and then sometimes, something happy happens.

well, something pleasant, anyway, or at least a little satisfying.

the way participles work is, you have a verb. and you do one thing to it (involving partial conjugation, a suffix that sounds like "shch", and then an adjective ending), you get "which is _____ing"; you do another thing (a different partial conjugation, "vsh", and an adjective ending), you get "which was _____ing"; you do a third thing to it (which is rarely, rarely done, so i'm not positive i know what it is; i believe it's partial conjugation, "m", and an adjective ending), you get "which is being _______ed"; or you do a fourth thing to it (partial conjugation, either "enn" or "t", and an adjective ending), you get "which has been ______ed".

so i've just run across вымышленный [vymyshl'onnyj] 'fictional' -- which is the past passive participle, see, of вымыслить [vymyslit'] 'to imagine'. (it also gives "invent, make up, think up", but i like "imagine" the best.)

feh (again).

so this morning? i went to turn on the overhead light, and nothing happened.

the electricity is fine -- everything else electrical in my apartment is running just dandy. the other two lightswitches work. (living room, kitchen, bathroom -- it's not a switch-heavy place.) but no overhead light.

and the thing is, there are three lightbulbs in there. they can't all have burned out simultaneously. plus when i flipped the switch there was no pop as if any lightbulb had burned out. just nothing.

sigh, which means it's probably a wiring issue. fortunately, the fact that the management company is closed all weekend isn't a disaster -- this is so not the time for me to have people messing with repair stuff, and by the time they'll be able to send someone over, i'll be in much better shape to have them here. and i have a floor lamp, so the living room isn't completely dark.

but this is still really stupid.

... the hell are you doing in the office on a saturday?

am looking at half-hour-old e-mail from the good russian professor (the one for whom the participles-lexicalization paper is due). says it's okay with him if i hand it in to both him and crazy expects-us-to-read-her-mind russian professor!

may go ahead and do this even without hearing from her. because, frankly, she's insane.

must take care to break at least ten-page mark in this case, however.

[eta: THANK GOD! have heard from crazy prof. as well, and she says "I don't mind any topic of your paper, as long as the part you relate to syntax and semantics is conceptually sound and has good examples and appropriate length." there's no real way to know what the hell she means by that, which means i am GOLDEN.]

i bet my students didn't believe me.

( jabberwocky )