Gonna be a short one
Listening to:Whistle Down the Wind - various artists
Reading: Once Upon A Star Nora Roberts
Weather: 35, partly sunny
Trivia:What was Stonehenge used for, anyway?
Theories as to what the monument known as Stonehenge was used for range from the mundane to the highly implausible. One legend has it that it was used as a sacrificial altar by the druids as it stands on a spot of powerfully magical "ley line," said to run throughout England. Another states that no less a personage than Merlin himself called the rocks out of the very earth itself to the place they now stand. The prehistoric ritual monument, situated on Salisbury Plain, north of Salisbury, England, dates from the late Stone age. It's arguably the most well known of the many "henges" in England. The monument itself consists of four concentric ranges of stones. The outermost is a circle, around 100 ft in diameter, of large, linteled, sandstone blocks called sarsen stones. Within this is another circle of smaller stones which enclose a horseshoe-shaped group of five linteled pairs of large sarsen stones. Within this arrangement is a smaller horseshoe-shaped group enclosing a slab known as the Altar Stone. Near the entrance lies the "Slaughter Stone," a sarsen stone that some think originally stood upright. Finally, grouped around the main structure are a number of barrows, some of which contain chips similar to that found in the concentric ranges. Stonehenge's function has long been a matter of intense speculation. In 1964 American astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins reported finding that, if you supplied a computer with measurements taken at Stonehenge together with astronomical information based on the positions of heavenly bodies in 1500 bc (when Stonehenge would have been in use) you got some interesting results. It turns out that Stonehenge could have been used to predict the summer and winter solstices, the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and eclipses of both the sun and moon. Even more interesting, other information pertaining to the sun and moon could also be predicted with remarkable accuracy. Hawkins concluded that Stonehenge functioned as a means of predicting the positions of the sun and moon relative to the earth, and thereby the seasons, and perhaps also as a simple daily calendar. This pretty much closed the book on Stonehenge for most people, but other speculation continues on it to this very day.
Cool word:Wednesday [n. WENZ-day]
Wednesday is the middle day of the five-day working week, and as such it is casually called "hump day," the day we "get over the hump" and begin coasting into the weekend. In German, Wednesday is called mitwoch (mid-week). The Russians call it sreda (center). As with Tuesday, the Germanic people renamed the original Roman day, substituting their own god. The Romans called the day Dies Mercurii (Mercury's Day), after the god of quickness and eloquence, translating from the Greek hemera Hermu (Day of Hermes). The Germanic name was Wodnesdaeg, after Woden, a god who was also quick and eloquent. In Dutch it's Woensdag, and in Swedish it's Onsdag.
This is going to be a short entry as I really can’t think of anything to say.
We had an hour snow delay this morning, which didn’t mean much as far as I was concerned. I got the delay call at the same time my alarm was going off, and there didn’t seem to be much point in going back to sleep. It might have been worth it if we had the entire day off, but by the time I called the next person on the snow chain I was pretty much awake.
It was nice to be able to sort of putz around getting ready, and not be in a mad rush as I normally am.
The delay was because it had iced over last night and the roads were bad. It also meant that I had a carsicle when I went out this morning. It took almost twenty minutes to chop the car out of the block of ice that was encasing it. The worst part was that the doors were frozen shut, so I couldn’t get in to start the car and get the defrost running. And of course where were all the scrapers?
That’s right!
Inside the car.
I eventually managed to pound enough of the ice off of the handle on the passenger side, crawl through and open the driver door from the inside. Once the car had warmed up for about ten minutes I could hack the rest of the ice off the driver’s side.
Never a dull moment.
School was goofy because of the delay. We essentially lost the first two periods of the day, and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what time it was and where we should be.
I spent some time working on my Chinese New Year/Year of the Dragon Unit, as I’d really like to start it tomorrow. I’ve only got a week to get all this in. And as usual I’ve got enough material to spend month doing it. I need to pare it down.
I have to go into Boston on Saturday to go to a teacher workshop, and I keep thinking that I’ll try to get over to Chinatown to get some real items to use in our celebration. That might be a tad too ambitious. A lot will depend on what the weather is like on Saturday. If it’s bitterly cold I won’t be traipsing around the various areas of Boston. I’ll hop on and off the "T", period.
I stopped at Blockbuster on my way home to see what they had on sale for their previewed videos. I got "Shakespeare in Love", "Dancing at Lughnasa", "Little Voice", and "Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool".
I’m the only person in the world who has ever seen Bert Rigby. It’s a crazy musical starring Robert Lindsay who is one of the most amazing performers I’ve ever seen. I saw him the first time I went to London in a show called "Me and My Girl", which was a show I’d never heard of, but fell in love with. The salesperson at Harrod’s recommended it to me and it ended up being a favorite. (The female lead was Emma Thompson, no one had ever heard of her then. She can sing,too.) I saw "Me and My Girl" twice when it came to Broadway. Robert Lindsay was in it in New York and he was just amazing to watch. He won the best actor Tony for the part. He’s sort of the Fred Astaire type.
And the video only cost me ninety-nine cents.
I rented "Runaway Bride" and "Notting Hill". It’s a Julia Robert’s film festival here. Actually I need to go watch Bride now. It’s only a one night rental!
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Horoscope
ARIES
You are rather sensitive about your social status and prestige, you could easily start believing that you should only be seen in the company of glamorous sexy people if you want to achieve your aims. But all that glitters is not gold and you will need to re-examine your aims and why you want to impress people so much. Although friends are distinctly unpredictable they will not be boring, they can easily provide more than a few sparks of excitement.