It is a little after 4am on xxxxxxmas morning. Many years ago my brother and I would be pretending to be asleep about now, waiting till 5am when we could go get our stockings. After that we had to let our parents sleep until, I think, about 8. Or maybe 7. All I know is that they would have been up till after midnight the night before.
After we were allowed to wake them up, mom made us wait while she fixed us all breakfast. The tree would be bursting with presents but we had to eat first. Then we distributed and opened presents one by one, savoring each one and trying to save the best for last.
Those were the good parts.
Right now I am about to start editing my third paper of the night. Either that or I am going to nap, then take a long walk, find myself breakfast at some diner somewhere, and then come back here. The question is do I want to leave myself 4500 words to edit between waking and 5:30pm or do I want to get it done now. I guess I'll look at it and see how bad the English is. The last paper was not bad at all, which was good because I had little idea what they were talking about. I mean, I had some clue of the general outline of the procedure they were describing, but the details were lost on me. Fortunately I think I was still able to assign the correct article when one was missing. That is probably the most frequent error writers make: when to include the article in English. If you want to get an idea of how hard it would be for a non-native speaker to figure it out themselves, listen to yourself and others or pay attention to the next book you read. Where do "the," "a," and "an" appear? When do they not? Can you formulate a rule that would reliably tell a non-native writer when to use an article and which one?
It is harder than you might think at first.
I am sleepy but I cannot tell if I am really sleepy or just sleepy because it is nearly dawn and I almost always get sleepy around now no matter how much sleep I have gotten or when.
The acid test would be to drink a cup of coffee. If it puts me to sleep I was really sleepy. Maybe that's what I'll do. If I wasn't really sleepy it will wake me up and keep me awake until at least 2pm.
Those of you who celebrate today, I hope you get exactly what you wanted. And I hope you were very careful when articulating what that was. :)
After we were allowed to wake them up, mom made us wait while she fixed us all breakfast. The tree would be bursting with presents but we had to eat first. Then we distributed and opened presents one by one, savoring each one and trying to save the best for last.
Those were the good parts.
Right now I am about to start editing my third paper of the night. Either that or I am going to nap, then take a long walk, find myself breakfast at some diner somewhere, and then come back here. The question is do I want to leave myself 4500 words to edit between waking and 5:30pm or do I want to get it done now. I guess I'll look at it and see how bad the English is. The last paper was not bad at all, which was good because I had little idea what they were talking about. I mean, I had some clue of the general outline of the procedure they were describing, but the details were lost on me. Fortunately I think I was still able to assign the correct article when one was missing. That is probably the most frequent error writers make: when to include the article in English. If you want to get an idea of how hard it would be for a non-native speaker to figure it out themselves, listen to yourself and others or pay attention to the next book you read. Where do "the," "a," and "an" appear? When do they not? Can you formulate a rule that would reliably tell a non-native writer when to use an article and which one?
It is harder than you might think at first.
I am sleepy but I cannot tell if I am really sleepy or just sleepy because it is nearly dawn and I almost always get sleepy around now no matter how much sleep I have gotten or when.
The acid test would be to drink a cup of coffee. If it puts me to sleep I was really sleepy. Maybe that's what I'll do. If I wasn't really sleepy it will wake me up and keep me awake until at least 2pm.
Those of you who celebrate today, I hope you get exactly what you wanted. And I hope you were very careful when articulating what that was. :)
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what i got was a homemade "night before christmas" poem from ted, with photos he'd either taken with my camera or found online. the best feature was that the 8 tiny reindeer have faces photoshopped on. oh, this boy knows me too well.
>."Now Xander! now, Angel! now, Severus and Luthor!
On, Lewis! On, Oliver! on, on Colbert and Stewart!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"
hope the other half of the snowblower arrives by new year's! ;)