I just found the coolest thing ever! Blogger now has the capability to add photos, which I just think is fabulous!! You have to download something from Hello.com, but it's way worth it. The program from Hello allows you to upload pictures to the internet using their webspace, and then (because of a collaboration between Blogger and Hello) you can add those pictures to your blog. Pretty cool. That means I'm going to have to share a lot more of my pictures now -- and you just can't wait, can you? :)

Katrina at a recent college baseball game

This was a good day in a lot of ways. I got a bonus from work (apparently very rare at my workplace), and I got to watch grapes combust in the microwave. (For details on the latter, see the following webpage: http://www.pmichaud.com/grape/).

However, I also had a big moment of stupidity. Well, OK, not that big, but it was annoying nonetheless. See there's this guy at work that I kind of like, but today I didn't really get to see him. He only works mornings in our department, and from 8:00 to noon today, he was working in another room on a team project. The rest of the afternoon was quite productive, but I was a little annoyed that I didn't get to talk to him much. But then, a little after 5:00, he came back in to check his email before he left for the day. So I talked to him a little then, but it was very dry and rather formal -- he was telling about the teaching methods he's using in the classroom -- and I still was dissatisfied with it all when he left a few minutes later. About 3 minutes after his departure, I started to log off of my computer before I left for the day. And it occurred to me how easily I could have said, "Are you going home? Do you want to wait just a minute and we can go out together?" It would have been so simple and natural, but of course I couldn't think of it before he had gone. Oh no. This is the problem with my lack of flirtation -- I'm fine for a long time, but the minute I'm interested and want to flirt, I don't remember how to anymore. *sigh!*

I've been getting really excited about my Master's program at the U of Lancaster. This past weekend I got information from the department, recognizing my acceptance of their offer and including more detailed information about the program and courses offered. Each course listing included a recommended reading list, and so on Saturday I checked out about 10 books on stylistics from the library. I have only read very little of them so far, but they are getting me very excited to go out there. Many of the books were written by professors at Lancaster, and I've enjoyed getting to know their work. In particular, I've been impressed with Mick Short. His work is very much the kind of thing that I want to do, and that's been relieving. I'll be excited to meet him, although he doesn't seem to be scheduled to teach any courses that I plan to take.

I've also been getting more and more convinced to go to UNT (University of North Texas) for a PhD in Poetics. It looks very inviting. The more I get to know about the program, and the more I think about my future options and career plans, the more I think I'd like to go out there. I just can't get used to the idea of living in Texas, though. Of all places! Oh well, I guess sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, huh?

It's been a long time, huh? Well, I'm back. I now finally have my own computer at home, and it's connected to the Internet, so I can blog from home now.

I got in to 4 of the 6 grad schools I applied to: BYU, UVa, Lancaster, and Leeds. I didn't get in to Cambridge or Purdue, but that was OK, since I really wanted to go to Lancaster anyway. (Sometime, you should ask me about the "real story" about Cambridge, if you're interested.) I've accepted at Lancaster and am now getting ready to go out there for the coming school year. And, now I'm starting to look at PhD schools, which is a really strange feeling. My roommate Margo and I are looking into going to the same school. I've been considering University of North Texas, Northern Illinois University, and Purdue. We'll see what happens, I guess. Right now, UNT is looking pretty good. But then, maybe that's just because that's the only school I've contacted so far.

I've added a new obsession in life: tall ships. It all started with the movie Master and Commander, which I happen to love, despite all my old roommates and my sister, who hate it. And that's what got me into it. They're pretty fascinating things, and I've added the HMS Victory (Admiral Nelson's flagship) to the list of things to do while in England.

I've also fallen in love with the movie The Man from Snowy River. I'd seen it before, but it had never really captured my fancy. But I watched it this weekend again, and I loved it! For one thing, it's such a classic hero tale -- man comes out of nowhere, does great, heroic things, falls in love with beautiful girl, and then rides into the sunset. He moves from a combustible, orange state to a content and controlled blue state. It's the story of life in a nutshell. And besides, the hero happens to be pretty dang cute! The sequel didn't really do anything for me, though. It felt like they were just trying too hard. Although I did enjoy the fact that he got to ride the stallion.

I guess that's the main update on my life. Nothing else very interesting right now.

Just a quickie!

Hmm, that could have some not-so-great connotations, huh? Oops.

Anyway, I got my acceptance letter from BYU on Saturday. Yay! :) Three down (Leeds, Lancaster, BYU), three to go (Prudue, Cambridge, UVa).

Ever have one of those mornings?

B-98.7, a local radio station, has recently been having contests, which they've dubbed, "I'm an Idiot." Callers tell their best "I'm an Idiot" story (or sometimes a "He's an Idiot/She's an Idiot" story), and after they've collected several of these stories, the DJs pick a random number, and the caller with that number gets a prize. Well, here's my personal "I'm an Idiot" story, which happened just today.

This morning, I left to go to work, thinking that I really ought to gas up before I went home tonight, since the car was getting low. Well, needless to say, the car didn't last, and I didn't make it all the way to work. I pulled into the closest parking spot I could find, put on my hazards, and found a phone, where I called my roommate to see if she would be willing to come get me. The poor dear was in the middle of her scripture study, and I felt bad for interrupting her, but there was nothing else to be done. She got me, and I grabbed the 1-gallon gas can out of my trunk; we then drove down to the nearest gas station, where I filled the gas can and got some finger-wipes, and then she took me back to my lame car. She drove off, and I put the gallon of gas in the car. It started just fine, and I was thinking that it was going to be fine day after all. Then I drove down to another gas station to fill up, just to be on the safe side, although that 1 gallon probably would have gotten me through the day just fine. Anyway, I filled 'er up, and then went to get back in the car, only to discover that I had locked my keys inside!

Woo-hoo!

Gotta make it quick today, but I have way exciting news. Yesterday I emailed the University of Leeds and the University of Lancaster to make sure they had actually gotten my application, since I hadn't heard anything at all from them yet. When I got home, there was a letter for me from the U of Leeds, informing that I have been offered a place to study there.

Yes!

Now, when I got in to work today and checked my email, I found an email from the U of Lancaster (my top choice, if you remember), saying that they had also made me an unconditional offer to study there.

YIPPEE!!!

So anyway, chances are looking pretty good that I might be going to England for grad school. Can you even believe it? 'Cause I'm not sure I can.

I'm Ba-ack!

Wow. So it's been ages, I know. Sorry about that, but I've been pretty busy, and I don't have such quick access to a computer anymore either.

Anyway, I have been having a great time these past ... 5 and a half months. I finally got applications finished and in the mail for the six grad schools I'm applying to. Let me tell you just a tad about each of them. I'm applying to three schools in the States and three in the UK.

BYU is first. That's where I did my Bachelor's in Linguistics, and it's a good school. I already know the faculty and they have an idea of who I am and what my interests are, so that's a pro. However, I'm really ready to be done with Provo and Utah. It just feels like it's time to move on. So, I'm also thinking about ...

Purdue University in Indiana. There I am applying for the Master's in Rhetoric and Composition, which is in the English Department. I hope that's not a mistake on my part. It's really similar to the kind of stuff I want to do, but I am hesitant about applying for a program not in Linguistics. I guess there's always the doctorate, though, right?

The next school I'm looking at is the University of Virginia, for the Master's in Linguistics. Now, the Linguistics Department at UVa is mostly just a conglomoration of faculty from other departments, and the program is an interdepartmental dealy-bob that includes classes from Anthropology, English, and foreign languages. It might not be the best place for a Linguistics major, but I thought that, being interdepartmental, it would allow me the flexibility I need to study in my specialty area, which most schools don't have. (We'll talk in just a moment about my specialty.) And besides, the university was started by one of my all-time heroes, Thomas Jefferson. What could be better?

So now we move overseas to the three British schools I applied to. These are the ones I'm really excited about. Cross your fingers for me!

First, the University of Lancaster. This is my Number One Top Choice of all the schools I'm applying to. Why, you ask? Three reasons: (1) smaller city, (2) smaller campus, (3) specialism in Stylistics. There you go. I'm really excited about the program. It's quite flexible, and the specialism in Stylistics (the study of literary and linguistic styles) is a major attention-grabber for me. Check out the MALS program (Master of Arts in Linguistic Studies), and don't forget the Stylistics scheme. Cool, huh?

The University of Leeds is another choice, a little further east. The school is another good one, and it's program is flexible, which is always a good thing in my opinion. They first attracted me with a special program in Linguistics and Corpus Linguistics, which would have been cool, but they no longer offer it. The Linguistics program itself is pretty good, though.

And last, but certainly not least, the University of Cambridge. I'm sure you've all heard of it. Great school, and the Linguistics program is quite good. It was the first UK school I found where the Linguistics program actually interested me. Let me tell you, though, it was an absolute pain in the you-know-where to apply to. Ugh! Anyway, it's all done now, and we'll just have to see what happens.

So, that's the first big thing that's been going on lately. This weekend, I'm at my sister's house in Logan, Utah (gorgeous!). We went to Idaho Falls yesterday for the funeral of my maternal grandmother. It was quite an interesting event. It was fun to see all of our cousins again, many of whom I haven't seen for literally years. Grandma was almost 93, and it was definitely time for her to go, so that was a relief in a way. It was a very nice funeral.

Afterward, we went to my brother's house in Idaho Falls and had an "office-warming" party for him. He is starting a new chiropractic business in Shelley, just outside of IF, and we had decided to get together to get him some stuff for his office and show our support. He's really excited about it. We even went over to the office before going back to Utah, and he showed us around, looking like a little kid with a newly-made fort. It was fun, and I'm really excited for his new business. I sure hope it works out well. I know I for one am planning to head up and get adjustments at least every few months.

Well, better get going. I hope nobody's too mad at me for waiting so darn long to write again. Better late than never, right? Later, ya'll!

Serious Odds-n-Ends

The Shakespearean Festival was grand. They did some really fun things with Much Ado, and I was very impressed. 1776 was equally as good. It was very intense, and it made me think hard about a lot of things, as it always has and does. I came home with a renewed love of liberty and of America, along with a deepened resolve to participate more actively in the promotion of the liberty that our Founding Fathers fought so hard to gain.

One of the first things I did upon my arrival back at home was to destroy my DVD of The Majestic, a movie from about two years ago with Jim Carrey. In just the last little while, I have become more and more upset over the bias against McCarthy and McCarthyism. Only recently have I discovered that McCarthy was right -- the people he prosecuted were proven in the 1990s to have been spying for the Soviet Union and passing on classified government information with the aim of undermining the democratic republican society of the United States. It has made me very angry to realize that no one ever offered me that view of things whenever I've learned about Senator McCarthy, and even more angry that I never thought to challenge what I was taught about him. While in high school, I didn't learn about McCarthy in U.S. History, or in U.S. Government. No, I learned about him in English, when we read The Crucible and compared the Salem witch trials to the communist trials in the 1950s in America. Never once did I ever hear anyone argue that maybe -- just maybe -- McCarthy was right. Now, all the so-called truths I was taught about McCarthy have finally been challenged, and I find that I have to side with him in the end. I have to say that I think he was right in what he did, and all the liberal media artists that have been making me think McCarthy was evil incarnate make me more angry than I have been about anything before. It makes me wonder if there weren't really witches in Salem.

Moving on, though, I had a really interesting conversation with my brother and sister-in-law this weekend. We talked a lot about perfection. The conversation pervaded the entire weekend, really, and it was quite fascinating. See, Travis has been realizing that he has been programmed from early childhood to think that if he's not perfect, he's not good enough; that if he's pleased with something, then there must be something wrong. I hadn't realized myself how I've been programmed the same way, until I had this conversation with him. He greatly appreciated a story I told him about when I was a freshman in college. I called home and got my dad on the other end. Since he speaks fluent French, I was excited to tell him that I had gotten a French test back that day, and that I got 99% on it. His response: "Well at least you have room for improvement, huh?" Now, in Dad's defense, he said this in a joking way, and I don't think he ever meant it to be taken quite so seriously. But I do think that he believed it. That kind of thing has gone on a lot in our family, and it has done interesting things to us. I think that's part of the reason why my oldest sister rebelled against Dad in any way she could -- she learned German instead of French, she got involved in debate and not in physics, she became a feminist liberal Democrat instead of a traditionalist conservative Republican, and she became somewhat estranged from the Church. My oldest brother all but dropped out of school, and I suspect it has something to do with the attitude that, "If my best isn't good enough, why should I try at all?" I know it's had some adverse effects on me, and I did't even realize half of them until this weekend. Actually, even now, I don't think I realize half of them; but I know about twice as many as I used to. It's been an interesting few days, noticing little things about how judgmental I can be when I ought to just let myself be pleased with my or someone else's efforts. There comes to mind an aphorism that my religion teacher once shared with us: There are days when enduring means getting out of bed. That may seem somewhat unconnected to the perfection issue, but I believe it is very pertinent; namely, because it demonstrates that we don't always have to do everything and be everything, but that as long as we are giving our utmost, that is enough.

I wish I had something great to write about today, but I don't. I thought I ought to write something, though, seeing as how it's now been a full week.

I'm going to the Utah Shakespearean Festival this weekend, by myself. I kind of wish that I had someone to go with me, but they're playing two of my very favorite shows, and I decided it was just too good to pass up. Thursday I'll be seeing Much Ado about Nothing, and on Friday I'll watch 1776, one of my favorite musicals. I'm very excited. After that I'll spend the night at home on Friday, and then I'll go to Idaho the next day for Alyce Colleen's baby blessing. I may spend most of Monday there, too, and have a little picnic with my family or something of the sort.

I never quite finished Pyle's Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, but I was close enough. All that's left now is the chase by King Henry, and then the big fight with Guy of Gisbourne. Not my favorite parts of the story, so I decided to put it down for the time being. Instead I started a re-reading of Dickens' Great Expectations, which has always been one of my favorite novels, since I first read it. I stayed up until about 2:30 last night and read through chapter four or five, I was so into it. He has a great way with getting a reader's attention, Dickens has.

So that's mostly it for now. Hopefully I'll have something just a little more interesting to write about soon enough. I'll let you know then.

Well, I had thought that I would write something today about Peirce and literature (plot, character, etc.). But, after church, I am really tired, and so I think I'll go read some Robin Hood and take a short nap. Hopefully. Since I got back from my mission, my naps tend to be ... not-so-short, shall we say?

My talk went well in church today. Or, to be more specific, several people seemed to enjoy it more than I did (or would have, had I been in the congregation). To be fair, it really wasn't bad, but I wasn't satisfied with it. I hadn't prepared as well or as much as I thought I should, and that made it difficult to deal with. But, like I said, it went just fine. I talked a bit about Aigues-Mortes in southern France, and lots of people seemed to enjoy that. It was quite a good analogy, if I do say so myself.

Whew!

My roommate and I recently received news that we would be getting two new roommmates for the coming school year. We were both a little apprehensive about this, since it's just been the two of us this summer, and we've been having a great time in our own rooms and what not. Well, we were also told that the first of these new rommates would be moving in today. Katie isn't here right now, as she's visiting family in Ohio, and I was looking forward in a way to having two weeks by myself. But instead I had to move out of my room and into Katie's (just so that neither of us would have to room with a complete stranger), and now I have a new roommate to get used to before Katie comes back. I wish she were here, as she's so much better at getting to know new people than I am. Anyway, Holly (our newest roommate) just finished moving in. When she first opened the door to the apartment and saw me sitting on the living room floor eating pizza and watcing TV during my 'lunch break,' I looked at her and immediately said, "You're wearing a Hogwarts shirt! Are you a Gryffindor?" "All the way," she replied. So I told her, "So am I, and so's Katie." I knew right then that things wouldn't be as hard as they could have been. Now, though, I just hope to never find out that she's an H/H-er.

It turns out that Holly is actually registered at the U of U (but she's not taking classes there yet, or something ... I haven't quite figured this out yet). She's 20 and just graduated from Snow College, where she majored in Theater. She ended up here in Provo because she works in Orem and will most likely be playing a part in a play at Snow College this fall (that's in St. George). So Provo ended up being kind of a central area for her. She seems really nice so far. She's got a very analytical mind from what I've seen of her so far (which, of course, is great!). She reminds me just a little bit of my old roommate Jody from my Ricks College days. I think we'll get along just fine.

In other news, I have to give talk tomorrow in sacrament meeting on "the living prophet: our watchman on the tower." I haven't even started it yet, although I do think that I have a few ideas to work from.

Last night I bought some oil color pencils, which are just colored pencils that used kind of an oil-based lead, and you can then spread the color around with a wet cotton swab to fill in the areas around it. I'm toying with coloring some of Pyle's RH illustrations and framing them for my wall. Last night I "practiced" with his picture of Will Scarlet. It turned out pretty good, and I'm very happy with the colors.

In my reading last night, Robin met Friar Tuck (the "curtal friar of Fountain Abbey"), whom he is planning to enlist to his services so that he can marry Allan a Dale to his true love (Ellen a Dale :) ), whom he met the night before. Nothing especially new here (especially if you've read The Outlaws of Sherwood before), but it's just so fun nonetheless. Pyle's Robin is somewhat self-centered and egocentric, but not too much. And in fact, that's OK because Pyle's Robin is also very orange (in Peircean theory), which is exactly what he should be. Maybe my next blog will be about the personality types or about the Peircean theory in plot. That will help me explain better what bothers me about McKinley's Robin, and why Pyle's Robin works so much better for me.

I'd just like you all to know ...

that I spent the entire day today working with groups of words that LDS missionaries use. We've been working for a long time on making these word groups for the computer program that I help develop for my job. In fact, we've spent the better part of the last two months working on them. We had originally split them up into three big categories, and three of us worked on them and had them QCed and everything. We've just recently gotten to the point where we really needed to combine all three lists and coordinate our work with each other. So, since I'm affectionately known around here as the formatting expert, the task fell to me to combine the lists of word groups and organize it. It took all day. And I'm not quite done yet, either. I found TONS of duplicate word groups, that had the same title but different words in them. It took a while coordinating all of that. Wow. For a linguist, I never really thought that I could detest words so thoroughly.

I'd also like to draw your attention to the link at the bottom of my sidebar to Google Sets. I just love this site. It takes the words that you enter and then uses some kind of algorithm (or something) to figure what other words are likely to be in the same set as it. Try something like "ash," "poplar," and "birch." Or, for something really fun, try "Harry," "Ron," and "Hermione" or "Frodo," "Sam," "Merry," and "Pippin." Great, huh? I tell you -- you give this to a linguist, and just watch them go crazy! (As we can well testify here at my work, where we have quite a few linguists gathered together in one room.)

SCA

So I'm thinking of things that I can do during the fall and winter seasons to keep me entertained, since I otherwise will only be working. I've never before spent a whole fall and winter season together not going to school. Except on my mission, but that'a different story. A long one.

Anyway, I've been looking into the Society for Creative Anachronism. They are an international group dedicated to researching and re-creating the happier aspects of the Middle Ages. I would love to learn fletching, lacework, and illuminated writing. I have located the local chapter (the College of Arrow's Flight), and the person in charge of it, and I just need to call him and see about coming to a meeting to answer a few of my questions. I'm kind of afraid it might turn out to be a whole bunch of really obsessive and odd people. But then, I can be kind of obsessive ... and rather odd. So maybe it will work out. I'll have to do some more research on it. Another thing about it is that I don't have anyone else to go to it with me, and that always makes me nervous. I tend to not do so well in large groups where I don't know anyone else. But it's probably time for me to bite the bullet, and be brave, and just do it!

My obsession with Robin Hood continues. I'm really enjoying the Howard Pyle version. I read it once before in high school, but had forgotten a lot of it. He's very good. The only thing is that Marian is mentioned, I think, once. He saw Robin Hood as an adventure story, with very little to do with romance. Which is just a shame, I verily believe.

My Niece

Her name is Alyce Colleen Wilkins. She was born at 7:38 am (Mountian Time, of course), in Idaho Falls, ID. Weight: 7 lbs. even. Length: 20 inches. I'm very excited to see her this weekend. It will be so great to have a newborn around again. *sigh of great happiness*

YAY! As of this morning, I have a brand new niece. This makes nine nieces and nephews in all for me, and she's the fourth niece. We're very excited. It's my brother and sister-in-law's, and it's their first. They decided they didn't want to know whether it was a boy or a girl, so we were all making guesses as to what they would have. I was just sure it was going to be a boy, and I guess I was wrong, huh? I'm still very excited, though! Especially since I'll be going home this very weekend for my cousin's wedding reception, so I'll be able to see her right away. I haven't heard yet what her name is, but I know they were planning to name her after our grandma and my sister-in-law's grandma. I can't remember what her grandma's name was, but I know that either the first or middle name was supposed to be Alyce, as that was my paternal grandmother's name.

Yippee!

I finally gave in. Yes, my friends, I bought the soundtrack from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I wasn't going to, but in the end I couldn't resist the pull of phoenix song. Let me just say that it was worth all fourteen dollars AND ninety-nine cents just to have the satisfaction of being able to listen to Fawkes the Phoenix whenever I feel like it. *sigh of deep satisfaction* In fact, last night I went for a short run, and I listend to Fawkes on repeat the whole time. It was highly satisfying, as well as invigorating!

Oh! I just remembered. For anyone out there who might be interested in learning more about Peirce, a really good place to find some more is a novel by A.D. Manning called Love Story Logic. It is unpublished, but he has recently put up the first four chapters on the internet, at the following link: http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling230am/stories/LSLpartI.pdf. If you want to read the rest of it, you can email him at the address on the copyright page.

Sorry that it's been so darn long. I just want to you all to know that I really will start blogging again and get you up to date on my life.

Reflection

Note: This was written after I had just finished reading the manuscript of an unpublished novel by A. D. Manning, entitled "Love Story Logic." This was what I found out about myself from reading that book.

She went running that day.

She hadn’t been for over a year. She had never liked running. It always reminded her of gym class when she was younger, the feeling that she was being made to do something that she didn’t want to do. The realization that, even when she tried her best, she couldn’t compete with the others. Back in gym, she’d always just avoided it as much as possible. In junior high, she would recall vocabulary from her German class, counting as high as she could to forget that she was running. In high school, she had simply refused to run, walking instead with her friends, or by herself, but never going to the trouble to run like the others, like she was supposed to. On her mission, and then in college, she had run sometimes with her companions or roommates, but never because she wanted to, more because she thought that she should.

Today, she felt she had to run.

The professor’s novel had made her entirely too uneasy. She had finished reading the manuscript that day, and by the time she was done with it, she couldn’t stand to sit still. When her roommate had asked her for a ride to work, she was only two pages from the end and already feeling uncomfortable with the conclusion. Somehow she felt that it wasn’t going to end the way she wanted it to. But probably the way it needed to, she told herself. After driving her roommate to work and dropping a co-worker off at her home a block away, she went back to her own apartment, now empty. She felt a need to talk to her brother, so she picked up the phone almost immediately. But in doing so, she turned and saw the manuscript lying where she had left it on the couch. She knew she had to finish it before she could talk to her brother, so she put the phone back and read the last two pages.

She was almost furious by the end of the last line. She felt a surge of irrepressibly nervous energy well up inside her, and she stood and paced around the room to try to still it. After pacing a few moments in frustrated reflection, she picked up the phone again and dialed her brother’s house. She had no idea if he was at home or not, but she needed to try it anyway. Even if he were at home, he probably would not have much time, or maybe inclination, to talk for long, she thought. The phone rang once, twice, four times. Then she heard a familiar click and then a bell chime. She hung up before the lady could tell her that she’d reached voicemail.

Her frustration mounted, and she paced the living room a bit more, trying to decide what to do with herself. Finally she picked up the phone once more, this time dialing the number of an acquaintance in the ward. He still had her roommate’s green bucket, and she reflected that she might be able to get it back from him today, maybe do a little flirting – socializing, she corrected herself. But in the end, she hung up on that line, too, again without waiting for the mechanic-sounding lady to tell her which apartment she’d reached.

She was now more upset than ever, without any idea of how to calm herself down. She saw the bathroom light still on, and went to turn it off. That’s when the thought struck her, from out of the blue. She would go running. Somehow it was the only thing that made any sense to her right now. She had to get out and do something with herself, and that was the only thing that fit her restless mood. She would be alone, but her body would be vigorously working at something, keeping itself busy so she could think about other things.

She started into her bedroom to change her clothes, but then she remembered the laundry in the dryer. It had been in there far too long. If she was going to do anything, she had to start by taking care of that. She stopped the dryer from its heated cycle and pulled the clothes and towels out in one motion, then carried them into her room without using the sage green laundry basket that stood on the floor.

She dumped the clothes in a heap on her bed and then began quickly pulling them apart one at a time. Her hands shook as she placed the shirts on hangers and then put them in the closet: lime green, red-and-orange, sage green, and dark plum. She then reached for the towels that still lay on her mulberry-colored bed sheets. She folded them one by one, first the dark green one, then the sage green one, then the hand towel, a slightly darker green. Each one was folded three times one direction, then three times in the next direction. Hands still shaking, she quickly opened the cupboard in the hallway and placed the three towels on top of her spare, light green bed sheet, the same color as the second towel she had folded.

Returning to her room, she was finally ready to change her clothes and go running. She opened the first drawer of her dresser and took out a pair of navy blue cut-off sweat pants. Mostly she used these shorts for her pajamas the last few years, together with some old T-shirt. But today they were the only shorts she could think of for running in. She hated shorts and avoided them, as a rule. They always reminded her that her thighs and waist were too big for the rest of her. She began changing her clothes, looking around the room as she did so.

She was struck and disturbed today by the multiplicity of green things in her life, green things that she had surrounded herself with. Green laundry basket, green shirts, green covers on her feather blanket lying on the floor in a corner, a green plastic case for her computer diskettes, green plastic storage bins that lay under her bed holding all the things she knew she wanted but couldn’t seem to find a place for. Or even an immediate use for. Mathom, she thought, as Tolkien would have called it.

Several years ago she had started collecting green things. Perhaps it had all started with the dark green blanket her grandmother had made her for Christmas when she was nine. As a child, she often had a hard time finding a favorite color, usually picking something that her friends seemed to like. Somehow she felt like that made her more normal, maybe even more likeable. But in high school, she had deliberately chosen for green to be her favorite color. She had been taught in church that green was a symbol for knowledge, something she felt was a worthy pursuit in life, and something she desperately wanted and needed to gain more of. Besides, it was the color of the leaves and the grass, and she had always loved plants. Later she learned that she had not inherited the green thumb that both her mother and her father seemed to have. Always buying plants to keep her company, she never seemed to be able to keep them alive for more than a few months, maybe a year. But she still felt that green was something she needed, somehow, and soon found herself buying green things to surround herself with. In some small way, it made her feel more secure.

But today, as she quickly and tremblingly changed her clothes to go running, she found herself upset by all that green. It made her feel somehow insecure.

With her running clothes on, she turned to put on her shoes. She had just bought them earlier that morning, while out shopping with her roommate. The professor’s novel had made her remember that she needed to exercise more. Especially, she reflected as she looked wistfully at size 10 dresses with her size 10 roommate in the mall, if she ever wanted to get over her body-image issues. After leaving the department store, she had gone straight to a shoe store to buy some good running shoes, promising herself that she would get out more.

As she tied the laces and then stretched briefly (and all too inflexibly), she thought about what music she would take with her. She had learned as a college sophomore that she needed music when exercising. It took her mind off the physical pain. And kept her going at a good pace. She considered taking her Walkman radio, and just listening to her favorite soft rock station, but she didn’t want to be bothered with the commercials every five minutes. She thought about taking Mozart with her, the 40th symphony, which had always been her walking music at college in Idaho, before she came to the university in Provo. But that didn’t seem to fit today, although she knew she needed loud, fast-paced music for the mood she was in. Finally she decided to take her newly-bought CD of Grieg’s classic Piano Concerto in A minor. Glancing briefly at the blue accents on her shoes, she stood up from her last stretch, opened the CD with too much restrained energy, and then found her portable CD-player, thinking she could just stuff it in between her stomach and her waistband. But then she couldn’t find any headphones to use. She always kept a pair with her computer at work so she could listen to music there, but she was certain she had another at home for these rare occasions when she felt like listening to something by herself. She searched the drawer over and over, but finding nothing, she finally gave up. More frustrated now than she had been in several months, she left the apartment as quickly as she could, leaving the door unlocked behind her.

She had decided to run south today, six blocks down to Center Street. She wasn’t sure how long a block was, or how many it would take to make a mile. She’d always been awful at estimating, or even caring about, distances. Or any other measurements, for that matter. But she knew that six blocks sounded like a good distance. If she could make it that far, she would be inordinately proud of herself.

Crossing the street from her apartment building, she broke into a run too fast to last six blocks and ran across the grounds of the elementary school. As she passed beneath the common basswood trees growing there, she realized that their sweet scent was fading and would be entirely gone by the end of next week.

She ran determinedly, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, like her old mission companion had taught her to do. She didn’t understand exactly why this was supposed to be the best way for breathing while exercising, but she knew it was supposed to be. There must be a good reason for it, and so she did it, even when the dry air stung the inside of her nostrils. She hoped that it wouldn’t make her nose start to bleed.

She ran through a sprinkler, not caring that she would get wet, or even that the puddle it had created would splash dirty water around her. In fact, she rather liked the thought of getting wet. She felt she needed some water to cool off her face and spirit. The water was too low, it turned out, and she didn’t get wet at all, not even from the muddy puddle on the sidewalk.

At the fourth block down, her determination waned. Mostly because she had been anticipating the sign that would tell her she was only one block away from her destination. When she was able to read the green street sign, right before she stepped into the road to cross it, she saw that she was one block further back than she had reckoned. Somehow her will gave out, and she turned west, remembering that this was the street where her older brother had used to live. Walking now down the street, she passed the large red brick church to the south, on the other side of the street from where she was. She remembered all the baby blessings she’d been to in that church, and looked at the house to her right. It was built of gold brick, and the wood that helped fill in the triangular space between the wall and the crotch of the roof had been painted a light ivory color. The trim was blue. Her sister-in-law had painted it blue when they lived there before. Five years later, the student couple who now lived here had apparently seen no reason to change it, and neither had anyone else who might have lived there in the interim.

As she passed to the next block, still going west, it occurred to her that there was plenty of green about her. In fact, in almost surrounded her. Green grass, green leaves on trees, green stems and leaves of flowers. For some reason, though, this green didn’t perturb her like the green things in her room had earlier. She wondered why.

She began finally to think a little while she continued her walk, breathing hard and trying to get her chest to inhale at a little more normal rate. She thought about her life, the choices she’d made thus far and where they had led her. She’d always felt good about those choices, at least deep inside. In fact, it was only when she thought about the future that she got depressed about any of those choices. She knew she’d needed to be where she was, and she was happy and content with where she was. But at the end of all that, she had always known that she must leave this place sometime, and that had always bothered her somewhat. Not because she didn’t want to leave, but because she didn’t know what she’d do next.

When she thought about it, she realized that much of it was connected to the professor. Maybe that was part of the reason why his novel had frustrated her so badly. She didn’t know exactly how that was any reason for her frustration, but somehow she felt that it was.

The frustration – with her future, not with the novel – was due to the fact that she had found what she wanted and didn’t know how to get it. She wanted to be like the professor, in some ways she wanted to be him. She’d always known that she wanted to teach, known since she could remember. But she didn’t want to just teach little kids in an elementary school, like so many of her friends had chosen to do. She had known that, by the time she had finished high school. When she started junior high, she wanted to teach elementary school; when she reached high school, she wanted to teach junior high; when she got to college, she wanted to teach high school, English, she had decided; and by the time that she’d left the junior college for the university in Utah, she wanted to teach at the junior college in Idaho. Somehow, she found herself always wanting to teach wherever she’d just left. Back then, she thought she was being fickle. Now she realized that it was just because of a deep and urgent need to teach truth. The more truth she learned, the more truth she wanted to teach. Teachers had always been her greatest heroes, and many of them she considered her best friends. Not best because they did so much together, like with other friends; best because they had each touched a deep place in her soul. She knew she wanted to touch that place in others.

The only problem was, she didn’t know how to get there. She had finally chosen to study linguistics at the university, simply because it felt right. And she was staunchly loyal to that major. At the junior college, the loyalty to her major had grown from a fear of being fickle and indecisive. But with linguistics, the loyalty was a natural outgrowth of its perfect fit to her nature and spirit. This was exactly what she had searched for all her life, and she couldn’t have been more pleased with her choice, even if it had stemmed simply from a feeling.

There at the university, she had met and learned from wonderful professors. But this one, the one whose novel she’d been reading, he was easily her favorite. Her first linguistics class had been with him, in fact. She got a B in that class, and she was used to getting As. But she wasn’t upset with the grade. She knew she had earned just that grade, and not a better, for one thing. But besides that, the B always served as a reminder to her of one of her favorite lectures from the professor’s class. He taught that meaning was created by opposition – nothing meant anything to anyone unless it was countered by some kind of opposing force, as it were. “If I gave everyone in this class an A at the end of the semester, even those who hadn’t really earned it, that A wouldn’t mean anything to anyone. It would only mean that you’d been enrolled in my class, but nothing beyond that. It’s only because some of you will get Bs, some Cs, and some even Ds and Fs, that the As mean anything to those who earned them.” Seeing her B, her final grade from the class, her first thought was I helped give meaning to all the As. And she was satisfied with that.

After that first semester, she’d gone to serve as a missionary for the church for eighteen months. But she kept the professor’s lectures with her. They seemed to permeate everything around her. That’s when she started to realize that his lectures had not been just about language, but about the world, about life in general. He had been teaching universal and eternal truths in the context of linguistic truths.

After her mission, she eagerly enrolled in his class, and did surprisingly better than she had before. Somehow, she had formed a connection with him, learning to understand what he wanted his students to do, and how to do it. She appreciated his teaching style, and his hard logic. She especially enjoyed the fact that he was willing to tell students when they were wrong. He seemed to see everything so clearly; there was never any grey in his thinking, because there was none in the world. He willingly acknowledged correction from students, whenever it was proffered, but nor did he hesitate to say that they were wrong. In a world that was growing ever more tolerant of other people’s “relative” truths – even at a conservative Christian university – it was refreshing to know someone who truly believed in absolute truth and wasn’t afraid to share it.

That’s what she wanted to do for all those others, she wanted to show them the absolute truths about life.

She thought of all these things while she continued to walk, now having turned north again, ready to head home. She thought of the graduate work she hadn’t yet completed, the graduate work she was still hoping to be accepted to do someplace, and the frustration began to stir again. Every time she started getting ready to apply to another university, she was stopped by some need to know exactly what she wanted to study, exactly what she would do her research in. She was so indecisive all the time, why couldn’t she just make up her mind? She knew where she wanted to be, just not how to get there. She wanted to be teaching at the junior college in Idaho, or maybe at her alma mater here in Utah. Or anywhere, for that matter, but those were her first two choices. That was the destination, but how was she going to get there?

Why wouldn’t someone just hand her a PhD and tell her to go teach someplace? She knew it didn’t work that way, and shouldn’t work that way, but it sure sounded good at times like these.
She broke into a slow jog again as she crossed another street north and then turned east. She was only a few blocks away from home now, and she once again felt that need to run. But when she felt her lungs gasping for more air than they could hold at a time, she slowed back down again to her brisk walk.

She passed several houses without thinking about much at all, except maybe what she’d do when she got home. She was supposed to give feedback to the professor on his novel, but she knew she couldn’t do that right away. She’d known before she ever started reading it that she would have to read it at least twice before she gave any real feedback on it. That was just the way she did things. With any other book, and on any other day, she probably would have gone home and started rereading it immediately, or at least have started marking on the manuscript the typos she’d been keeping track of. But she couldn’t make herself decide to do that, not yet anyway. And yet, she also didn’t seem to be able to leave it entirely alone, not even for a day. She had to reflect on it some more.

By this time, she had reached the elementary school again, but she approached it now from a different direction than she had left it from earlier. There were a couple of college kids out on the field, two boys playing Frisbee on the north end, and a boy and a girl playing some baseball closer to her. Their baseball and mitts made her think of her dad.

She noticed the chain link fence as she walked along it, row after seemingly endless row of grey squares linked together, separating her from the green grass of the school field behind. As she walked, she saw those links as she never had before, and they gave her an odd feeling, such as she’d never experienced before from looking at a simple chain link fence. She felt trapped, held back by those little sideways squares. She let her mind wander from the here and now and found herself imagining that she was in a far-off place, a fantasy place, like one that she might see in that awful state between waking and sleeping. In this place, the grey chain link fence went on forever and ever, always holding back the green behind it. That elusive green was the only thing that cheered her, but it also disturbed her. If it weren’t there, she probably wouldn’t feel so cheated by the fence. She walked forever, infinitely scanning the rows ahead to see when they would finally stop, but they never did.

She found the gap in the fence that would let her through to the other side of the school grounds. It loomed up suddenly on her left, although it had been all but invisible to her eyes just a moment before. She turned and went through the gate, still breathing more heavily than normal and deeply aware of the burning in her red, hot cheeks. Still frustrated, confused, disturbed, but feeling somehow more whole after her excursion, she walked home through the green grass.

21 June 2003