Alfred and Welsh

Since Kimberly has resorted to begging, I decided I'd go ahead and post a new entry so everyone can see the source of the last quote. It was a toughie -- I only know one person who would have gotten it, and she doesn't read my blog -- which is why I gave it such a high point-value. It was Elder David A. Bednar, during a BYU devotional entitled "Quick to Observe."

I have taken a deep interest in King Alfred. After translating a short passage of his writings from Old English into Modern English last semester, I was deeply impressed with his personal morality. This semester, in a medieval literature class, we are reading several of the important sources on Alfred, both those written by him and those written about him by others. For tonight's class, we're supposed to write a character sketch of him, with references to the sources, and I just can't help but be more and more impressed by him. He was a warrior, inventor, statesman, innovator, scholar, translator, philosopher, hunter, supporter of the arts -- and above all, a deeply pious man. A true renaissance man if ever there was one, and he lived a good half-century before the Renaissance even took place. I will be very excited to meet him in the next life.

Another recent interest is the Welsh language. I've thought for years that Welsh would be fun to learn, and I really wanted to do so at BYU, but never managed to fit it into my schedule. The BBC has some Welsh language webpages, designed for teaching basic Welsh to both children and parents (and particularly to help parents keep up with their children, as there is a big Welsh-instruction movement on in the schools these days). They'll do, but they're certainly not the best language instruction activities. In the meantime, I did find a page on Omniglot all about Welsh pronunciation, which cleared up a lot of confusion I'd been having. Like the fact that Ioan Gruffudd's name is not pronounced "grufud" or even "grufuth," as I had been saying it, but "grifith" (with a voiced 'th' at the end) -- in fact, Ioan Central has a sound clip of him saying his own name, which makes me wish that it was much easier to find clips of him speaking with his lovely Welsh accent. *sigh* The poor Welsh really get overlooked, you know.

So if you've a date in Constantinople, she'll be waiting in Istanbul. (15 points)

Amazing Grace

Margo and I went to see the movie "Amazing Grace" yesterday. We went largely so we could see Ioan in period costume again (which was well worthwhile), and it turned out that Rufus Sewell was also in it (which made me all the happier, especially since he was one of the good guys). Personally, I thought it was ... well, amazing. I very nearly cried about five times, I kept wanting to clap or cheer out loud in the theater, and when they showed the Scots Royal Dragoon Guards playing the song in front of Westminster Abbey at the end of the film, I just about bawled like a baby. The film was not quite what I had been expecting, and it wasn't the best film I've ever seen, but it certainly was moving, at least to me. I told Margo I now want to name a son William Wilberforce. (Joking, joking ... but I have planned on William for some time, so why not just throw in the Wilberforce while we're at it?)

The film made me remember one of my own personal experiences with the song "Amazing Grace." When I was living in Switzerland as a 14-year-old, we had mandatory choir classes, and one day when I was bored, I got looking through our choir book, just to see what else was there. "Amazing Grace" was in it (in English, should you be wondering), and so I took a few minutes to memorize some of the verses. I wasn't particularly familiar with it at the time, but one verse in particular struck me at the time. It's one of the few verses I actually know, although I never hear it sung, apparently since it wasn't originally written by John Newton, but was added later by another author. I tried googling the verse yesterday, and didn't find it online anywhere either -- though I did find one brief allusion to it -- so I wanted to post it here:

Shall Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there's a cross for everyone,
And there's a cross for me.

Since yesterday, I have purchased about five different versions of the song from iTunes, partially in hopes of finding the same version that was used at the end of the film (no luck yet). Again, that's just what I do. :)

The last quote was, indeed, from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (I think you spelled it right, Kimberly -- at least I hope so, since I spelled it the same way). And, yes, that means that I've started re-reading them. Well, at least Book 6, that is. I'm not sure whether I'll really have time for all of them before July -- I know I don't have time for the chapter-a-day strategy espoused by wahlee and susy_gwen. But I would at least like to re-read HBP. The other day, I got thinking about the profundity of Dumbledore's remark, but from the reverse angle. That is, I was intrigued by the thought of how terrifying something is when we don't have a name for it. So, we give it names -- the Boogie-Man, the darkness, Satan, Nessie -- and somehow things are easier to get hold of that way, easier to fend off from our rampant imaginations.

The issue was not the earrings. (125 points)

huzzah! & grrr!

Huzzah! Margo is here visiting. Good luck on comps, Margo.

Grrr! Erin didn't make it after all. I have no idea when I'll see her again. (Sniff!)

The last quote, which so many of you astutely and accurately identified, was from "While You Were Sleeping," a personal favorite of mine.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. (17 points)

more stories

Before starting, I want to mention that I wasted most of the day today, and the little book The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker was of great help in that accomplishment. I read it in about four hours (though not until after watching Jeopardy! -- which, unfortunately, is currently in their Teen Tournament). It was cute, though I couldn't help thinking how fun it would be to re-write the thing as an adult novel. That's one of the results of my Scholarly Writing class, I think. I also woke this morning with dream-memories about revising a paper ... a paper I've never written in real life.

Dr. Pepper at Goodyear
I finally took Harold (my white Buick Century) in for a check-up today -- got his oil changed, his brakes inspected, his windshield wipers changed, his tires filled and rotated. While there, I watched the Travel Channel on the TV in the waiting area. Shortly after I got there, a woman brought in her three small sons to wait with her. I'm certain they were no older than 3, 5, and 7 years old. She herded them over to the waiting area, informed them that she would allow each to have a soda from the soda machine, and then read them their choices. They each chose a Dr. Pepper. And then they proceeded to sit on the other end of the bench from me and pump their little bodies full of sugar and caffeine. And I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, this is a good idea." Clearly somebody didn't think something through. By the time they had finished sipping from their cans, they were crawling all over each other, vying for each others' positions on the bench, tearing pages out of the complimentary reading material, pushing their hands up into the candy vending machine. At one point, I heard a tinkling noise of water in water coming from behind me, and only realized what was going on when the mother turned her head and hissed, "Shut the door!" When her son reappeared a few minutes later, she hissed at him again, "Go back there and flush the toilet and wash your hands!" Her exasperation increased in proportion to their rambunctiousness. As did mine.

Loch Ness
In the meantime, I found myself watching a show on the TV about the Loch Ness monster. I was surprised at how strongly the show affected me, resurrecting in me the uneasy feelings I had when I visited Loch Ness in 2005. While there, I went for a hike to the top of a hill, situated a mile or so from the village where I was staying, armed with only a tourist-map of the trails around the hill. The hill, Craigmonie, is supposed to have been the site of a major battle between a Viking warrior, Monie, and the Scots. Monie was killed in the battle, and there is still a monument to him there. The trails were not marked particularly well, on the map or on the ground, but I managed to make it to the top. After I'd been there about 2 minutes, it began to rain, so I headed back down. Unfortunately, I didn't find the right trail, and I began to worry. Here I was, all alone in the back-woods of Scotland, without even someone who knew where I was, no cell phone, and on the wrong trail. The hill is in the Balmacaan Wood, which only added to the eerie feeling I had, and since I was on the far side of the hill, I couldn't even see the village I was trying to reach. I remember seeing some cows grazing in a field a mile or two further away from the village and thinking that at least that meant there were people living nearby. Hoping to cheer myself, I tried to sing "The Lord is My Light" to myself, but I couldn't even remember all the words. "The Lord is my light, then why should I fear? Hmm hm-mm hm-hm hm-mm hmm hm-mm hm-hm hmmm ..." Eventually, the path I was on merged with the path I had meant to be on, and it wasn't long before I was around the hill far enough that I could see the village, which relieved me considerably. But it's amazing how strong those uneasy, queasy feelings still are for me.

Getting Hit by a Car in Switzerland
The other night I went to IWA (which I usually avoid, but decided to give it a try), and while there I got to tell one my favorite personal stories, about the time I got hit by a car in Switzerland. I thought that, since I'm telling stories tonight anyway, I would go ahead and throw this one in -- after all, it is one of my favorite personal stories. But it's late, and I've decided I'll have to keep it for another day.

Quote
The last quote was, indeed, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. For reasons beyond my own comprehension, I adore that movie. The following quote is one that's been on my mind a lot lately, since I've been investigating and dreaming about apartments in Chicago, and several of them indicate that they're close to the Blue line or the Yellow line of the El.

Believe me, I work at the El, I know. (21 points)

some stories

The other day, as I was heading toward the library to do some research, I found a woman standing by the door of the building where my office is. I was about to go out the door, but she stopped me by asking whether I had a phone she could use. So I let her use my phone, and tried to focus on the music coming through my iPod and pretend that I wasn't listening to her conversation. But of course, I was. After some time, she finally seemed to reach a real person. She asked about a traffic ticket she had received in 1983, and then whether she would be allowed to come in and do her time in jail for that, instead of paying the fine. And that was the whole conversation. She gave me back the phone matter-of-factly, and I went to do my research.

My research these days includes text mining, characterization through verbs, characterization through reference, the creation of personal identity through reference, and the concept of a nation in the Anglo-Saxon period. It gets frustrating, because there's so much to do, and so much I want to do, and very little time to do it in. I would love to be able to spend a few hours a day in library for research, but I just can't afford the time. Oh yes, along with everything else, I'm trying to translate Wulfstan's Sermon of the Wolf in my "spare" time. Just one more thing I want to do but don't really have the time for. I've pretty well made up my mind that I'm not going to be able to do my own personal reading this semester -- I'm doing well if I can finish my reading assignments for my classes every week.

In the meantime, though, I'm really enjoying my classes this semester. Scholarly Writing is turning out to be very useful; it reminds me of how much I love writing, and of how much more I should be doing to write well. Medieval Literature is also interesting -- even if it does require a lot more reading than I can usually cover in one week. We just finished reading Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and are now about to start on Asser's Life of Alfred. Reading Bede has given me a whole new perspective on the early Christian church in Western Europe. I have a new respect for the men and women who were involved in church affairs.

I recently bought several three-ring binders so that I can organize all the papers I have. There's a whole binder just for Haj and the handouts I get every time I talk to him. And I've got a rainbow array of binders for all the articles I copy in my research. They're pretty empty for the time being, but I expect to fill them most of the way before the end of this semester.

Hmm ... So I really didn't intend for this to turn into a rant about how much I have to do this semester. It's just that that's what I think about these days. Here's something else for you --

I found out the other day that Muse is supposed to be coming to the US on tour this spring, supporting My Chemical Romance in their Black Parade tour. (And a lot of fans are really ticked about that; they hate MCR, most of them, can't believe that Muse have to be a support band for anyone else, and many are upset about them getting "more exposure" in the States -- since that makes it harder to see them here -- and playing such large venues.) Assuming this is true, they should be playing in San Antonio and Houston, as well as Dallas for the Edgefest concert. However, I can't find any confirmed information about any of this. When I found out the other day, I just about hyperventilated, trying to figure out how to get tickets. I finally asked NM, since she and her man frequently attend concerts like this, and I thought she'd have a better idea. Neither she nor her man could find anything more concrete than what I had. But, she did mention that her man is quite good at getting scalped tickets for a really good price (say, 1/4 of the regular price), so if we find out that they really are coming, she suggested that we just go and let him do his thing to get us in. That thought has me grinning foolishly even now.

Oh, and along with everything else I'm doing, I've been working on converting my protected music files so that they're just plain old MP3s. Sometimes that's quite fun, others it's just tedious.

The last quote was from "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake. Congrats to Erin.

So much time, so little to do. (Pause.) Strike that -- reverse it. (42 points)

exhaustion

It's already setting in. Yup, it's been two weeks of school, and I don't know how I'll make it through. Things seem to be falling apart in our Relief Society right now, and that's keeping me worrying a lot. And then I'm trying to do about five different research projects at once right now. Today and tomorrow I really need to work on a couple of submissions for a conference I'd like to go to in Glasgow this summer (the submissions are due on Feb 1). And I'm still working on my application for Lancaster Uni -- I'll keep you all posted about how that goes.

The last two weeks, we've had three candidates here for a professor-ship we are trying to fill for Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department, so like a good graduate student I've been going to their job talks and stuff. It's been very instructive, and I even got to offer my opinion on the candidates yesterday. This morning the final candidate is giving a composition workshop to the Teaching Fellows, so I'm planning to go to that as well, and looking forward to it. She seemed pretty sharp when I watched her job talk yesterday, and I can always use new ideas for teaching composition.

She's touring the facility and picking up slack. (11 points)

Oh yeah ... the last quote was from the song "Hysteria" by Muse.

more changes

As you can probably see, I've changed my blog ... again. I couldn't help it -- I updated to the new Blogger, and one of their new features allows you to customize the layout and design of your page, so I had to fiddle with it. Unfortunately, I accidentally lost the points from the old Scoreboard. But I figured that since it's a new blog, a new year, a new school semester, I may as well go ahead and start a new scoreboard. So there you have it. I'm also excited about the RSS feed from Pandora. I can't remember whether or not I've already linked to Pandora before, but it's a great streaming radio website, where you enter your favorite artist(s) and/or song(s) and it plays similar stuff. Lots of fun. Check it out. I also expect to change the address of my blog sometime very soon, so that it will be on my website (which is frankly boring right now ... partly due to the fact that the recent hard drive transplant made me lose my old FTP program and I don't have the disks to restore it, so I'm trying to find a new FTP program -- any suggestions would be welcome). That change shouldn't affect most of you very much, though, as the new Blogger automatically redirects to the new address. But I'll let you know when I finally get that worked out.

Since no one has guessed it yet, I will let the old quote stand for now:

I'm not breaking down, I'm breaking out. (83 points)

just to let you know ...

I am having real trouble these days getting internet access. First off, my brother helped me choose a new hard drive for my computer (120 GB, upgraded from 40 GB), and then installed it for me. That has meant, though, that most of my cookies, personal settings, and some other stuff is out of whack for right now. And that means that Gmail has been difficult for the last week or so. It seems to be better now, though.

In addition to that, I have no internet access at my apartment yet -- right now I'm sitting in my car on Fry Street picking up some company's wireless signal while listening to Muse (of course). I'm hoping to have that situation remedied by the end of the week at the latest.

Christmas was great fun. I got some great stuff that I really wanted, and a few things that I didn't particular want but am thrilled to have (like an emergency lantern that you wind up, so that you don't have to rummage around in the dark finding batteries, candles, matches, etc -- thanks, Mom!). We also had a really fun time with New Year's Eve/my birthday. My sister had planned a big party, and everyone was there for it except my oldest niece (who, however, was there for Christmas). We even got Dad to play some games with us, which was fun (and rather funny) -- and my brother and sister beat him at Trivial Pursuit! That hasn't happened in a long time, now.

I'm moved into my new apartment down here in Denton, with two new roommates. I'm excited about it, although I sorely miss Erin and Margo. But we're working on Master Plans to try and get us back living together again before long.

I think that's all of the most important stuff now. I have to go finish settling into my apartment today -- taking out trash, breaking down boxes, and tightening up my bed frame so the boards underneath it don't fall out at night anymore.

I'm not breaking down, I'm breaking out. (83 points)

The last quote was from the Armor for Sleep song "The Truth about Heaven" -- thanks, Erin, for introducing me to it!

my newest love

So I've decided I'm in love with the band Muse (thanks again to Stephenie Meyer). And I have to admit that one of the reasons I fell in love with them, besides they're amazing music, is because the lead singer, Matt Bellamy, is gorgeous. I mean, seriously. And, it's so fun to watch him playing his guitar and singing. So ... here's a little quiz I found on Quizilla today. They sure got my answer correct -- I DO like Matt looking his cutest.

which matt bellamy pic are you?

cute mattyou like matt looking his cutest
Take this quiz!








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Congrats to Erin for the last quote, which was from Linkin Park's "By Myself". (I can't remember whether or not I already added Erin's points, but I'm adding them again, in any case.)

Don't believe that the weather is perfect the day that you die. (81 points)

Ensign thoughts

I'm not sure if I've really mentioned this before, but I've been really into Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series lately. I found her books obsessing enough that I stayed up all through the night to read them. Both of them (although on different nights, about three weeks apart). Anyway, Margo recently mentioned to me that there was a story by Stephenie Meyer in the December 2006 issue of the Ensign (from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), called "Hero at the Grocery Store." I quite enjoyed the thing -- it reminded me in many ways of her fiction writing.

I also got looking today at the January issue of the Ensign (actually, I was thinking that it was the December issue and was looking for Stephenie Meyer), and I was amused and slightly dismayed to find an article in it entitled "Home Teaching the Single Sister." (Sorry, I can't find the HTML version to link to, but the pdf version of the whole issue is here.) I haven't actually read the thing yet, but a preliminary glance seems to indicate that it is mostly about single mother sisters (as opposed to just single, unwed sisters ... who probably warrant an article of their own ... see rest of post to appropriately gauge level of sarcasm intended). What amused and dismayed me is the idea that single sisters are apparently such a mystery to the general membership of the Church that we have to actually address separately the question of how to home teach them. I get frustrated by this kind of thing, since it seems to me that people should be able to just treat us like ... well, people. We're nothing other than that. Just people. We happen to be single, and we happen to not hold the priesthood (though I, personally, think there is a general lack of understanding of just how close a tie sisters have to the powers of heaven, but that's another post). But that's all. Just treat us like people, take an interest in us personally, and that's all we really need.

This reminds me of something I was talking to my brother-in-law about the other night. At the time we happened to be talking the pressure to marry that singles get in the church (in particular). I told him that I think the leadership, and just the older and/or married membership, of the church have a hard time understanding just how great the pressure is, because they have either been married so long that they've forgotten, or they got married so young in the first place that they never really experienced it. I think this is true about the marriage/single divide in the church in general. It frustrates me that the divide is so huge, and I have a hard time understanding why that is. I have several married friends who are able to still relate to me on a normal, human level, regardless of the number of children they have or the length of time they've been married. But I also have a large number of married friends who don't seem to be able to do that anymore. I understand that there is a huge shift in the focus and responsibilities in a person's life after they marry, but it seems silly to me that singles and marrieds shouldn't be able to relate better regardless. What's happened to the common denominators that bring us all to the same level? In the end we are all in basically the same position, trying to do basically the same things, just doing it under somewhat different circumstances. Why can't we focus on that?

I can’t tell you how to make it go
No matter what I do, how hard I try
I can’t seem to convince myself why
I’m stuck on the outside (30 pts)

The last quote was from "It's a Wonderful Life" -- congrats to Elliespen (as usual). And oh, for those of you who know him, AT (aka Thurbs) got his mission call. He's leaving for the MTC on May 9, 2007, to go to the Spain Malaga Mission, and he's way pumped!

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?")

Yay!

From a friend ...

Take the Quiz here!

Another "yay!": During the next two days, there's a Medieval Symposium on campus, and I'm totally going to go and geek out with my friend NM.

more noveling troubles

Last night, Erin and I traded and read each other's novel beginnings. I was almost surprised at how good Erin's was. I say "almost" because I would expect Erin to be a good writer, with lots of humor and a no-nonsense attitude about her subjects, and she is; it's just that after hearing her lament over her writing during that first noveling session we had together, I began to wonder whether it was, after all, as horrible as she thought it was. It wasn't though -- quite the opposite. She gave me hope for my own writing as well, claiming that enjoyed my first chapter. I trust Erin's opinion, and I hope we know each other well enough at this point that if it really was tripe she would tell me so. (Right, Erin?)

So last night I went to bed feeling much more hopeful about things and spent about half an hour considering the rest of my novel and how I wanted things to shape up, before I got to sleep. This morning I got up and spent about an hour writing, and got a good 800 words out, feeling quite happy with how they were working out. And then ...

After making some lupper, I sat down just now to get going again and discovered that I had somehow neglected to save what I wrote this morning. All of that 800 words of genius, gone!

I could cry salty tears. (25 points)

By the way, the last quote was from The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer.

let the noveling begin

So, Erin and I started our novels yesterday. We're shooting for about 2,000 words a day. Yikes, it's hard! We spent a lot of time griping about how horrible our writing was, and getting blocked because we got frustrated with the tripe we'd written so far. Erin suggested last night that maybe we need to have other people read our stuff and see whether it really is as bad as we think it is.

Last night we also discussed how many books we've read that were absolutely awful, and I decided (long ago, actually) that anything I write has to be better than Romancing the Nephites, and at least as good as The Scandalous Miss Delaney and A Lady in Disguise -- preferrably much better.

As we talked last night, I tried to describe Romancing the Nephites to Margo, and I made it on the prestigious Quote Board! My awesomeness is now no longer a matter of opinion -- it is a fact, corroborated by a large piece of cardboard covered with the most exclusive collection of quotes. Here's how I made it: "He kept using, like, pseudo-Hebraic pick-up lines!"

The last quote was from the song "Ruby Blue" by Roisin Murphy -- thanks, Erin, for introducing me!

"I'm not talking nonsense, lass. I'd give you the whole of the moon if I could, and throw in the stars for good measure. You couldn't be content with less?" --42 points

aarghs and yays

Aargh 1. I'm really annoyed with my students. I think I'll have to give them the lecture on Monday, about how they're in college now, and they're responsible for their own education, and it's not my job to remind them every day of what homework they're supposed to do.

Aargh 2. I was supposed to get Vertigo in the mail today from Netflix, but it didn't arrive. That's the only time so far that the a movie from there hasn't gotten here on time.

Yay 1. NaNoWriMo is almost here! I got a new idea for part of my plot the other day in a Linguistics class, although I'm not sure yet if it will actually work.

Yay 2. The other day I had an appointment with my professor for Research Methods and Bibliography in Linguistics (which, incidentally, is the class where I got that idea for my novel). We were supposed to meet to discuss these papers we're working on, the first part of which (intro and lit review) we turned in recently. It was a very good meeting, and coming away from it, I felt reassured about my ability to make it in the academic world.

Yay 3. Today I finally went to a study group session with some of the girls from my Old English class. The other day I had decided that I really needed to start making allies in that class, and I did have some good conversations with a couple girls when we recently met in the Rare Books Room of the library for class (we practiced transcribing different hands from medieval manuscripts -- great fun). So I promised faithfully that I would come to the study session today. And about half-way through it, I thought to myself, "I'm good at this. I can do this. I like this a lot." Unless something stops me, I'm going to go ahead and switch to Medieval.

Yay 4. In lieu of our not-yet-arrived Vertigo, we are watching The Three Faces of Eve tonight. Margo and I have never seen it before, and we thought it would be a good, somewhat-creepy movie for Halloween.

Yay 5. Margo's been doing an internship at the local hospital, and they had their annual bake sale today -- they have their neuro patients bake the stuff, using the activity as a therapeutic communication situation, and then they sell the stuff in the hospital lobby and donate the money to a charity. So Margo and I drove out there today during lunch-time and bought some stuff, and we're eating it while we watch our movie.

You used to make us laugh -- really was a gas. 33 points

it's official

Well, I'm doing it. I'm going to write a novel in November, as part of National Novel Writing Month 2006. I've also conviced that_one_erin to join me, and elliespen had already committed; I believe that JaneHeir is doing it, too ... let me know if you're planning on it for sure. Though it isn't required, I also signed up on the website, which will allow me to do weekly (or other-ly) word counts and let you all know how it's going. Here's a link, in case anyone else wants to join in the noveling fun:





The last quote was from "The Thin Man," as elliespen guessed. Amazingly, she says that she hasn't seen this in years, but she still remembered quite a few details from the scene. That's my girl! ;)

We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. (82 points)

medieval summer and noveling November

I have been loving my Old English class, right? I think you all know this by now. Well, today, I went to see my professor to ask him some questions about changing my focus to Medieval Studies, rather than Poetics. Though I love stylistics, I have been very frustrated with my program here, and every time I have considered transferring to a different university, I have been pulled back -- apparently Heavenly Father has strong reasons why He needs me here, thought it certainly is not my first choice. But Medieval Studies would give me scope for lots of the things I'm interested in, and it would be much more marketable in the end than a Poetics degree. And, I can still use my Linguistics/Stylistics background to analyze medieval texts.

Since the field is, by nature, interdisciplinary, I would be able to take classes in music, art history, history, and even law, along with my classes in Literature to round it out. Plus, it would make sense for me to learn Latin (which, geek that I am, I've been wanting to do for some time now). My professor recommended that I go elsewhere for an intensive summer course in Latin, since what they offer here at UNT will be very elementary and very slow. I have found about four courses that I'm really interested in, at U of Toronto, Notre Dame, CUNY, and University College Cork. My favorite option, of course, is Cork; not only does the tuition include accomodation (for the others, it's additional), but it's in Ireland, for crying out loud. Chances are not good with that one working, however, since in addition to the tuition and fees, I would also have to spend money for tickets. Toronto is the cheapest, but I'm not especially keen on going to Toronto (not that I don't want to go there, just that I would rather go elsewhere). I really the options for CUNY and Notre Dame right now. I just think that would be amazingly fun.

I'm not ready to actually change my focus yet, but I am seriously considering it, and I have one more semester to mull it over before it will start affecting the classes I take.

I am also considering joining in with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. It's a fun-centered program that got started in 1999, where you write a 50,000-page novel in one month. I've wanted to write a novel for ages now, and this summer I actually started working on one a little bit (before long I decided it was something I would need to do lots more research on ...) But I did the math, and to write 50,000 words in one month, excluding Sundays, I would have to write 2,000 words a day. That's do-able. So I'm considering it. But, if nothing else, I have at least spread the word a little further. Anyone want to join me? (elliespen, I know you're pining to!)

Last quote was Natalie Imbruglia's "Shiver" -- a song I just love, and one that always reminds me of Lancaster (I heard it a lot over there).

I don't like crooks. And if I did like 'em, I wouldn't like crooks that are stool pigeons. And if I did like crooks that are stool pigeons, I still wouldn't like you! (122 points)

a little update, plus some thoughts on OE, PIE, and vowels

I haven't been feeling well, yesterday and today. I am staying home from classes today, so I've been sitting on the couch reading Agatha Christie and watching Murder, She Wrote.

I have been really enjoying my classes this semester. I feel like things are going a lot better in the ones I'm teaching -- it really helped to have one semester of that class behind so that I could take in all my mistakes from that term and try to fix them this time around.

And I'm still having a blast with Old English, and even with Historical Linguistics, even though that one is giving me a run for my money. It's still a struggle keeping my head above water all the time, but I don't mind so much having to sit around and memorize Old English verb conjugations, or comparing sets of data from related languages to figure out how they have changed.

You know, speaking of OE verbs ... When I tell people about Semitic languages like Hebrew, ancient Egyptian, and Arabic, and how they don't write their vowels (except for the 'weak' or 'semi-' vowels /w/ and /y/), but that they only write the consonants and then change the vowels to conjugate their verbs or decline their nouns -- when I tell people about this, they seem to think it's utterly incredible. However, English does similar things. This was brought home to me while I was studying my OE verbs the other day. See, in Old English, there were two basic types of verbs, weak and strong. The weak verbs form the past tense by adding a dental (a /d/ or /t/) to the stem, much as we do in Modern English: look, looked; rule, ruled. The strong verbs, on the other hand, form the past tense by changing their vowels: meet, met. This can (and frequently does) also include the past participle: sing, sang, sung; write, wrote, written. (I have used Modern English examples here, since our verbs have inherited these weak/strong attributes from Old English, and most of my readers, I imagine are more familiar with ModE than with OE.) As it turns out, these strong verbs, the vowel-changing verbs, were inherited from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), while the weak verbs were inherited from Proto-Germanic. That is, the strong verbs came from an ancient, unwritten language, while the weak verbs were made up later, after that language had already split into several different languages. That means that PIE verbs, like Semitic words, only alter their vowels to change their grammatical function. It seems entirely plausible to me, then, that PIE and these Semitic languages might be related to each other, at least in phonological processes if not in semantic or syntactic structure. If PIE had been written, might we find that it indicated only the consonants, and not those tricky, shifty vowels?

The last quote, correctly identified by both elliespen and emily, was from The Music Man, one of my all-time favorite movies.

Jump the tracks, can't get back, I don't know anyone 'round here, but I'm safe this time. (32 points)

with apologies

So I realize it's been ages since I posted anything. Hopefully the last post explains some of that. I flew to Idaho to be with my family and attend the funeral of my oldest sister, Laraine, and was gone about 10 days for that. I'm doing all right about it, myself; I'm more worried about a few of the other family members. And I certainly don't evny my parents, who have to battle the legal issues (Laraine was killed in a car accident, and she left no will behind, including no power of attorney or anything), nor her daughter, who's in the hospital with a severed spinal cord and is paralyzed from the waist down. I certainly have much less to deal with, even though it all adds up to significantly more than I'm used to.

The day after Laraine's death, I was sustained and set apart as the Relief Society President in our student ward down here. That's been keeping me pretty busy these days. It's been great, though, and in many ways I'm very excited about the calling.

School is also quite time-consuming. I find myself just barely keeping my head above water, both with the classes that I teach and those that I take.

I recently joined Netflix, which I'm very excited about. I think when my roommates move (in December) and I'm in my own apartment, I might forego cable and just keep myself entertained with Netflix movies. They have a huge variety of DVDs to rent, including movies, TV shows, and documentaries. The first one that's coming in the mail for me is Jeeves and Wooster, so we'll be watching that this weekend. You're allowed to have up to 500 movies in your queue, and I already have 375 waiting for me. I'll keep you abreast of how things go.

The last quote (from before Laraine's obituary) is from the writings of Paul the Apostle, Romans 8:31.

Well! If that isn't the best I ever heard!

(This is a bit difficult to get without the following line, but that will give it away pretty easily. So, since it's a fairly general quote that might come from just about anywhere, I'll give 78 points for anyone who gets the source I have in mind, plus an extra 10 for the appropriate following line.)

In Memoriam: Laraine Wilkins

Laraine Wilkins 1965 ~ 2006 Laraine Wilkins, 41, of Salt Lake City, former Idaho Falls resident, died September 2, 2006, at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident near McCammon, Idaho. She was born 1965 in Provo, Utah. She attended schools in Provo and Idaho Falls; graduated from Skyline High School, Idaho Falls, in 1983; earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in German from Brigham Young University; and did additional graduate work at Harvard University. She married George in 1986 in the Idaho Falls LDS Temple; they later divorced. She worked on university library staffs, taught German language on both the high school and university levels, was a technical writer and software support technician, and served as editor of Irreantum magazine and as director of Development and Community Affairs for the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she served frequently as an organist, as well as in the Relief Society and Young Women organizations. Laraine was a skilled pianist and writer, and a person of widely varied talents and interests. She loved writing poetry, drawing, cross stitching, running, camping and hiking, especially in Arches National Park and Monument Valley, classical music and the Arts, including concerts, art galleries, and museums. Condolences may be sent to the family online at www.woodfuneralhome.com

Published in the Salt Lake Tribune on 9/4/2006. (edited by gryffinkat)

Some of Laraine's poetry, published at Weber Studies