NATO phonetic alphabet

I’ve been helping out a friend of the family, doing some temp clerical work, for the past few weeks at an insurance agency. Whenever people call in and want a quote or something, I find it really hard to think of unique words that will clarify which letter we are talking about. It’s especially a problem when they give me VIN numbers for their cars.

So today I googled “alpha bravo charlie” and found a couple of useful and fun sites. First was  a simply laid-out chart of both the NATO (military) and Western Union phonetic alphabets. And at the bottom of that was a link to another nifty site, called Phoneticise.com, which will take any text you enter and phoneticise it for you!

Just thought I’d share.

 

end of the semester

OK, OK, OK! I get it. You miss me. And, by the way, Erin, I returned your phone call at least twice — the ball’s in your court, now. (So there!)

(By the way, I’m not complaining that you miss me, folks.  I quite like to feel missed, so thanks for all the emails, phone calls, and comments asking about why I haven’t updated my blog in forever.)

Here’s what happened. First, I moved. Then, I didn’t have the Internet in my new place. It has taken from mid-Februrary until this week to finally get the Internet in my new place, for one reason and another. You all know how it is. For some reason, I had decided that I would wait until we did get hooked up before updating my blog — just one of those funny, almost superstitious things that we do, you know? So, now that we do have the Internet at home, it is also the final week of the semester, and I am busy, busy. Things seem to be getting out of my control, and I’m spending a lot of energy just trying to reign them in. Ironically, I am writing this post from my computer at work.

But I am hereby returning to my blog. And I will be reinstating Musical Mondays, since at least one person who reads my blog likes to read them.

For now, just know that I am alive, grading lots of portfolios and final papers, and loving American Idol. That pretty much sums up life for me these days.

 

randomness

While I love Idaho in many ways, I have found that I’m not so fond of snow as I remembered.

While I don’t love snow as much as I thought I did, I’m getting used to it.  And I still prefer it to heat.

As long as I’m on the weather–in many ways, I miss the great rain-storms in Texas.

I am more than curious to see how events will unfold after President Hinckley’s funeral (which I’m currently watching).  Who will serve as counselors to President Monson?  When will the announce the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency?  What will President Monson’s administration be like?  How will his General Conference talks change?

I’m frequently disturbed by the mis-representation of the quote that starts, “Anyone who imagines bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around and shouting that he has been robbed.”  While I love this quote, I’m frustrated that people don’t recognize that President Hinckley did not say this.  Rather,  he quoted it from an article in the Deseret News from 1973.  If you’d like to read the quote in full, take a look at the following article (just one of many in which President Hinckley used it): “A Conversation with Single Adults.”

I love teaching at BYU-Idaho.   I can expect so much more from my students than I could at a state university.  Plus, I don’t have to avert my eyes when talking to my students (because they all dress modestly); I can talk about the Gospel openly (which is nice, since it’s a strong vein in my thinking); and I actually feel like I’m a real member of the faculty (which I never really did at UNT).

I would be willing to teach full-time at BYU-Idaho, at least for a few years.  Especially if I could teach some linguistics-related classes, like History of the English Language.

If Sen. John McCain wins the nomination as the presidential candidate for President, disaster will soon follow in the Republican Party.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a major party-shift.

If McCain wins the nomination, I refuse to vote for him.  I will write in Mitt Romney as my choice for President.

I’m on tenter-hooks, waiting to see how things come out in the many primaries and caucuses on “Super Tuesday” (Feb. 5).

I’m wonderfully grateful for the in-depth coverage that has been given to this presidential race.

Although I love my new PC laptop, I still wish I’d gotten a Mac.  *sigh*

While I appreciate the great love that members of the Church–and especially the youth–have had for President Hinckley, I don’t quite “get” the deep sadness at his passing.  I have no doubt that he is much happier now than he has been for some time.  Meanwhile, the Church will move on here on the earth, and can only progress.  What is there to be sad about?  (I don’t mean to trivialize the grief of so many, I am merely expressing my own feelings on this occasion.)

I didn’t realize until just recently that there was some lag-time between the passing of the President of the Church and the re-constitution of the Quorum of the First Presidency, even after Brigham Young had cleared up the succession problem.

One of the most destructive weapons against the productive use of our time is the invention of decent computer games.  I am currently obsessed with Jojo’s Fashion Show, and a few weeks ago was obsessed with Chocolatier.  Now I can hardly stand not being able to play Chocolatier 2.  And I am addicted to the 60-minute trial scheme.

I have been trying to work up the courage to leave the country for a few years as soon as I finish my doctoral degree.  I’d love to teach English abroad, perhaps in Mongolia or Jordan, perhaps through the Peace Corps or the BYU Kennedy Center for International Studies.  And I frequently think that I’d like to learn a “less-commonly-taught” language like Arabic, Hebrew, or Bengalese and then work as a contract linguist for the FBI and/or NVTC (National Virtual Translation Center).

The BYU-I English Department Secretary recently emailed all the faculty, asking for some help with a special project.  They are collecting favorite one-liner quotes from our favorite authors.  *chuckle*  I think I can do that.  My pick of my favorite favorite quotes ended up at about 2-1/2 pages.

I recently bought the actual album of Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations.  Not just the downloaded version, but the real-life CD, which I can now keep in my car and listen to whenever I want.  Oh, joy!

A few weeks ago, Mom and I watched the movie Dan in Real Life.  I loved it!  From the previews, I thought it was going to be a screwball comedy.  It wasn’t.  And it was so much better than I had expected.  Even if you’re not a Steve Carrell fan, I highly recommend it.  And if you are a Steve Carrell fan,  I still recommend it, as it’s an unusual example of his dramatic acting skills.

 

what’s going on

I know it’s been forever since I really updated my blog, so here’s the run-down.

computer troubles

Soon after Mom and I got home from babysitting in Colorado Springs, my hard drive died.  Meaning that I couldn’t do anything on my computer.  I was so sick of putting more and more money into that computer, that I decided to just get a new one.  I’d really been wanting a Mac PowerBook … but I decided instead to have it custom-built by a local computer shop, for about the same price as my Mac would’ve cost.  I’m crossing my fingers, now, that I won’t regret that decision.  So in the meantime, I’m using my mom and dad’s old laptop computer.  It’s not too bad, but it’s not mine.  It doesn’t have my music on it, and it has a habit of freezing up when you’ve been on the internet for a while.  Meanwhile, I haven’t heard anything from the computer shop about my new machine since I ordered it last week.  Pray for me, folks.

new calling

Just after getting home, I also got released from my old calling as FHE coordinator.  Instead I was called to teach the Gospel Doctrine Sunday School class.  Which I love.  I’m not so comfortable with the New Testament, but I only have three more lessons of that, then some General Conference talks to round off the year, and then we start Book of Mormon next year. But, the really funny part: Mom and Dad have also both been recently called as Gospel Doctrine teachers.  Which makes three of us — or the entire household, whichever way you want to look at it.

sick

I’ve been feeling really sick lately.  Some of you know that I’ve had this recurring problem with nausea.  Well, My Brother The Chiropractor recently suggested that it might be my gallbladder.  We’ve checked a couple of things, and that does, indeed, seem to be the problem.  So I’ve been taking pills (mostly made of beet-root) to help thin the bile, and things are so much better.  I won’t go into detail, but my appetite is more regular these days, among other things.

However, I woke up this morning with an awful sore throat.  It’s been one of those days where I feel too sick to work — headache, tired, and coughy — but not tired enough to just sleep.  It really stinks.

holidays

I had a good Thanksgiving, with plenty of family.  My brother and his sister came from Colorado, so I got to see The Princess again — since I got pretty attached to her recently, that was very nice.  I also went to Pocatello with my oldest brother, along with Damber and their family, where we walked around downtown to do some children’s holiday activities — The Queen got a reindeer painted on her face, among other things — and then watched the annual Christmas parade.  That’s always a fun time, since absolutely everyone in Pocatello knows Kip. He got waved at a lot during the parade, not to mention getting tons of extra candy.

Now I’m all pumped up for Christmas.  Although I’ll be mostly working on my dissertation and my teaching plans for next semester.  Which brings me to my last point:

working

I’ve been hired to teach part-time at BYU-Idaho, starting in January.  I don’t know how long the arrangement will last, but I at least have a job lined up for a few months.  I’ll be teaching two sections of English 111, freshman composition.  I’m getting pretty excited about it.  Plus, Mom’s been helping me shop for some new clothes, since they have a fairly strict dress code for teachers.  And a new wardrobe is always good.

 

ginormous update

Lots of things to talk about, since it’s been so long. (Sorry about that!) Pick and choose your favorites.

Shame

First, I have to say that I’m feeling rather ashamed of myself right now, for my lack of robust faith. Ironically, all the stuff we talked about at church (which had a lot to do with this) did not move me nearly as strongly as a pair of articles by Doug Giles, called “Robust Faith”. They’re part of a series that he’s not finished with yet, but the two he’s done already really moved me to consider how limpid I’ve allowed my faith to become, and how desperately I need to learn to make my faith a strong, visible part of my everyday life, even in those situations where I may feel most uncomfortable doing so. If you’re interested, the articles are here and here.

Psych study

I’ve been helping out with this psychology study on campus. They’re testing the effects of different sugars on the cognitive processes. So, we fast for 12 hours before-hand; they take a blood sample, and then give us this nasty sugary drink and wait 15 minutes; they take another blood sample, and then we do some cognitive thinking tests on the computer, etc. Well, I’ve been noticing that this tends to give me a bit of a headache, only natural after a sugar high like that. But yesterday was especially bad. It may have been helped along by the fact that when I got home, I spent essentially the rest of the day reading an online text of a book. In any case, I had a nasty headache all day long, and all I had to relieve it was my peppermint oil. It did help, but never lasted long. I guess it’s time to buy some ibuprofen.

Weather

The temperature out here has been much nicer lately — I rarely need more than a sweater to keep me warm when I go out. It’s even been more sunny, and that’s wonderful! Today it happens to be really overcast, but yesterday was beautiful for most of the day (it started to rain in the evening). It’s making me very happy. Oh, and I finally went and got myself new flip-flops yesterday at ASDA.

Reading

Recently, I’ve been reading some Georgette Heyer. The first (These Old Shades) was one that my friend Katie brought with her when she visited, and left it with me. It was all right, and I was annoyed with it even as I was engrossed in it. It was a very strange experience. Anyway, after that one, JoAnna lent me hers (Bath Tangle) to read, and I liked it much better. It was written later in Heyer’s life, and it was set in a later period, and the main characters were more grown-up. I think that all contributed to me liking it better.

Anyway, I can’t find Heyer at the library or online, so then I had to start reading some other stuff. Having read Heyer lately, I’m now in the mood for romances, and so I started with some Jane Austen. I finally read Persuasion, which was quite short, comparatively. It was very good, but there’s nothing much more that I would want to say about it at the moment. Except maybe that it made me want to go to Lyme Regis and Bath.

After Persuasion, I then was really in the mood for some Scarlet Pimpernel. It has been a long time since I read it, and it was great, as always. I found a website entirely devoted to the Scarlet Pimpernel, www.blakeneymanor.com. Actually, I had found it long before, but this time I found that they have e-texts of all the Scarlet Pimpernel books, and even some others that Orczy wrote. I may have to read a few more of them right away.

Easter

Spring is here, and Easter is this weekend. I can hardly believe it! I don’t have any plans as yet. JoAnna was going to try and convince a family in the ward that they should invite me over for dinner that day, but I haven’t heard anything about it. I need to talk to the husband anyway, so I’ll probably try and call him today.

Easter always makes me think of my mission and my trainer Sister Gordon, since that’s about the time that I first arrived in the field. It was a very good time of the mission for me, and I can’t help but think of it whenever Easter comes around. That’s probably a good thing, since it also serves to remind me both why I went on a mission and why we celebrate Easter, namely, for our Savior. I plan to do some good Easter reading, about the Resurrection. Interestingly, my favorite teaching about the Resurrection is from before it had taken place. It is when the Lord is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, and he explains to Martha that, “I am the Resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die” (John 11:25-26). I suppose I love this so much because it makes me remember that Jesus Christ is the Master of my soul — that without Him, there is no resurrection, and there is no life.

Today’s quote

The old man shrugged. He had seen so much misery, so much sorrow and pain, it was difficult to be compassionate to all. There had never been but One in this world who had compassion for the whole of humanity, and humanity repaid Him by nailing Him to a cross. (50 points – one of my favorite quotes ever, from a little-known and little-read book)