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Siblings are over, so while events are many updates are few and far between. When did my brother get so freaking handsome? When did my sister get so freaking beautiful? They astound me. The things you miss when you move out . . . of course they were handsome/beautiful when I was home for Christmas, but now it's x10. Crazy.
I have an alarming tendancy to make inadvertant and horrible puns. I never actually realize until after I've said them, and I feel deep remorse akin to agony upon realization, but they are just horrible enough to deserve recounting.
One of my worst, to my recollection, occurred earlier this spring. Japan can get quite hazy around then, and I remarked on it to one of my teachers.
"Oh, yes," he said. "That's because the wind picks up sand from the Gobi Desert in China during this time, and carries it through the air and drops it on Japan."
I recounted what he said to a friend of mine who was also curious about the reason, but she seemed somewhat dubious about his story. "I mean, sand from the Gobi Desert? Do you really think that's true?" she asked me.
"Dunno," I said. "It seems a little far-fetched to me . . ."
Horrible.
All of this comes up, of course, because I made another one tonight. My mother recently came back from Venice. While she was there, she visited Verona and saw this medeival statue of Cangrande della Scala. He's an interesting man with an interesting history. She told me a possibly apocryphal tale of how he got his name: christened Francesco, he was so impressed by Marco Polo's tales of Ghengis Khan that he decided to take the Khan's name as his own. However, he misinterpretted it as meaning "cane," "dog" in Italian. And so he was called the Big Dog of the della Scala family, and took the dog as his personal symbol.
Wikipedia disagrees on the origin of the name, but I like the story.
His family name, della Scala, translates to "of the stairs" or "of the ladder," because his family originally made their fortune by building ladders. She then told me that they rose from that position, acquiring wealth and power, until through military might Cangrande came to rule all of Verona.
"Wow," I said. "They went from making ladders to ruling Verona? That's a bit of a step up . . ."
Horrible.
I promised my mother I would commit seppuku immediately, but as I didn't have a sword handy, my vow was broken not long after it was made.
I have an alarming tendancy to make inadvertant and horrible puns. I never actually realize until after I've said them, and I feel deep remorse akin to agony upon realization, but they are just horrible enough to deserve recounting.
One of my worst, to my recollection, occurred earlier this spring. Japan can get quite hazy around then, and I remarked on it to one of my teachers.
"Oh, yes," he said. "That's because the wind picks up sand from the Gobi Desert in China during this time, and carries it through the air and drops it on Japan."
I recounted what he said to a friend of mine who was also curious about the reason, but she seemed somewhat dubious about his story. "I mean, sand from the Gobi Desert? Do you really think that's true?" she asked me.
"Dunno," I said. "It seems a little far-fetched to me . . ."
Horrible.
All of this comes up, of course, because I made another one tonight. My mother recently came back from Venice. While she was there, she visited Verona and saw this medeival statue of Cangrande della Scala. He's an interesting man with an interesting history. She told me a possibly apocryphal tale of how he got his name: christened Francesco, he was so impressed by Marco Polo's tales of Ghengis Khan that he decided to take the Khan's name as his own. However, he misinterpretted it as meaning "cane," "dog" in Italian. And so he was called the Big Dog of the della Scala family, and took the dog as his personal symbol.
Wikipedia disagrees on the origin of the name, but I like the story.
His family name, della Scala, translates to "of the stairs" or "of the ladder," because his family originally made their fortune by building ladders. She then told me that they rose from that position, acquiring wealth and power, until through military might Cangrande came to rule all of Verona.
"Wow," I said. "They went from making ladders to ruling Verona? That's a bit of a step up . . ."
Horrible.
I promised my mother I would commit seppuku immediately, but as I didn't have a sword handy, my vow was broken not long after it was made.
