Post-Toasties:

I have vanquished my revisions-- FEAR ME!

I know Burn Notice gets mad discounts to film on location, but something about the first season of Dexter (yes, I'm a little behind) convinced me they were there. IMDB isn't that useful, since it doesn't track filming locations by episode. Maybe they started out there.

Exceptionally long day. They like me at Derby University, where they have a superb Sociology of Religion department. Which is nice. Less nice: I wish people (friends, etc) wouldn't assume that just because a uni has said they're going to make me an offer, I can go there. I'm not quite sure why I'm so annoyed by this. Partly because I'm stressed over how I'm going to fund my next three to seven years of study. Partly because I don't know whether it's worse to waste a good mind and future academic career prospects, or to throw away a substantial sum of money while living on baked beans and trying to work out how to afford the train fares to my university. And partly because I want to be able to say "They like me at Derby!" without someone demanding to know exactly what my plans are, immediately, mainly for their own benefit, as though the above decisions are ones that I'm able to make over an afternoon cuppa. And I'm done. Thank you. (Also. They like me at Derby! :D )

I had a cockney accent.

I grew up with a truly horrific north London accent. I picked it up at school. My parents were not thrilled.

I'm fine with English speakers, mostly Americans, to pronounce my name as Sheer. It's an accent thing, which I can suck at, at lot, so I won't demand it from others.

I do feel I should try to do a bit better with your name. That 'r' is tricky in Hebrew, though. I say it like a French 'r' and The Girl cringes.

My parents are accent snobs. They wouldn't let me talk patois around my sister when she was learning to speak, so I never really grounded myself in Jamaican dialect. She's made up for the lost time. Me, I only go there under adrenalin.

I'm sure they were very excited when I dropped the Cockney accent for the RP accent. Didn't last that long once I left the UK, though.

That 'r' is tricky in Hebrew, though. I say it like a French 'r' and The Girl cringes.

Ok, if it's not as much of a French r (which I can manage reasonably well) as smonster's comments led me to think - Shir - which Americanization would you prefer: just "she" totally leaving off any form of consonent at the end, or "Sheer", or "Shi(French r)"? So I can practice up?

I can sort of manage the Hebrew r. Not totally, though. I have more trouble with it at the end of words than in the middle -- I can say Shira or Shiri more easily than I can say Shir.

Just got a rejection email. Not from a job I'd interviewed for -- from a job I'd applied for and then never heard from again until now. So that leaves somewhere around 125 that I haven't heard from yet.

I am, however, surprised at how often I am asked to spell my first name.

I always ask people how to spell their names. John Smith? Jon Smythe is a completely legit alternative. As to your first name, this guy has a alternate spelling (admittedly one that is often a feminine variation, but not always). [link]

smonster, we're upgrading to Environmental lightbulbs right now and it's fucking great(we hope so, anyway)

Dammit. Drew's mom is back in the hospital with a bad infection. Health ~ma for her and coping ~ma for Drew would be appreciated.

{{{{Drew and Drew's mom}}}}