Hawaii trip

It’s been well over a month since I returned from my recent (and first) trip to Hawaii, but I still wanted to share some of my notes about what we did. I wrote this out while we were in Hawaii, and it’s missing the last four or five days–but it still gives you some idea of what we did and how I liked it. NOTE: We left on March 18th, if memory serves. You can work out the rest of the dates from there.

Wednesday: Lots of flying. Saw a ship all lit up from the airplane when we got to Honolulu. It was dark, though, so we couldn’t see much else. L Rented a car from Budget, which I get to drive! J Almost asked for a convertible, but I didn’t think Mom would appreciate it as much as me, so I didn’t. Found our temporary home, in La’ie on the North Shore, just up the street from the Temple. It’s a cute little house, right on the beach, which is really nice.

Thursday: Travis tells me the bay we are “living” on is called Hukilau. For years, the locals in La’ie (who were almost all Mormon … La’ie has been a Mormon settlement for a long time) would gather once a week to fish in the bay using a large net that they would set out in a horse-shoe shape. They would then sell the fish to raise funds for the Church. They only stopped about 15 years ago, sometime in the 1990s, when the government started taxing them for it.

This was mostly a resting-up and settling-in day. Travis and Bernice went into Honolulu and did some shopping at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, and also wandered around Chinatown for a bit. The kids (especially Warner) were dying to swim in the water, but the lady we’re renting from, Sue, told us that they bay had been polluted by a recent storm and recommended that we wait a few days before swimming in it. So I took Porter, Byron, Mikaela, and Christian for a drive around the island. We went all the way up the North Shore and then down the western side to Hale’iwa, where we went inland, past the Dole pineapple plantation, down to Pearl City, and then back up the east coast and home to La’ie. It really is a beautiful drive, and we missed a lot of gorgeous views driving through the night.

Friday: Drove into Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona Memorial. The video they showed at the beginning was very touching. Jake Keck, my second cousin, is living here in La’ie for a while, so we took him with us. Afterward we went to lunch at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. They serve things with lots of rice and macaroni salad out here. After that, Mom and Jake and I drove to WalMart/Sam’s Club (they are in the same building) to pick up a few more things, and Travis’s family drove a little further, to Snorkel Bob’s in Waikiki, where they rented snorkel gear for the week. They were planning to snorkel in Waikiki, but once they got there, all the kids said they’d rather go home. So we did. Bernice and Travis took a few of the kids to Shark’s Cove to snorkel. They said it was pretty cool … until they got dashed against the sharp rocks! We watched Hawaii Five-O on TV.

Saturday: Mom and Bernice and I got up early and drove into Honolulu to shop at the swap meet that’s held at Aloha Stadium every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. I got a beautiful sarong, as well as a bracelet and a few necklaces. We also bought souvenirs for all the grandkids, and Mom bought some dried fruit and macadamia nuts to snack on. The swap meet took most of the morning, and then we went, again, to … Walmart/Sam’s Club! We ate lunch there, and Bernice picked up a few more groceries.

In the afternoon, I decided I wanted to swim in the ocean, so I donned my most hideous t-shirt and most water-friendly pair of pants (light-weight khakis) and went out there. Bernice came with me, in her swimsuit, and together we braved the waves. In the meantime, her family came walking back from their own adventure, and we stopped and talked with them about it for a while. They had waded out to Goat Island, a little island in the middle of Hukilau Bay. If you walk up the bay to the point, the water is fairly shallow, with coral at the bottom, and you can just walk across to the island. Travis had taken the kids out there and they spent most of the day there. About the same time they were coming back, Bernice had decided we should get out the snorkel gear and snorkel for a bit. Once she got it all together, she declared that she and I were going to snorkel to Goat Island! I hadn’t been expecting that, but I wanted to snorkel and I wanted to see Goat Island, so I agreed. We wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.

At the point where you can wade across the bay, the water is really too shallow to make snorkeling very pleasant. However, it was shallow enough for us to see the coral and other marine life at the bottom, which was really cool! I just about drowned when I first got brave enough to stick my head under there. I was so astounded at everything I could see that I tried to shout, “Holy cow!” and came up spluttering salt water out of my mouth. Since swimming wasn’t really practical in that water, we mostly “walked” our way across with out hands, grabbing hold of the coral with one hand at a time and then pulling ourselves forward; we also flippered some with our feet. J We made it across the bay and then around a really sharp point of the island—sharp in the sense that the island and that point in particular are formed out of lava rock—and then made a plan of action for how to get back. We decided we didn’t want to go back the same way we had come, so we shot for a longer route that would bring us more toward the middle of the bay. It worked all right. It still wasn’t very good for snorkeling, since it was too deep here to see anything—even though we could touch the bottom with our feet most of the time—but it was much smoother. Until we got close enough to the beach, that is, that floating, swimming, and snorkeling were all out of the question. See, the bottom here was still covered with that coral, which is not pleasant to step on. I know, because I tried. I took of my snorkeling flippers at one point, thinking I would just brave the rocks. That lasted about two steps. Then I had to try and put the flippers back on, which is not as easy as it sounds, when you’re sitting in the ocean, getting hit by wave after wave, with not enough water beneath you to ride the wave. Instead, you keep getting pushed down onto the ocean floor. It made for some rather entertaining floundering before I finally got those flippers back on. Of course, then the problem was how to walk with the flippers on my feet. I don’t know how those penguins do it, because it’s not easy to walk with flippers. But all this while, Bernice had been steadily working her way toward the shore by walking backwards. So that’s what I did, too. It worked, even though I felt a little silly. And even though it was very slow. But we did both make it back to the shore, back to our little house where we showered and doctored our battle wounds. It was definitely an experience to remember.

Sunday: We went to church at noon, next to the La’ie Temple. Actually, Mom and I got separated from Travis’s family, since there are two chapels next to the Temple, and we chose the one they weren’t going to. We didn’t realize what had happened until after Sacrament Meeting. We only stayed for the one meeting, and afterward went to the Visitor’s Center and then walked up to the Temple. We won’t be able to visit the Temple while we are here, since it’s under construction for some major renovation work. However, the rest of the family is planning to do baptisms for the dead at the Kona Temple on the Big Island this Friday. Or is it Saturday? I’m not sure yet whether we’ll be able to get me plane tickets to go out to the Big Island, so I may not get to the Kona Temple either.

After lunch on Sunday, we drove up the North Shore to Waimea, where we all got into Travis’s car (it’s an SUV) and drove up a steep mountain trail to the ruins of a Hawaiian heiau, or temple. It’s almost on a cliff, and you can walk out around it to see Waimea Bay below—and, if you’re lucky, to see whales off the coast. Bernice and Warner did see some, but the rest of us missed them. After that, we continued down the shore for a few more miles, to a place known locally as “Turtle Beach,” since lots of green sea turtles hang out here. We got to see three or four of them, just floating along in the water and occasionally coming up for air. It was pretty cool.

Monday: Tried to leave early again, so that we could get to Waikiki in time for our reservations on a sight-seeing submarine. Didn’t make it in time. They were very nice about getting us on the next tour, though. The sub was awesome—we got to see all kinds of fish down there, and even a sting-ray. And I learned (finally!) to pronounce the name of the Hawaii state fish: humuhumunukunukuapua’a. Sheesh, that’s a mouthful! However, I prefer another word, the longest Hawaiian name for a fish: lauwiliwilinukunukuoioi. Try saying that five times fast!

Again, we made our way to Walmart/Sam’s Club for some lunch and shopping. Then we drove up to Punchbowl, or the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. This military cemetery is built in a crater (so it’s shaped kind of like a punchbowl), and it is the final resting place of 28,000 veterans who lost their lives fighting in the Pacific arena during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In addition, there are 28,778 more names engraved on marble slabs, representing all those whose remains weren’t found. It’s an incredible sight.

Driving out of Punchbowl, we saw an incredible rainbow, right below us and arching over a valley right in the heart of Honolulu. We continued seeing rainbows all the way along the freeway out of town. Wow. No wonder they call it the Rainbow State.

We again watched Hawaii Five-O in the evening, and were excited to recognize Punchbowl in the opening credits! J

 

tending kids and knees

I have been chastised by NM, so I’m posting a short update.  Here’s the deal: my Mom and I are currently in Colorado Springs helping to take care of my two nieces (aged 4 years and 17 months, respectively) while my brother and his wife are visiting Israel and Egypt with her family.  I’m totally jealous that they get to visit there — but Margo and I have plans to go there sometime, so it’ll be all right.

Anyway, I hope this circumstance explains sufficiently to my readership why I have been so lax on the blog posts lately.  It isn’t that I don’t have access to the internet or anything, but mainly that I’m just so goll-durned exhausted!  Mom and I arrived one week ago today, and Damber left on their trip last Saturday.  So we’ve really only had care of the kids for three full days (four today), and we’re starting to wonder how we’ll make it for two more weeks.  Mom and I had all these plans that we would watch grown-up movies and do other grown-up activities at night, after the girls go to bed, but we both find we’re so tired by that time that we don’t want to do anything.  I’m gaining an amazing appreciation for stay-at-home moms.

At the same time, though, the girls really can be a lot of fun to take care of.  They can be absolutely adorable, and the little one has conceived an inordinately strong attachment to me — which, I have to admit, more often makes me happy than otherwise.  The older one likes to sing songs to herself (including “A Child’s Prayer,” “Follow the Prophet,” the alphabet song, “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” among many others) and to make up songs to herself, both of which are very cute.  The little one is just starting to make semi-words: dah (‘dog’), hah-hah-hah (the sound a dog makes), ow-a (‘flower’ or any other brightly colored thing, including leaves, stars, butterflies, and trees with leaves that are changing color), and uh-oh (which I hope you all understand without my explanation).

So, all in all, it’s a mixed experience.  Lots of good, lots of bad.  Lots of loving my girls so much I can hardly stand it, lots of wanting to scream so bad I can hardly stand it.  But if you don’t hear from me much in the next few weeks, now you’ll know why.

One last thing before I leave you, though — NM had asked about the well-being of my feet being connected with the well-being of my knees.  Well, I’ll tell you.  A few weeks after I started running regularly, I found that my left knee got very sore.  I looked up all kinds of information about sore knees on the internet, but my ache didn’t seem to fit the descriptions I was reading (of things like Runner’s Knee).  So I finally asked My Brother The Chiropractor what he thought.  He took a look at it, and listened to my description of where I felt the ache and when it was worst, and then said it was probably related to my feet.  One of the things I had learned while researching the problem on the internet was that knee problems are frequently related to foot or hip problems — which only makes sense, since the knees connect the legs to those places.  So MBTC recommended that I start doing foot exercises for 30 minutes a day, using balls of different sizes and textures and rubbing my feet over them.  The feet start to ache a little (for me, I didn’t feel it until the next day), which indicates that they are being used and exercised in ways they are unused to.  The more you use those foot muscles, the stronger your feet are, and the better they are able to support and protect your knees.  I noticed a difference almost immediately in my running: my feet no longer felt so sore from being held in position by my orthotic inserts, and my knee stopped aching after about a week.  So, if you want to try it out, I highly recommend it.  (Mom does the same exercises, and we use tennis balls, golf balls, and a variety of cat and dog toys we bought at PetSmart and Petco.)

 

plenty

There’s a lot to talk about today, so I’ll try to make it all fairly quick.

props to my bro
My brother Kip is a self-titled “big fish in a small pond” — which suits him just fine, apparently. He recenlty has starred in some commercials for the local Pocatello bank Potelco. (The name always cracks me up!) The most recent is now on YouTube, so I’m sharing.

going for muse
I managed to get tix for the Muse concert in Orem this fall. The site I bought them from cites September 12 as the date, so that’s what I’m currently planning on. They weren’t nearly as expensive as I was afraid they’d be, so that was quite a blessing. And I’ll plan on at least seeing elliespen while I’m there (if not staying at her newly-acquired house, as she so magnanimously offered), which will be great fun. And, most importantly, I’ll get to see Matt! And Dom! And Chris! *sigh!* Can life get any better?

I submit that it cannot! (82 points, especially since I’m not sure myself where this is from; I have an inkling it’s Adam Sandler, though

wildlife in wyoming
Well, I’m now in Idaho Falls, at the home of my youth. I arrived on Wednesday after a long and arduous drive through the wilderness of Wyoming. Harold (my faithful companion and car) performed very well. I promised him a good wash as soon as we could unload him — he’s very dirty — which should be by the beginning of next week at the latest.

While in Wyoming I saw a baby elk frolicking by the highway-side. He made me very nervous, in fact — I was afraid he would frolic into my path, causing a major highway disaster. Kind of like the (presumably adult) vulture I nearly hit earlier that day. As I came around a bend of the highway, this vulture was feeding on roadkill in the other lane. When he saw me coming, he decided to fly off — right into my path. Bird-brained bird! He very narrowly escaped Harold’s windshield, coming within a few inches of it.

I suppose that’s all — not as much as it seemed when I was getting ready to write. The last quote, correctly identified by elliespen, was from the film IQ.

 

farewell and hello

Goodbye, Denton! I have officially left, and I may never return. Or, I may return twice. We’ll see.

Right now, I’m in Colorado Springs, where I’m staying overnight on my way to Idaho. I’m excited to drive through Jackson, Wyoming, tomorrow. Jackson is close enough to home that it feels like home — it’s familiar terrain, so to speak. Not to mention, it’s gorgeous. There may even be some snow on the Teton Pass, so that’s pretty fun, too.

During my last weekend in Denton, NM invited me to come with her and her boyfriend to Hailey’s, a local club, to hear some bands play. NM and her man are both very into music, and they go to hear live acts all the time. I’ve only recently started getting into the modern music scene, especially the indie scene, so I was excited to go see a real band play and hear some new music. NM is a big fan of Beach House, and I enjoyed them. But at the moment, I’m completely in love with The Clientele. They have a very retro 60s-pop kind of sound going on, fairly mild, with with a good beat and some fascinating lyrics. I really enjoy “Since K Got Over Me” (incidentally the only single they’ve released so far), as well as “Here Comes the Phantom,” “I Hope I Know You,” and “The Queen of Seville.”
(Check them out: The Clienetele Official Website, Wikipedia, Google Music)

And speaking of concerts … Muse are apparently playing in Orem, Utah, this fall. There’s a little confusion over the date — one site I found said August 22, another said August 12, and the ticket site said September 12. But the point is, it’s Orem, and it’s Muse, and it’s Muse in Orem, and how can I possibly miss that?! I’m working on a way to get tickets, despite my low budget these days, as well as some friends to come with me — hopefully including Erin and possibly my niece.

When was the last time you said, “Wahoo!”? (25 points)

 

announcement and secret confession

announcement
Actually, there are two. First, I finally did laundry today. I don’t dare confess how long it had been. But I’m now pleasantly surprised to find the floor of my room nearly empty these days.

Second, after many months, I have finally converted all of my music files into mp3 format. Which means that I can now edit them, or give them to people (without authorizing their computers for my iTunes account). But I have well over a hundred dollars’ worth of music in my iTunes shopping cart. It will likely be many more months before I can buy all of it. *sigh*

OK … three announcements. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon for a weekend in Nauvoo with Margo. Yay!! I’ll be driving to Kansas to meet her and some friends from the area, then driving on to Kansas City, where we’ll spend the night … before driving to Independence, Missouri, to meet up with the other YSAs and take the bus to Nauvoo. Whew! And then, on Saturday night, we get to do that all again, in reverse. I haven’t been to Nauvoo before, though, and I’m excited to see Margo … I just hope she’ll consent to let me also do some homework (which sorely needs to be done!) as well.

secret confession
I recently admitted to myself that I have a favorite cuss word. And it’s not a nice one, at all. The kind that I would never say, but every time I hear someone else say it, I get a little kick out of it. I blame Erin.

today’s quote

It’s not a love story — it’s a hate story. [about Wuthering Heights] (101 points)

Caveat: Erin can’t get points for today’s quote; she’ll recognize it too easily. (That’s what you get for corrupting me! HA!)

The last quote, as Elizabeth correctly guessed, was from New Moon.

 

Caernarfon, Seattle, and Kansas

I am compeltely obsessed with Welsh. During the last few weeks I have checked out pretty much everything on the BBC Learn Welsh website, so I’ve learned a lot of the same things over and over again. I’ve finally found my favorite “course” (it’s called The Big Welsh Challenge), but they’ve only got 4 lessons up so far, and I’m more than ready to move on … but I expect it will be a while. So, in the meantime, I’ll keep playing with Colin & Cumberland and eavesdropping on the Lloyd family — my next favorite “courses.”

I have also decided two things that I want to do with my life.

First, I want to go to Wales and take a Welsh course there. I’ve decided Caernarfon sounds nice. It’s in the North-West, which has the highest percentage of Welsh-speakers in Wales, it’s next to the sea, and it’s got a nice, cheap little youth hostel. Oh, and a castle — those are always fun. I’ve been working on pronouncing the sentence “Dw i’n byw yng Nghaernarfon” — “I live in Caernarfon.” (It’s got this nasty nasal mutation, but I’m getting it worked out.)

Second, I’ve decided that I really want to be — not a college professor or even a stylistician — but a language-instruction assessor. You know, like a secret shopper, only for language instruction courses. I would go around and sit in on all these language classes and learn new languages and then assess the course and instructor(s). How fun would that be? It would give me a great excuse to move to Wales and take a Welsh course, not to mention courses in Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Egyptian heiroglyphs, Laotian, Maori, Czech … the list goes on and on. Now I just need to find someone who actually offers a job doing that kind of thing …

Meanwhile, it looks like I will be in Washington state for about two weeks this summer. I will be going out to help one of the linguistics professors here at UNT, who is starting her own business offering English-language-instruction summer vacation tours. This year they’ll be in Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula, and I’ll go along to provide more native English input for the Japanese and Chinese speakers and to offer some language instruction along the way. I’m pretty excited for it. It will be a paid position, I will get to see Washington, and I’ll have something pretty nifty to put on my resume and CV.

And, much closer to home, I’m going to Kansas next weekend to visit Margo. I am very excited for it. It’s the beginning of Spring Break out here, and Margo and I are planning to watch some movies (see today’s quote), hang out, sing a musical number for her singles branch, and shoot some guns. (Perhaps — I’m not sure what else we decided after the musical number, so I don’t remember whether or not guns ended up in the final plans.) After that, I’m flying out to Utah for the rest of the week to see my family. I’m planning to help my sister paint and take my Dad out to a movie for his birthday. Oddly enough, I love the painting, but taking Dad out is a Herculean task. I really want him to see Amazing Grace, though — I think he’d love it, and he needs to learn to spend time with his family.

A la batterie!! (101 points)

Oh yes, the last quote was from The Great Muppet Caper. I Netflixed it a while ago, and it’s still here — I love enough that I keep wanting to invite people over to watch it with me. Charles Grodin is wonderful in that movie. I’m always impressed with his ability to play passionate love scenes against a pig made of styrofoam.

 

Having been recently informed just how long it’s been since I posted, I thought I’d better. First off, congratulations to C & P, who recently had a brand new baby. I’m so excited for them — they’ll be wonderful parents!

Next, Happy End-of-the-Semester to you all, even those who aren’t in school. You want my semester to be over, believe me. It’s been rough this year, and I’m thrilled to be able to sleep in these days. Right now I’m in northern Utah at my sister’s place, and last night I was so pooped that I fell asleep on the couch, fully clothed, and didn’t bother to change them even when I woke up at 4:30 in the morning (to the sound of my cell phone alarm, which I hadn’t changed from the night before) and realized where I was. And I look like death warmed over today. The good news, though, is that I found out that the shirt I was wearing (recently acquired from my former roommate as she was cleaning out her closet before moving) doesn’t really wrinkle, so that’s nice.

I’m getting really excited for Christmas. My sister and I watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” this afternoon and I wrapped the presents for her and her family, and I’m starting to want to listen to Christmas music. The past few weeks I’ve been ignoring Christmas, since I was wrapped up in the end of the semester junk I had to do, in all the new music I’ve recently discovered that I love, and in the fact that it was frequently still into the 70s in Texas.

Last night I went to my niece’s orchestra concert. She plays with the intermediate youth group associated with the Utah Festival Opera. The beginning group really wasn’t great — they had a lot of tempo problems — but the intermediate and advanced groups were great. The advanced group played the first two movements (the only ones, actually) of Schubert’s unfinished symphony, and I’d forgotten how much I love that piece.

In the vast configuration of things, I’d say you’re nothing but a scurvy little spider! (18 points)

(Oh, and the last quote, from before Elizabeth Bennet, was from the Gershwin song “How Long Has This Been Going On?”)

 

all the news

There’s been a lot going on lately, and I don’t have much time, but I did want to try and let everyone know about the important things.

New York

I had a blast in NYC with Katie. We did all the touristy things, my feet hurt really bad, I got some blood blisters, and I still have grime on my heels from the subway. The last night we were there, we went to see Sweeney Todd on Broadway, which was fabulous! I’d forgotten how much I love that show. The director won the Tony this year, and he surely deserved it. All of the actors were also the orchestra, so they had chairs and instruments placed to the side of the stage, where they would sit and play when they weren’t directly involved in the scene. There were no scene changes, and no exits/entrances, so with the whole thing was intricately choreographed; every step taken was purposeful and exact. It was like watching a gigantic, three-hour dance.

Lava Hot Springs

In Idaho, the family got together to go to Lava Hot Springs for our annual “family reunion” (just the immediate family, which is why I did the extra quotes), where we had a great time floating down the river/creek on tubes. Our oldest sister didn’t show up for any of it, and it wasn’t until we arrived back at my parents’ house in Idaho Falls that we found she — along with her boyfriend and daughter — had been in a terrible car accident, just a few miles from where we were in Lava. The boyfriend was driving, when a semi-truck lost control of the steering and got the trailer across both lanes of the highway and even onto the shoulder. There was no place for them to go, so they just ran into the trailer. The boyfriend is pretty scraped up and, if I understand correctly, has broken some bones. And he’s the best off out of all of them. My sister was life-flighted to Idaho Falls, where she is in the ICU being treated and monitored for head trauma; it turns out that IF has one of the best head trauma units in the world, and they are trying to prevent swelling, clotting, or stroke. She’s being kept under heavy sedation. Meanwhile, her daughter was life-flighted a day later to Salt Lake. She is more stable than her mom, and more conscious, but her spinal cord was severed and she is now paralyzed from the waist down. We are all praying hard for them and anxiously keeping each other updated about their condition. I will be sure to let everyone know about further developments as they arise.

new school year

The new term started yesterday, and I am feeling rather overwhelmed. For one thing, I had planned my trip to come back on Sunday night, so I didn’t really have time to get myself prepared. I’m also having some trouble financially, and I don’t have any of my books yet, which is starting to worry me. I also am taking 12 credits of grad courses this semester, instead of the more usual 9, and I’m beginning to worry about my ability to keep up with everything. On top of all that, I will soon be sustained for a new church calling, but more about that later.

On the other hand, though, I’m excited about all of my classes. Two of them are electives — Historical Linguistics and Old English — and the other two are required for the doctorate degree — Scholarly Writing and Research Methods in Linguistics. I’m way pumped about my two electives (the second of which I will attend for the first time in about 1-1/2 hours), since I’m a geek and I love language. (I’m currently sitting on the floor of my living room, having just finished the first assignment for Old English, in which I read more or less slowly Old English sentences to understand the pronunciation. Those diphthongs can be troublesome!) The other two I’m actually also excited about. I expect them to be very helpful and informative. I just worry about the work load from all of it. I’m considering dropping Scholarly Writing and taking it next semester instead, but I can’t decide just yet.

quote

The last quote was from The Third Man, which I was watching at the time. Can’t say that I’m surprised no one got it.

If God be for us, who can be against us?

 

Having received a number of complaints recently from my regular readers, I have decided that I’d best update my blog. So here’s the low-down:

Still working at the Management Department as a receptionist. Still OK with that. Still ready to start teaching again in the fall.

Planning a trip to Cedar City at the end of July for the Shakespearen Festival. Way pumped about that!! What could be better than Shakespeare and Gilbert & Sullivan all at the same time?!

Planning a trip to NYC at the end of August with Katie. Also pumped about that! Immediately after NYC, going to Idaho for a few days. (I miss the old days, when I could so grab a book, hop on a train, and spend the weekend travelling with so little trouble … Ah, so many things I miss about England!)

Geeking out these days about stylistics and LDS literature studies. I’ve been reading articles from the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies online and finding some interesting fodder for research. Also some good (OK, flimsy, but existent nonetheless) excuses for learning ancient languages like Egyptian and Akkadian.

Getting really excited for my Old English class this fall. It’s one of the two classes I’m registered for that I know will be held (I’m always on the edge of my seat wondering about the linguistics classes — they frequently get cancelled due to lack of interest, which is really frustrating, but more on that later). I keep getting all het up about the English language and how wonderful it is, and how we were writing all kinds of things in our own vernacular tongue — including even sections of the Bible — centuries before the other Western European countries started to do so. I tell you, there are excellent reasons why English is the language of the Restoration, and it was no accident that that’s the language Joseph Smith spoke and the one he used to translate the Book of Mormon. Anyway …

So I’ve been getting a bit frustrated with the Linguistics division down here. As I mentioned, there are not that many of us taking linguistics courses, and it’s always a bit of a crap-shoot trying to figure out which ones are going to end up being cancelled. I’ve been looking into the idea of transferring to U of Chicago, but for one thing I’m really not so sure that would be able to get in there. For another, though, I got thinking the other day, along these lines: My faculty advisor here is Haj Ross, who is quite well known in linguistic circles, and he has a lot of clout with the department. His philosophy is that he is here merely to facilitate the student’s research, and he is perfectly willing to help me out in any way necessary. I already know that he is willing (among other things) to help me get permission from the graduate chair to take extra courses in Special Problems (aka independent study). I might be able to work things out so that I could take most of the rest of my Linguistics coursework as independent study, which would allow me to highly personalize my degree to what I want. That is, I could do a course on metaphor, or one on LDS Literature Studies, or on corpus-based stylistics, or … the list goes on. I could then use all of that as a springboard for my directed research and dissertation stuff. That might be the best thing I could possibly do for my particular interests. So, I’m also strongly considering staying here. Even though I hate the climate. Hey, if I were doing independent study, I could also conceivably leave a lot earlier and start getting settled someplace else. Someplace where it’s not so hot all the time.

I am also considering doing a pass-through Master’s degree in English Literature while I’m here. And I’ve even been considering the possibility of doing two dissertations, one at UNT and one by distance education at Lancaster Uni, and getting two PhD’s. That would be interesting … but it would also be A LOT of work, which I’m not sure I’m up for.

The last quote was from Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. “… Britannia’s sailors rule the waves! And shall we stoop to insult? No! NO!” *sigh* I’m so excited to see it at ShakeFest!

Arrows that continually glanced off from [his] breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart — have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won. (81 points)

 

stuff and junk

I’ve been really getting in to CSS code lately. I knew about CSS from my web design class that I took years ago at BYU, but I only ever used it for text presentation and didn’t really get it very well. It’s only been in the last week or so that I have started learning myself how to do layout with CSS. I’ve re-designed my website homepage and am working on my classes page, and I’m very excited about it all. I’ll be sure and let you know right away when the new version goes live so that you can see what I’ve been up to. Also, I’m trying to find a new place to host my blog, where I can get more sophisticated with it. I need to talk to Paul about that.

I went to see the new Pixar movie “Cars” last Thursday, and LOVED it!! I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard, let alone at a movie. (Actually, come to think of it, I think the last time I laughed that hard was when Katie came to visit in April.) Erin and I were saying we felt like we had missed half of the movie, because you know that there’s so much more going on in each scene than what are you are aware of at any given moment. I will definitely be seeing that again. I just can’t emphasize enough how much I love Pixar.

Oh, and Kimberly got a new computer. *sigh!* It’s a Mac. *sigh!* Don’t get me wrong — Ladislaw/Percy has been very good to me, and I’m still very happy with him. But he is getting older, and I’m starting to really need more memory than he has, and I’d love more resolution as well. And — don’t tell him this, but I really wanted a Mac in the first place. I won’t be affording that for some time still, but for now Kimberly lets me come over and salivate over her new laptop, which hasn’t been named yet. (Lest anyone worry, I want to assure you that I don’t literally salivate over it — not only would that be detrimental to the computer, it would also be just plain gross.)

Plans are shaping up for the Shakespearean Festival (lovingly referred to as ShakeFest2006) trip in late July. I’m also seriously considering a short trip to New York City with Katie at the end of August, before going back home to see my family for the annual weekend-before-the-weekend-before-Labor-Day event.

“If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman?” (40 points)