A morpheme may not be dividable into smaller meaningful parts, but I am about break the rules of grammar, or linguistics, or whatever we are dealing with here.

*evil laughter*

Behold, the word morpheme is being broken into smaller morphemes.

Hmm, let's see, there is hemp, rheme, home, hope, moper, hop, heme, memo, hero, mope, perm, poem, prom, romp, here, mop, her, hoe, more, peer, pore, and rope.

Whew!

Now, look out world!  I'm armed and ready to point out your morphemes with my morphemes!

(Confession: I really think that I still don't fully grasp the definition of this word about words.)

Wonderful Words

In my first ever post on this blog (not counting my random tester posts which were promptly deleted) I indulged my love for interesting words and phrases.

Do you know what I mean by blackberry winter?  Probably only if you read that first post.

But don't bother - it has distorted pictures.  I have no idea what happened to them, because I have a really good camera which takes really good photos for all my other posts.  I am constantly trying for better photos.  I think this blog is supposed to be about that, isn't it?  *cough cough* photography section *cough*

Anyway, where was I?

My love for interesting words and phrases.

I know several people who have absolutely astonishing vocabularies.  They are usually both bookworms and homeschoolers.  I am/was both, but I think my vocabulary has suffered a little ever since I began to read at primary school.  The books were really boring and simple and unfortunately shrunk my literary horizons.  I wasn't always homeschooled.

But this isn't a depressed look into my impoverished past (I'm sure my teachers meant best when they told me what to read).  I bear the scars of a voracious reader who began be reading whatever she could lay her hands on, and was then given books suitable for her grade/year level.  Oh no!  Memories are flooding into my mind even now as I write!
Years later I can still picture those thin, oh so unsubstantial books, handed out to every student to be read after school (we even had to get our parents to sign their lives away, swearing we had finished the book).  I think I forged my mother's signature.  Not because I wasn't reading those little books, but because I was reading too many.

I even remember the series: Aussie Bites

Blah.  I see they are still producing excellent reading material for Australian students...

PLEASE DO NOT BE OFFENDED BY THE FOLLOWING CONTENT (you have been warned)

Marty's amazing talent takes
him into the secret, fantastic, 
highly competitive world of
World Championship Farting!

Archie Cupid is a perfect angel. Lizzie Imp is just perfectly naughty!

But when Archie gets Lizzie's spitball up his nose and Lizzie gets struck by Archie's arrow, everything changes . . .

Skeeta Anderson woke up one morning to find that his bum was gone. And not only his bum, but the bum of every single person in the town of Bugalugs.

It's up to Skeeta to catch the thief . . .

Sheesh, I'm not trying to run a smear campaign, but I wasn't even aware I was reading...this.

Where were the Three Musketeers, or Anne of Green Gables?  Famous Five anyone?  How about a little Shakespeare?

Now you know why I'm only just getting onto Austen.  Look at my beginnings!  

All well, I'm getting carried away.

The point is, I am now free from the shackles of prescribed primary reading (long free), and now is the time to rectify all wrongs.

As well as reading a lot of everything, and doing creative writing at university level, I am determined to expand my vocabulary.

I shall do it on this blog, or else it will never get done at all.

(And with the current rate of posting on this blog, it may still never get done at all)

But never say die!

Instead, say hello to an additional file within The Mouse Files: Wonderful Words

Blackberry winter

September equals


warm days, cold nights, Jonathan's birthday, blueberries, Grand Final fever, rain showers, blossoms, last holidays before Christmas, wattle, chai tea AND ice cream (happy medium), boot sales, Father's Day, new leaves on the trees...and September blues, which in my case means a lull in the mode of frantic assignment writing I've been trapped in.  


Last uni assignment was handed in on Friday, and now I'm a free woman! (for two weeks)  
So, I'm finally writing my first blog post.  (I can't say it's my first EVER, since I already wrote a 'tester'.  It was promptly deleted as the only thing I write was 'testing' about 100 times.)


It's finally spring, so I googled 'spring synonyms' just because I love words.  Among other boring terms, blackberry winter stood out.  Apparently, if you're in Tennessee, you know it's blackberry winter when there is a cold snap just as the weather is warming up.  I'd say that's now, since this morning I was wearing a t-shirt, and now I'm wearing two hoodies, ugg boots, and jeans + leggings.  I'm not in Tennessee, but why not make blackberry winters universal?
(The only slight problem is that blackberries come out in a totally different season over this side of the globe.)


On Sunday, I wheedled Dad to walk me down to the Gully down the road.  It's really only a puny scrap of land wedged in between someone's property, and the dirt road, but deep down by the dry creek bed (it slopes down quite a bit) it's dark, secluded and beautiful.  On one side of the creek stands a pine 'forest', and the other is full of slender young gum trees - quite a contrast. 

Who owns this gorgeous piece of land?

Once upon a time we picked wild blackberries by the recycled-plastic-Chinese-container-full, every February.  Now, the blackberries have completely disappeared...sprayed? 

Spring has left the creek bed full of vibrant green grass, brown puddles, and an old car.

A piece of junk can look so beautiful when nature has grown over it.

I don't go there much, but the Gully will always be a part of my literary treasury.  It's the setting for a short story I wrote to enter into the Alan Marshall Short Story competition.  Maybe I'll put it up on my new blog someday... 


The sky is periwinkle blue today.  There are no clouds trapping any warm sun rays so the air is crispy cold.  The only blackberries in this blackberry winter are the frozen ones we have in our mixed berry box in the freezer.  

Weeds can be pretty...