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.

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?

not much to say

I'm getting ready to go home (Idaho) for a week. Leaving tomorrow and coming back next Tuesday. I will start my new job the day after I get back, which I'm excited about. Today I have to run by the office to hand them over my hire packet, change a few students' grades (minor mistakes on my part), and then head to Curves for a work-out and a travel pass.

In the meantime, I'm trying to think of new books to read. I have Kimberly's Amelia Peabody books to keep me busy for most of the summer, but I would like to read a few others as well. It might be time to pull out the old "Books to Read" list that I started a few years ago, back in my MTC-working days.

The last two quotes were, indeed, from Dickens's Great Expectations, one of my all-time favorite books. (I've given Ellie full points and Kimberly half points, for recognizing the author.)

(with Austalian accent) "Well that was unexpected." (23 points)

P.S. Oops! I just realized that I accidentally got rid of the old scoreboard -- lost in cyberspace with no way to get it back, you know? So I've started it over again. Hey, it is summer after all, and that's always a good time to start new.