Different strokes

My head is a ‘library of knowledge’, unfortunately on a topic I cannot discuss elsewhere. I have accumulated ten months’ worth of research for my thesis paper and it irritates me (a major understatement – ‘nauseates’ is more accurate) to have to reference a title with American spelling – ‘or’s, ‘og’s, ‘er’s, ‘ze’s, etc.

And now, to top off the already not-nice process of Honours, I learn that I am guilty of committing, albeit unwittingly, ‘American versus British’ spelling crimes (‘judgment’ looks better than ‘judgement’; same with ‘jail’ and ‘gaol’, ‘skeptics’ and ‘sceptics’). Those who know what a Nazi I am about spelling… Yeah, it sux.

Leave it to chance

And see what happens… The end product will be a mega-hit, I can tell you.

What would your album look like if you were in a band? Follow the directions to find out:

1. Go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.
   The first random Wikipedia article is the name of your band.
2. Go to www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
   The last four or five words of the last quote is the title of your album.
3. Go to www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.
   The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.
4. Use Adobe Photoshop, or similar, to put it all together.

Lexicon

I need to start writing my Honours paper this month (although I should have begun in May), so it’s semi-logical that I measure the extent of my vocabulary. Voilà – a word cloud of the 75 words I most frequently use on this blog:

At least I exercise judiciousness, evidenced by how small most of the words are (who would have thunk that I favour ‘like’ and ‘one’?). Out of the 20,000 words I have to emit from the scholarly section of my brain (akin to the Loch Ness Monster – both are only alleged to exist), it is safe to say I can avoid using a large proportion of the above. But I’m still going to try and slip in ‘Federer’ somewhere…

Pièce de résistance

By no stretch of the imagination, Roger Federer’s win at Roland Garros was extraordinary, not to mention a long time coming. Having never won the Coupe des Mousquetaires, made worse by his fall slight decline from greatness in 2008, this makes his victory even sweeter. As a Federer fanatic, I am tired of seeking written therapy after his losses, so it is appropriate (and only mildly crazy) that I, too, am putting so much significance into this post.

Joachim and I, being hardcore tennis geeks who don’t actually play the sport, place an unhealthy amount of weight on superstition and fate. I can’t speak for Joachim and his karmic relationship with Rafael Nadal, but when it comes to Federer, I strongly believe in the butterfly effect… And wearing lucky underwear. Very few could have predicted that he would equal Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slams on this clay surface… I’m serious – Federer was meant to win!

The Fed Express (who else thought it was destiny that the FedEx logo was brazenly displayed on the sponsorship boards?) forced me to ignite my interest in this tournament, giving me the last-minute opportunity to watch the match with Davina (and 100 strangers) at Star City in my last year in Australia, an exhilarating experience I would have foregone any other time. Then, only do I realise that there is something better than catching a final with your siblings at home (no offence to Vanessa and Christopher).

Shot-in-the-dark theories aside, I’m going with the simple and say that I’m happy to be writing about this particular Federer achievement. I’m happy to have seen a semblance of his signature style of graceful poetry. I’m happy that he shrugged off the pressures of the Grand Slams record and Career Slam laurel, as well as the momentary scare suffered in the second set, to win his first French Open title. I’m happy he’s ecstatic.