Colorless Green Ideas

A little tip for guys who send me messages online

2012-01-23T23:55:00.002-07:00

If you want to make a good impression on me, I suggest that you don't:

1. Tell me what subfield of linguistics I should study. Having written a dissertation on second language phonology is kind of proof that I've already chosen that one. And I really don't like it when people tell me what they think I should do unsolicited. How about this question instead: "Why did you choose that field? What do you find interesting about it?"

2. Make up garbage, unoriginal theories about linguistics, based on your own strange ideas about languages and language learning. Know-it-alls are not attractive, especially because I have my own know-it-all tendencies. How about this instead: "I've always thought such-and-such, but I don't know much about linguistics. What have you studied on that topic?"

To the guy who did both of these things in as many messages to me: major turnoff.

A little friendly advice for Republican delegates

2012-01-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Republican delegates,
A little friendly advice, since it seems like many of you want to actually have a Republican president in office again. I realize there are many of you out there who don't want a Mormon president, no matter what. But you should ask yourselves -- are you willing to lose the election over it?

As all the pundits are saying, Gingrich seems to be collecting votes from anyone who doesn't want a Mormon president. But imagine Gingrich against Obama. Gingrich is much less TV-friendly (let's face it, he's not particularly good-looking) and already, criticisms of his handling of his personal life and moral behavior are coming under question. In addition, Gingrich's politics are far right, which doesn't usually play well in the main presidential election where voters tend to lean moderate instead of extreme. Next to our smooth, family-man, progressive incumbent president, I don't think Gingrich will end up the victor.

Romney, on the other hand, is relatively good-looking and has already established himself as moderate in the sense that he is conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Such a moderate platform will appeal more to the general public, who drives the electoral college.

So if your top priority is to not have a Mormon as president, go with Gingrich, and get ready for an Obama re-election. If you want a Republican in office, though, Romney's your man as far as I can tell. Don't let prejudice prevent you from achieving your main goal.

Sincerely,
ww

(Just in case you're wondering where I'm coming from, I'm not affiliated with any party, but have generally conservative leanings on many domestic issues.)

The McDonald's embargo

2012-01-02T00:28:00.002-07:00

I haven't blogged in months (as you can see by the date on my previous post) and that's mostly because I didn't feel like I had anything to say, at least not anything to say to the audience on the interwebs. And I'm still not sure that I have anything to say, but I am going to tell you about my only-semi-official boycott of McDonald's.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I don't have anything political against McDonald's. My main complaint is that their food is generally poor quality. If I want a burger, there are lots of other restaurants out there where I can get a better burger. And over the years some items they have offered have been incredibly unhealthy (such as McGriddle and, more recently, their oatmeal). Which means that I am not highly motivated to go there...

Which leads me to the "boycott". I don't eat at McDonald's. It's a long-standing tradition.

The last time I can remember purchasing food at McDonald's is when I was in high school on our choir tour to California. We pulled into a town at night in our choir bus for a quick food and wash-yourself-a-bit-in-the-bathroom visit. As far as I know (with one limited experience I'll tell you about later), I have not purchased food at McDonald's since then. So that would be an estimated 17 years that I have gone without Mickey D's. I have eaten a couple of burgers during that time that my dad brought home when they were having a sale or something. But during that time I have not stepped foot into a McDonald's restaurant or purchased anything there as far as I can remember. And after it had been a time, it sort of became a thing and I sort of made a point of avoiding McDonald's. Which isn't hard because I don't think I am missing much when it comes to the food.

When I was in the Czech Republic I learned that my favorite city (at least from the ones that I experienced) was Pilsen, and there is a McDonald's there. McDonald's is popular in the Czech Republic because it was started by a guy with Czech parents, Ray Kroc (yes, Kroc is not actually supposed to be pronounced "krok" like the first syllable of crocodile, but "krots", a good, solid Czech name.) I remember at one point that someone mentioned to me that I could go to McDonald's while I was there, assuming that I wanted to go to McDonald's because I'm American. But I don't want to eat there. I just stayed outside and took a photo of the Ray Kroc plaque on the side of the building. And I am glad that my Czech friends think McDonald's is cool but honestly I think the US of A could be known for something a little better quality than McDonald's food. And I know that a lot of Americans like to eat at McDonald's when they are abroad because, I guess, it's a form of comfort food to them, something from "home" that they can relate to and know what they are getting. But I am totally fine with exploring other cuisines.
(P.S. I didn't notice until posting the picture on the blog that the plaque is in English.)

So why don't I eat at McDonald's? Because it's been so long since I ate at McDonald's. It's a self-perpetuating thing. And I guess there is a part of me that wants to be a bit of a snob and be different from what everybody else in America is doing (though that's not really true). I have to admit that some of their more modern menu items seem more appealing than the classic Big Mac (which, in my my memory, is disgusting) but they have really been advertising the Big Mac lately and I'm also not interested in collecting collectible different-colored Coke glasses or whatever. So maybe in the future I will want something there or be really hungry or be in a small town where McD is the only option and give it a try, but I have a feeling that the McDonald's embargo is going to continue for some time.

That said, this last summer when I passed through Washington, D.C., I visited the National Mall and bought a bottle of water from a cart on the mall. And after I had placed the order I realized that the person at the cart was wearing a McDonald's uniform. Apparently McD's has a contract to provide all the food services in the area. So technically I bought a bottle of water from McDonald's, I guess. And that doesn't really bother me because there isn't a really good reason for the whole Mickey D's standoff anyway. But don't expect to see me in there tomorrow.

A message to the guys of the world

2011-04-06T22:44:00.003-06:00

Dear Men,
Unless you have a legitimate reason (like being in the military), do not, I repeat, do not get a crew cut with a flat top. It does not look good on anyone.

Love,
ww

Words.

2011-03-28T22:32:00.002-06:00

I don't know exactly why, but I think the word "spatula" has a really cool sound. What words do you like?

Sometimes I get a little tired of this conversation

2011-03-24T23:42:00.006-06:00

Click to zoom.

What?

2011-03-07T12:15:00.002-07:00

Last night, I had a long and seemingly somewhat meaningful IM session with a guy on a singles' site where we both expressed mutual interest, etc. Today, his profile is completely gone from the site. Huh?

An apology

2011-02-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

Dear birds that built the nest outside my window,
I was really excited to see that you had built a nest in the branch where I could see it so easily from my bedroom, honest! When I woke up today and saw the nest was gone (apparently blown away by the strong winds we have had the last couple of days) I was really sad. It was only after that I realized the clumps of grassy stuff I threw for the neighbor's dog to fetch the other day must have been the broken-up parts of your nest. I was just looking for something to throw to him because he loves to fetch things. I'm sorry! I hope that when these winds are over you will decide to put another nest in the same tree -- I would love to see you again.

Love,
ww

To my future husband

2011-01-09T23:17:00.001-07:00

I have seen a couple of blogs lately where each blog entry is a concise statement about what the person wished his/her future married relationship would be like. It got me thinking about what kinds of things I would like to tell my future husband. Here are some that come to mind:

Respect. Yes, I assume you will hold the door open for me if you reach it before I do. That is a sign of respect that you should show to anyone. If I happen to reach the door first, I will hold it for you. So opening the door as a cursory sign of respect is not going to cut it. If you really want to show respect for me, listen to my opinions and the reasons behind them, even if you disagree.

Trust. When people ask me what kind of man I want to marry, I say it is someone I can trust. That pretty much sums it all up for me -- I can trust that you will do the right things, even in hard situations (at least most of the time), I can trust you with my heart without too much fear that you will hurt it, and I can trust you with my intimate thoughts and secrets knowing that you won't judge me. I can trust that you will give me good advice when I need it, and that you will give me room to grow and become a better person continually.

Personal space. I need space to get my things done. You need space to get your things done. But just so you know, if we are in the same room it will be hard to avoid talking to you. I won't be offended if we work in separate rooms for a while.

Evenings. Though I obviously enjoy being near you and spending time with you, if you want to spend some time with your friends without me, I understand. I like my girlfriends too. But if you want to stay home and make out in front of the TV that is okay too. ;)

Mind games. I am not out to trick you, I promise, and I don't expect you to read my mind. Contrary to popular rumors, women are not completely unreasonable and impossible to communicate with. Try me.

Just hold me. Really. Sometimes all I want is the physical evidence that you care.

I don't want to be a diva or a princess. I don't expect you to give me expensive gifts all the time. I don't expect you to try to impress me with your superknowledge or your car or by keeping up with the Joneses. I don't expect you to flatter me all the time just to boost my ego. I just want you to be a good man who loves and respects me. Having the sincere love and admiration of a good man is much more of a self-esteem boost than baubles or words easily thrown in my direction.

I can handle it if you have a different opinion. We don't have to agree on politics, what kind of food we like, or our favorite sports. That's not what I chose you for.

You didn't catch me or trick me into marrying you. I am yours because I choose to give myself, not because you took me from anyone else. I retain the ability to take myself away if you don't treat me right.

I just might write more of these if the mood strikes.

Things I would like to tell my students.

2010-12-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has gone to school knows something about the interaction between students and teachers, but now that I have years of teaching university-level classes under my belt I think I have a very different perspective on the situation than I did when I was an undergraduate. Here are a few things I wish I could tell my students (but probably won't):

1. I know more than you think I know. I know that you are watching the latest soccer game or texting/IMing your friends on your iPhone/iPad/laptop in the back of class. I know that you fell asleep during class today. I know that the reason you are wearing your hat over your eyes is because you think I won't be able to tell that you came to class high. I know from looking at the test papers who cheated off of whom. I know when you didn't write your paper, even if I can't google the site you copied directly (which I usually can). Just because I don't constantly interrupt class to tell you to stop texting or passing notes with your friends doesn't mean I don't know you are doing it. I'm not stupid. In fact, not being stupid is kind of a requirement for this job.

2. Well-done work is easier and faster to grade than poorly done work. It takes me much longer and costs much more mental pain to grade a bad paper or test than a good paper or test. Why don't you make it better for both of us by just doing good work?

3. I don't take it personally. Every semester things happen in students' lives that affect their scholastic performance even though these things have nothing to do with school. I don't blame you for missing class because your boyfriend is having surgery, because you have to get a new job so you can make your car payment, or because your mom needs help. I don't take your absence from class as a personal comment on my teaching. I was a freshman once who didn't want to go to class either. But I hope you will also not take it personally when you get a bad grade because you didn't get the material we covered in class when you were gone. It really does affect the quality of your work.

4. Please be an adult. Please do not talk to me or e-mail me at the end of the semester asking for me to bump up your grade or asking for extra credit work. I am not disposed to assign you extra work which I will then have to grade because you didn't do your other work. I am sorry that you are disappointed with your grade but that alone is not a reason for me to change it. As a wise person once told me, "Failure is feedback." It is not the end of the world to fail a class and have to do it again (and I can say that because I've done it myself!). I am sympathetic that your parents will be disappointed and you will have to scrape together the money for another semester, but in the grand scheme of things it will be okay.

Glad I got that off my chest! :)

Lies We Tell Our Students: Countability of Nouns

2010-12-16T01:26:00.000-07:00

This is the first post in a series that I call "Lies We Tell Our Students". I am thinking specifically of misinformation that ESL/EFL teachers often give to their ESL/EFL students. Since I have taught ESL for multiple years and have come up against these issues again and again, I bring them up in the hope that other teachers (and therefore students) will benefit.

First let me qualify the title: I am pretty sure that most teacher who teach the myths about English that I am addressing in this series of posts do not believe that they are false. And those who do are probably teaching their students a simplified rule for the purpose of making it easier to understand. So the word "lies" is more for dramatic purposes than for accuracy.

Now, on to countability of nouns.

Pretty much all grammar books that I've ever seen claim that nouns in English come in two classes: count (countable) and noncount (uncountable). Count nouns can be either singular or plural, and in singular form take an indefinite article sometimes. Noncount nouns occur only in singular form and cannot take indefinite articles. Here are some examples (the asterisk indicates something is wrong in the sentence):

My living room has a lot of furniture (noncount).
*My living room has many furnitures (count).
*This burrito has a lot of bean (noncount).
This burrito has a lot of beans (count).

In other words, there seems to be a pattern to the way certain nouns are used, and it appears that some nouns can be used in some contexts and other nouns can be used in other contexts.

The way to decide between these types of nouns is usually explained in terms of countability: items that come in discrete, individual units are count nouns, while items that come in abstract masses are noncount.

Except it's not true.

Problem 1: It appears that any noun can be used as count or noncount.

I have never found a noun that I couldn't get to work as count or noncount, with the correct context. Let's take the example of furniture that I used above. It works well as a noncount in this context:

My living room has a lot of furniture. (Meaning: I have a desk, a chair, an armoire, a sofa, etc.)

And in the example above, using it as count doesn't seem right:

*My living room has many furnitures. (Same meaning).

But what if I provided a different context; could I get it to work as count then?

The Museum of French Design offers several examples of famous French furnitures, such as Postmodern Furniture and Furniture a la Carte. (Meaning: I am talking about styles of furniture rather than individual pieces of furniture.)

How about another example? This time, a noun that is usually considered count?

There are two dogs on my street. (count, meaning individual animals)

Can I use it as noncount? How about this?

I really liked this soup, until I found out it was made of dog. (noncount, meaning dog meat)

Another example: ice is usually considered to be noncount, but one time I heard a sentence like the following on a science program:

Pluto is composed of methane and water ices.

I have never found an example of a noun that I couldn't use as both count and noncount, in the right context.

Problem 2: The way to distinguish count from noncount is hazy at best.

Like I said above, typically ESL students are instructed to distinguish count nouns from noncount nouns by whether the thing comes in discrete units. Well this turns out to be not very helpful. Sure, bean, a typical count noun, comes in small units, but so does rice, a typical noncount noun. And when you consider ice as a count or noncount noun, should we think of it as the substance that comes in large sheets in Antarctica, or the thing that comes in little square cubes in my drink at the restaurant? And what about when something like the following happens:

Me: I would like some water, please. (noncount use).
My Friend: Could I also have some water? (noncount use)
Waiter: No problem. Two waters. (count use)

So even if we tell our students that the "rule" doesn't work and they just have to memorize which nouns are count and which are noncount, what about nouns like "water" that appear to be both?

My proposal: the count/noncount distinction does not exist. Any noun can be used as count/noncount. We should find something more helpful to teach our students.

I did not come up with this idea all by myself. I had the privilege of hearing a talk some years ago by Kathrin Koslicki, whose dissertation deals with this topic. Koslicki's proposal, as I understand it, is that there are three ways to use nouns: count, noncount, and plural. Each of these three types of noun use has a different meaning.

Unfortunately, my training in semantics isn't deep enough to allow me to fully understand Koslicki's dissertation and/or the subsequent article she published on the topic, but I have found the concept very helpful in my teaching.

In the grammar class I taught this semester, my students and I listed various nouns in count and noncount forms and defined them (pictures were very helpful in this discussion). The list looked something like this:
Count                        Noncount

An egg                       Egg
(picture of an egg)      (picture of egg salad)

A water                     Water
(a glass of water)        (waterfall)

Histories                    History
(books)

and so on. By listing many examples and showing the differences in their meanings, the students were able to induce the semantic differences between count and noncount uses of various words. I think in the future these could even be listed as a set of discrete semantic principles. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Koslicki has already detailed these semantic differences in her dissertation. With some modification we teachers should be able to convert them to some principles that students can use to decide how to use a certain noun in a certain semantic context.

Notice that, when I taught my students about this concept this semester, I did not distinguish between singular and plural uses of count nouns like Koslicki does. I have not tested whether it is feasible to try to convince students that singular and plural are two completely different uses of the same noun (even though I like Koslicki's argument that they are). But I think that teaching students that any noun can be used in different use contexts empowers them. They can use this knowledge to analyze the language they actually see and hear, and it certainly must be able to help them more than the current "rules" they are usually taught.

I am interested to read your comments and additions to what I have presented here.

Plagiarism

2010-12-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

For people like me who teach at the college level, plagiarism is a common topic of discourse. In the case of most of my students, they commit plagiarism because they have not yet learned difficult language skills such as paraphrase and summary. For that reason, most of the time I see plagiarism as a teaching opportunity. But there are of course, a few people who know what plagiarism is and do it anyway.

Today I happened to be searching the Internet while preparing an activity for my ESL students and ran across a book, called English for College Learners. This book appears to have been copied practically verbatim from another book called Refining Composition Skills. Only a few of the exercises (which depend on a video) appear to be missing. I am very familiar with Refining Composition Skills because I have used it multiple times as a text in ESL classes I have taught. You can use the links in this sentence to compare the table of contents from English for College Learners to the table of contents of Refining Composition Skills. As you can see, it appears that only the video activities have been removed.

The ultimate irony: Refining Composition Skills includes an activity teaching students about a legal case dealing with plagiarism and the consequences with intent to educate students not to plagiarize. This, of course, was one of the activities that has been removed in English for College Learners.

Online dating -- why I started and why I'm now moving on.

2010-08-15T23:37:00.004-06:00

About a year ago, I started putting some serious time (and money) into online dating. I figured that for a person like me, who is looking to marry someone of a particular faith and has a profession where I don't meet a lot of new people all the time, this would be a good way for me to find like-minded people. (I recently made the joke that, unless I start dating my students, I have to meet people online.) I have profiles on several dating sites, some of which are small, local, and geared specifically to a latter-day saint audience and some of which are larger and more general.

After about a year in the online dating world, I have made some observations about the pros and cons of online dating and how it's different from meeting people in other ways. Here are some of the things I have learned.

1. Online dating sites represent only certain types of people.
That is, the kind of people who sign up for online dating sites are the kind of people who would sign up for online dating sites. Though there may be many people on the site, the segment of society that one finds on an online dating site is not really a sampling of all society but rather people who thought that online dating would be a good thing for them because they feel comfortable with technology (and because, perhaps, they feel uncomfortable with other ways of meeting people). And that implies that there are other people out there who I am not meeting because they generally meet people in other ways.

2. The site itself makes a big difference.
Certain features that exist or don't exist on the dating site have a lot to do with the kind of success I feel I am having at finding the people I want. In my case, faith is very important to me and I want to find a boyfriend and future husband who belongs to the same religious organization. Some sites, such as match.com, allow me to specify which characteristics about the person I'm seeking and how important those characteristics are to me. Other sites only search based on basic information such as age and place. I know there are a lot of guys in their early 30s that live in my area, but a lot of them are not the people that I specifically are looking for. So the more specific the search on the site, the more I feel like I can find people I would actually want to get along with. And who cares if eHarmony thinks I'm a perfect match for someone who lives in Alabama? I want to meet someone that I could actually date, which in my mind means that we need to be in reasonable proximity to each other. Nevertheless, I would say that my online dating efforts have been somewhat successful in the sense that I have done a lot more dating in the past year than I would have otherwise.

3. Meeting people online is just like meeting people in other settings...
Some people are flaky, some people are kind, some people say inappropriate things, some people seem to be conceited, some people seem to be normal, some people are superficial, and so forth. Just like in real life I have been rejected and have done the rejecting on a number of occasions. It's not really any easier on the ego than meeting people in other ways.

4. ...except it isn't.
The one major aspect of meeting people online that differs quite a bit from meeting in person is the fact that you get to know quite a bit of information (age, profession, whether the person is divorced, whether the person has children, etc.) before you ever talk to or meet the person. I have learned from experience that no matter what the person seems like on his profile, and even by e-mail or phone, I really have to meet the person to discover if there is potential for a romantic connection. This leads to a lot of "first dates" where we are just meeting up to see if there is any possibility. This kind of first date is different from what I would consider a traditional first date where you have already seen and talked to the person and therefore know that you have at least some interest in each other. I now consider the first date with someone that I met online to be "Date 0", that is, the date before the first date. I doesn't usually take long on a Date 0 to figure out how I feel about taking the next step. So in a way it seems like, when dating online, things happen in kind of a backwards order.

In sum, I have met some good guys, some weirdos, some perverts, and some platonic friends online. And I feel that I have more or less explored the possibilities that online dating offers. Though new people join the sites all the time, the population of people fitting the characteristics I am looking for gets new additions only occasionally, meaning that many of the profiles I see are profiles I have seen before. While I don't feel a need to remove my profiles from the various sites, I will definitely be spending less time and money on online dating. I plan to focus more on meeting people through activities for LDS singles of my age in my area.

Linguistic policy gone bad

2010-06-02T22:50:00.007-06:00

The Arizona Department of Education, motivated by No Child Left Behind policy, has recently instituted a policy to remove teachers with "heavily accented or ungrammatical" English from teaching English in Arizona schools.

Here is a Wall Street Journal article that reports on the policy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html

A significant number of professors from the U. of Arizona prepared the following statement, which explains problems with this policy:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~hammond/ling_statement_final.pdf

In addition, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), an international professional organization for English teachers, released this reaction:
http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/bin.asp?CID=1&DID=13248&DOC=FILE.PDF

A couple of reactions of my own:
1. "Accent" and "fluency" are not the same thing.
In this case, I assume that the words "fluent" and "fluency" are being used as a general measurement of overall proficiency in the language. It is quite a common, but incorrect, belief that the "heaviness" of someone's accent reflects how proficient they are with a language. Many people who learned English after another language speak English with an accent, but that does not mean that their English is ungrammatical or bad. In my work, for example, I interact with a number of professors and graduate students who speak with accents because they are non-native speakers of English, but whose English proficiency is good enough to write papers for research journals, teach university classes, and otherwise contribute to the academic community. The fact that "heavily accented" is being used as a criterion to decide that teachers aren't fit to teach English suggests that the creators of the policy based the policy on their own opinions about language rather than linguistic fact and research. Current research shows that foreign-accented English is no less intelligible to non-native speakers than native-accented English. (In fact, two colleagues and I are currently engaged in a research project about this very phenomenon.) Just because a native speaker thinks they can't understand a teacher doesn't mean the students will not.

2. It is not bad to learn a language from a non-native speaker.
Non-native speakers who teach language often have some distinct advantages over their native-speaker peers. Since native speakers of a language can use the language without having explicit conscious knowledge of grammar, often non-native speakers have a superior knowledge of the patterns of how the language works. Because they have had the experience of learning the language after their native language, they are familiar with the pitfalls their students might have and are therefore able to help students avoid them. In addition, if the teacher shares another language with the student, that language can be used to explain things that the student might not be getting when they are explained in English. Research shows that language learners do not learn mistakes from each other. In other words, just because students are exposed to grammatical mistakes that the teacher makes does not mean that the students will acquire those same grammatical mistakes.

3. Good teaching is more than just knowledge of the subject to be taught.
I think many people have had experiences where they had a teacher who was very knowledgeable on the subject, but just couldn't do a good job of teaching it to others. In the case of English teaching, just because a person is able to speak English does not make that person qualified to teach it to others. This is why at my university, for example, we have a TESOL certificate program that takes a minimum of a year of coursework for people to become educated in how to teach English to non-native speakers. A teacher with lower English proficiency, but good teaching skills, may be more effective at helping students than a poor teacher with high proficiency.

4. Reassignment of teachers is problematic.
First of all, teachers cannot be simply reassigned to other classes because sometimes they don't have the necessarily skills and certifications in the new subject they are supposed to teach. You can't take a history teacher, for example, and assign them to teach math. Second, if jobs already exist that these teachers don't have, won't the jobs already be filled by other teachers? Third, and most importantly, it is hard to imagine that anywhere in Arizona, a teacher could be assigned to a class that didn't include some English language learners. Just because a student has been "mainstreamed" does not mean that they can't benefit from additional language-learning help. In fact, because of this, where I live, all new teachers entering the field are required to have an ESL endorsement. So reassigning teachers to other classes would not remove them from interacting with ESL students, and therefore the policy would not have the intended effect of protecting (as it were) ESL learners from non-native English.

To be fair to the Arizona Department of Education, apparently they are not solely to blame for this poorly-conceived idea. According to the Wall Street Journal article referenced above, in order to receive No Child Left Behind funds the state should ensure that English students are being taught by "fluent" speakers. However, Arizona has chosen to define fluency by including accentedness as one of the criteria. The Arizona Department of Education should inform itself of current linguistic research before making policies of this type.

Well-behaved women

2010-05-29T10:47:00.000-06:00

I've seen it many times, usually in bumper-sticker form: "Well-behaved women rarely make history." The message, of course, is that women should break out of their expectations for behavior if they really want to make a difference in the world.

But it seems to me that I can list a lot of good women who behaved according to appropriate principles who also made a big difference in the world. Eve, Miriam, Deborah, Mary, Elizabeth and Anna are women in the Bible who come to mind. We could also mention people like Betsy Ross, Florence Nightingale, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, and Jackie O., who are certainly famous and not for doing anything "wrong". Personally I choose to defy the message that a woman can't be important if she is good.

Hugs.

2010-05-29T00:25:00.002-06:00

My best friends know that I love hugs. And, when I think about it, I enjoy being held but I think I enjoy holding someone else even more. Of course it's practically impossible to tell because they are both happening at the same time. Sweet.

Why I'm a Cougar

2010-05-10T18:56:00.007-06:00

Okay, I don't really see myself as a COUGAR, exactly, but I thought it would make a dramatic title. This post is about why I prefer to date younger men.

In order to explain all this, I have to explain that I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I live in Utah. This is a big part of the issue because here in Utah about 50% of people are latter-day saints, meaning that LDS beliefs have an overall pretty big impact on the culture and how people live around here.

And in case you're not familiar with LDS beliefs we believe strongly in the importance of the family. We believe that marriage and family is where we can find our greatest happiness in life, and that families who are joined in a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will continue to enjoy each other's love and company beyond death. These are fundamental beliefs in the Church, and these beliefs cause latter-day saints to seek marriage earnestly and take it seriously. Which means that, in the area where I live, people get married younger, often when the guy is in his mid-twenties and when the girl is in her early twenties. According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the median age of first marriage in the United States is 28.1 for men and 25.9 for women, where the median age of marriage in Utah is 24.6 for men and 22.1 for women, according to these figures published by Utah Department of Workforce Services. (Although the former group of figures comes from 2009 and the latter group of figures apparently comes from 2005, even comparing 2005 numbers to each other the median ages are lower in Utah than the rest of the United States.) The same report from Workforce Services also mentions that a greater percentage of people in Utah are married than people in any other state (60% people 15 years or older).

In other words, marriage is a big deal where I live and in the communities I am a part of. That coupled with the fact that the population of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is about 2/3 women and 1/3 men means that the men have their pick, as it were. On the Utah LDS singles scene it seems that there are more women than men out there. If you're a latter-day saint male from Utah and you're not married by age 30, there is quite likely a good reason. For example, the last guy I went out with that was near to my own age (and he didn't even grow up in Utah) apparently had some kind of psychological problem that made him think it wasn't okay to shower before he went on the date and he smelled. I could hardly stand to sit next to him in the movie we saw. Another famous stereotype of the Utah bachelor is the guy that is so picky that, while he has met lots of wonderful women, he will not date or marry any of them.

So what's a 32-year-old LDS Utah gal supposed to do? The obvious choice is to date younger men.

There is another group of men that I see as generally potentially dateable. That is men who are around my age (30sish) who are divorced. Divorce is common everywhere these days, so if I didn't want to date divorced men it would cut out quite a large sector of the dating pool, as it were. Plus, I figure that these were men who were willing to get married at least once. All of the divorced guys that I have dated so far treated me very well and seemed to be good men.

Why not date older men, say guys who are in their 40s or 50s? Personal preference. I tend to get along better with younger people; for example, most of my friends are younger than I am. Also, when I envision my future marriage partner, I envision a partner, not someone who is going to die 20 years before I do.

Of course the opinions expressed in this post are a generalization; individuals do not always reflect the characteristics of the age groups they belong to.

Fairies for grown-ups

2010-04-25T00:49:00.001-06:00

It seems like us adults are kind of missing out in the fairy department. I mean, once the Easter Bunny has lost his luster and you aren't raking in any more cash because the Tooth Fairy has already collected your baby teeth, it's just not as fun anymore. So I would like to propose some fairies who work more with adults. Why should kids get all the benefits?

The Lost Keys Fairy -- When you lose your keys, this fairy magically places them on your nightstand so you have them when you wake up the next morning. She often hangs out with the Lost Wallet Fairy and the Lost Pen Fairy.

The Acne Fairy -- Be nice to this fairy with a fickle personality! If she likes you your skin will look gorgeous, but if she's having a bad day, you just might get a "third eye" before that big date or important business presentation.

The Chewing Gum Fairy -- You know how, sometimes, you just know that you have bad breath? The Chewing Gum Fairy is the one who puts that magical piece of gum in your pocket or at the bottom of your purse, just when you need it.

The Computer Fairy -- This fairy's time to shine is when you are having a computer problem and can't figure it out. The signal to bring the computer fairy out of hibernation is rebooting the computer. That's why computer problems always magically go away when you reboot; the computer fairy has gone into action.
This fairy is also an expert at editing e-mail and making sure that the messages get to the right places. This fairy can make sure that you don't accidentally cc that "You won't believe what I did last night" e-mail to your mother or your "Work sucks" e-mail to your boss.

The Cell Phone Fairy -- Perhaps the cell phone fairy is the most important fairy of them all. This fairy saves you from all kinds of phone-related disasters. She makes sure that your phone is on silent at crucial moments so your "I'm Bringing Sexy Back" ringtone doesn't go off in, say, the middle of church. The cell phone fairy also conveniently turns off your phone when you are about to receive a call from someone you don't want to talk to, so it goes straight to voicemail and you can go on with your day. No longer will your nosy sister feel offended when she counts the number of times it rings and realizes that you pressed the "Ignore" button for her call; the cell phone fairy takes care of it and makes sure that your sister hears a lot of rings before going to voicemail so she doesn't feel neglected. And, if worse comes to worse, the cell phone fairy can magically restore contacts to a new phone if the old one gets, say, dropped into a body of water or run over by a car.

No offense, Tooth Fairy, but once my baby teeth were gone, I was done with you. These fairies can help out in so many ways!

I'm just saying...

2010-04-13T13:04:00.001-06:00

Most of the time I am cool with the way that my life has turned out, and, as much as I would like to be married, I can usually be patient until a good person and situation come along. It is only occasionally that I have my moments where I lament my loneliness and wish to be married now. In those situations, sometimes my friends try to comfort me by saying something like, "Don't worry! I didn't get married until I was..." Just to let you know, if you want your statement to be effective, you should probably say a number after that that is greater than my current age. I'm just saying. :)

Communication

2010-02-22T19:19:00.001-07:00

An excerpt from a friend's Facebook comment: "... and doesn't it suck that we just write eachother[sic]... I freaking miss phone calls and some old fashioned Café experiences."

As another example, I've seen things like the following on dating sites: "Don't flirt/wink/smile at me. If you don't write me an e-mail/message, I won't respond to you."

Another online dating profile says something like this: "If you are interested, send me a wink/flirt/smile. If I reciprocate, it means that I am interested. Then we can message each other."

Imagine after a first date: "I am so going to dump this guy. He didn't even bother to call me after our date; he just sent me a text to thank me for going out with him."

Or perhaps a husband complains about his wife: "My wife leaves little notes all over the house about things she wants me to do. I wish she would just talk to me instead of putting these notes between us."

It seems that people have strong opinions about the ways we should communicate and which methods of communication are better than others. But I submit that it is not methods of communication which are good or bad, just that people have preferences for modalities of communication that affect the way they communicate with others.

After all, every type of communication has different characteristics. On the phone we can catch people's voice inflections, while face-to-face communication allows us to read the person's lips and body language as well. Some people like to craft well-thought-out letters, while e-mail or instant messaging allows us to communicate more frequently than snail mail. In fact instant messaging is somewhere between synchronous phone and asynchronous e-mail communication. Each "utterance" is crafted as a unit and sent after composition, though both people can be creating their messages at the same time. My guess is that people choose a preferred mode of communication based on its desirable characteristics, but don't often realize that others have preferred modes of communication as well.

I think of it as similar to the five love languages as taught in Chapman's book. Chapman's thesis is that each person has a preferred way of expressing and receiving love, and if others give or expect love in other ways the person may not interpret that as loving. But if we learn to understand each other's love languages, we can both give and receive love in ways that are more meaningful to people we care about. In a similar way, just because others do not have the same preferred method of communication does not make them bad communicators or mean that they are being disrespectful.

This is complicated by the fact that not all methods of communication are reasonably available in all situations. If I am sitting in a meeting and suddenly remember something I want to tell a member of my family, of course I will discreetly send a text message instead of calling attention to myself by excusing myself from the meeting and making a call. I can't hop on an airplane if I want to have a face-to-face communication with a friend on another continent; sometimes a phone call or even an e-mail will have to do, depending on the time difference. But this doesn't mean that I don't care.

How about we cut each other a break?

True love

2010-02-07T21:02:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking lately about the person I would like to be when I am in my future married relationship. Here is one of the effects that I hope true love will have on me.

Real love, to me, only expands. When people have love in their lives, they don't just save their compassion and affection for their partner, but become more loving toward everyone. I hope that the love I experience in my future marriage will give me an anchor from which I can share my increased love. I know that in my life when I have been blessed with wonderful loving friends, their love provides a sort of security that allows me to take risks in other areas of my life that I wouldn't have done before. I want my attitude to be something like, "It doesn't matter if I fail at this attempt, because he still loves me." I think this will give me confidence and freedom to share with and serve others.

Some couples, on the other hand, seem very into themselves. Their focus turns inward to the point where they become what my friend calls "boyfriend-boring": they are boring to their friends because they are so focused in on themselves. While obviously every relationship needs nurturing and people who love each other share intimate expressions, I don't want to have the kind of relationship that is so ingrown that I hardly notice people around me.

I hope to use this as a key by which I can recognize if a relationship I am in is a worthwhile relationship or not. I hope that you, my readers and friends, will let me know if this is an appropriate way to judge relationships and that, assuming you agree, you will hold me to it.

Swedes

2010-02-03T20:09:00.002-07:00

So I was watching old episodes of Hope and Faith on hulu.com, and the episode came up where Hope's brother-in-law is getting married to a Swedish girl named Astrid, who has blond hair plaited back into pigtails. Which of course got me thinking about Swedish stereotypes in the media.

Click here to see the episode on Hulu.
(Sorry, Hulu doesn't work outside the United States!)

I feel I probably know more Swedish people than a lot of Americans, including my best friend, who hails from Sweden. I suppose in a way the stereotypes are somewhat accurate: there are many Swedish people who are tall, good-looking, and buxom. But of course not all Swedes are tall and blond and so forth.

Another popular stereotype is about the way Swedish people talk. The below video shows the singular language of the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show:

While I have met Swedish people who speak English with sing-song accents, most Swedes that I know are EXCELLENT speakers of English. Even my friend's teenage little sister speaks English better than many of my college-age ESL students.

And while pondering these stereotypes about Swedes tonight, it occurred to me for the first time: why are Swedes so popular? I mean, there are tall, good-looking, crooning people in all of Scandanavia, but it seems that Danes and Norwegians don't show up in the American media (even in stereotypical form) nearly as often. Why not? Why is he the Swedish Chef instead of the Finnish Chef, for example?

I have a cool life!

2009-12-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity yesterday to go to a shop where a 77-year-old man and his son repair musical instruments such as player pianos, organs, and jukeboxes.

This is what the inside of a player piano looks like.

Cool, huh?

And here's an old jukebox that plays 33s:

It hasn't been used since the 80's. How did I know when it was last used?

Just a hunch.

Their shop was packed with cool stuff, and they taught us how to use a player piano, too!

Yes, it is what you think it is.

2009-12-03T22:38:00.001-07:00

Twilight New Moon: The Movie Board Game.

Ain't it the truth?

2009-12-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

"...Bree said, 'And now, Tarkheena, tell us your story. And don't hurry it -- I'm feeling comfortable now.'
"Aravis immediately began, sitting quite still and using a rather different tone and style from her usual one. For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays."
From The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

Cat on a leash.

2009-11-23T22:48:00.002-07:00

I'm coming back from my long pause in blogging by sharing my feelings on a subject I've been thinking about lately. It's not that I have chosen not to blog; it's just that I didn't really have anything to say until now.

Have you ever tried to teach a cat to walk on a leash? I have heard that it is possible with at least one breed of cat, but I can remember well attempting to teach my cat to lead. As soon as I clipped the leash onto her collar, she stretched against it and tried to get her head out and wouldn't even change her mind for the treats that I offered. I gave up pretty quickly and she never did learn to lead.

Sometimes we people can be like that too. When presented with a rule or restriction, sometimes we are so busy fighting against it just because we want the freedom, that we are much less productive than we could be if we just followed the rule. We are so interested in having independence that we jeopardize the trust that others would otherwise have in us.

The ultimate example of this, in my mind, is learning to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15) It sometimes seems counterintuitive that submission to God's will and obedience to his commandments makes us free. But that is exactly what happens. When we make any choice the natural consequences of that choice go into motion. With some choices the natural consequences lead to captivity and death; with other choices the natural consequences lead to liberty and eternal life. (2 Nephi 2:27)

It seems like a big waste of energy to strain against my leash and complain about how I am cheated and restricted when I could be enjoying a walk outside.

Some amusing things that have happened in the past two days

2009-09-30T21:51:00.003-06:00

1. I went to a town about an hour south of my house yesterday to visit a friend who is staying there. Not being particularly familiar with the town, but knowing the Utah grid address system and sporting a handy Google Maps printout, I didn't worry about being able to locate the place. So off I went toward the address I had on my paper, which looked like this: 1337 West 140 North. (Address has been changed to protect people's privacy.)

When I arrived at the cute little house at the address, I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. A nice young mom a babe in arms and three or so other kids curiously gathered around her answered the door.

"Hi, I'm ," I said. She looked at me blankly. "S's friend," I said. When she didn't seem to know what I was talking about I realized I must have the wrong house. So I got back in the car and called my friend, asking for the address again. Turns out that the address was really 1337 West 140 SOUTH. What a coincidence that there just happened to be two 1337s!

2. Last night I was visiting with my mom and my "sis" in the latter's bedroom. We noticed a quiet but audible high-pitched sound and were trying to figure out where it was coming from. We searched the closet, moved our heads around to sense the direction of the sound, unplugged things, turned things on and off, and even branched out into the hallway and other rooms to try to figure out the source of the sound. After 10 minutes or so of a confusing search my mom finally realized where the sound was coming from: the electronic mosquito repeller in her pocket. She had it at work and had put it in her pocket to bring home. Every time my mom moved, the sound moved, which explains why it was so hard to locate.

3. I pulled into a local quick-lube place to get my emissions test and inspection. Hey, it's the last day of the month; no time like the present! Since there were a couple of people in line in front of me, I parked over to the side where directed and went into the waiting room. After I perused a magazine for a while, one of the workers came in and asked for the person who brought in the Corolla. "Can I borrow your keys?" he asked.

"I thought I left it in the car," I said.

"The car is locked," he said.

I realized what had happened almost immediately: upon getting out of the car I left the key in the ignition so the workers could move it, but habitually pressed the power-lock button so the key was locked inside the car.

Luckily I was able to reach my mom at work and she could bring me a key. While I waited for her to come in the waiting room, another customer told me a funny story about her 16-year-old daughter, who called her once from outside her boyfriend's house. "Mom, I just broke up with Billy, and I locked my keys in the car." Talk about ruining your exit.

An open letter to boys I chat with online.

2009-08-27T01:05:00.001-06:00

Dear boys on online dating sites,

I have been using online dating sites because I don't have many avenues to meet more people. I actually enjoy the experience because the online scene is one in which I feel comfortable interacting anyway. I also appreciate the fact that it allows me to get to know a lot of people. Here are a few things that hopefully will help our online experience go more smoothly:

1. I appreciate your compliments. Thanks for letting me know that you think I'm good-looking. I haven't gotten a lot of that in my life.

2. I don't need more pen pals. Of course we are going to exchange messages to see if we think that we might be interested in each other. But I have plenty of friends to chat with on the Internet. If our conversations are not progressing toward us getting together, I'm probably not going to engage in a lot of flirty banter with you just for the heck of it. So if you want to go out, ask me out.

3. If you're interested in me, be interested. Don't just message me every other week when things aren't working out with whatever girl you've been working on lately. Corollary: I'd rather not hear about what the last girl was complaining about. I try to keep a positive attitude and I like having positive conversations.

4. There is no need for a "No thanks" message. Just don't write me back. The fact that you took the effort to send out a "no thanks" makes it feel like a rejection, whereas a non-reply is simply part of Internet life.

5. If you want to impress me, don't try to ask me "spicy" questions or refer a lot to making out and so forth when we get together. If you're interested in having a girl just to make out or talk dirty with, I don't think I'm what you're looking for. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy expressing myself physically, and I believe that the man I end up with will be very satisfied. But I'm not here to be used and I deserve better than that.

6. If your age has a 4 or 5 in the tens place, I'm not the girl you're looking for. I'm only 32, after all. In fact, I feel more comfortable with people who are younger than I am most of the time.

I am looking to enrich my life through making more social connections that ultimately lead to personal meetings (i.e. dates). If that's not what you're into right now we'd probably both be a lot happier talking with other people. On the other hand, if you think we might click, give it a chance! It's only one date, after all, not the end of the world.

Sincerely yours,
ww

Tornado anniversary

2009-08-11T21:36:00.000-06:00

I just saw a news story in remembrance of the 10th anniversary of the big tornado in Salt Lake City. Yes, it was August 10, 1999 when the F-2 tornado went through downtown Salt Lake City, killing one, injuring others, uprooting trees, etc. The news anchor said something like, "I think if you were living here at that time you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when the tornado happened."

Watch one of the news stories here

I definitely remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard about the tornado. I was going door-to-door on the streets of Winnipeg as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As we walked the other direction on a street we had been visiting, a woman I had talked with before came out of her house. "You're from Salt Lake City!" she said. "There was a tornado! You better call your family and make sure they're okay!"

Of course being from Salt Lake City, my first instinct was to say something like, "Excuse me, I thought you said tornado." Because, of course, tornadoes are not high on the Utah natural disaster list. Scientists have been predicting The Big Earthquake ever since I was a child, but we don't usually worry about tornadoes doing much damage in our mountain valley home.

But sure enough, the next day someone showed me a map in the newspaper that diagrammed the path of the tornado through downtown Salt Lake City. After that I didn't give it much more thought; I knew that my family was far from the path.

And so today, they remember the tornado in a news story. Must be a slow news day.

Thanks for your votes!

2009-07-30T14:16:00.001-06:00

This blog was nominated for the Top 100 Language Blogs 2009 contest in the category of Language Professionals. Voting for the contest ended a couple of days ago. Click here to see the results. While I didn't make it into the top 20 professionals or the big top 100, I appreciate everyone who voted for me, and I think it's great that bab.la/lexiophiles.com is compiling groups of blogs that have interest in language, language teaching, language learning, and so on, and I'm honored to have been nominated! I appreciate my readers (even those of you who skip over the linguistics stuff -- you know who you are *grin*).

Do you think I'm going to fall for this?

2009-07-27T10:33:00.000-06:00

Below see the text of an e-mail I got recently. I'd never seen one quite like THIS before...

REFERENCE: SNS/NL/0671341/09

BE ADVISED ACCORDINGLY

Be informed that my previous mail to you was not responded to. I found it necessary to write you once on the subject matter because of the importantance.

It may interest you to know a comprehensive search revealed your last name to be same with a customer of the SNS Bank (now deceased) whom my bank’s efforts to locate his relatives/family members have been unsuccessful. The benefit from this dormant account worth millions in dollars is awaiting payment to a potential heir/beneficiary.

Putting into consideration this, my job as head of compensation and benefits and the legal requirement of claims like this, your last name can pass for a heir to this huge amount. You need not worry about the legal requirement as you shall be closely guided and directed on this.

Kindly respond with your name as stated in your driver's license or international passport and your direct telephone number to signify interest.

Be advised to keep this very important notice to yourself until advised otherwise

Yours Faithfully,
Chris Veenstra

Seriously, are you kidding me? I especially like the part about how I am supposed to "keep it to myself until advised otherwise"...

A conversation analysis of IM

2009-07-27T10:31:00.000-06:00

Just another example of how once you turn the linguistic machinery in your mind on, you can't turn it off...

Some of the important seminal articles in the field of conversation analysis study the structure of telephone conversations. Among the findings of this research are that the beginning of telephone conversations has a slightly different structure from face-to-face conversation. Face-to-face conversation always involves a period of negotiation at the beginning of the conversation where the participants signal their mutual agreement to start the conversation, such as the following:
A: Hello, how are you?
B: Fine. How are you?
A: Good, thanks. How was your weekend?
B: Oh pretty relaxed.
A: Good. So, what's the latest news on the Berman report?
B: Well Berman called yesterday and...

and the conversation on the chosen topic continues on from there. In this conversation, both A and B signal their mutual consent to have a conversation by following the standard moves listed in the first four turns ("Hi, how are you" etc.) In this example, A requests B to have a conversation by initiating this sequence of turns and don't agree to participate in a conversation, the conversation might go like this instead:

A: Hello, how are you?
B: Good. How are you?
A: Good. How was your weekend?
B: Pretty good. Gotta run! See you later!

And in this case the conversation is ended, since B did not indicate agreement with A's request to have a conversation.

Telephone conversations are very similar in their structure, except they are usually missing the first part.
B: Hello?
A: Hiya. How was your weekend?
B: Pretty good. So, what's the latest news on the Berman report?
...

If you compare the turns in this conversation to the turns in the previous conversation you will notice that the turns are very similar, except appear to be offset. That is, the order of turns seems to be the same except for the first turn is missing. Conversation analysts have identified that the ring of the telephone seems to neatly replace the initial (missing) turn of the conversation:

A: (ring)
B: Hello?
A: Hiya. How was your weekend?
B: Pretty good. So, what's the latest news on the Berman report?
...

The initial turn of the conversation, then, whether it is a stated "hello" in a face-to-face conversation or the ring of the telephone, serves as a summons to the conversation, an initial request for the conversation to happen. The other participant responds with a series of turns that indicates his/her uptake of the summons and agreement to participate in the conversation. With the conversation fully initiated, the first participant is then available to propose a topic and the conversation will continue.

So far, this has all been summary of some work that has been done by some important researchers in the field of conversation analysis, such as Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson.

With this background in mind, I noticed that when I began a conversation by IM recently, I did not use any conversation initiator. I simply began the conversation with, "I miss you". No "hello" or other standard conversation initiator.

My guess? Since both people have already indicated that they are "online" by means of chat indicators, there is no need for the first part of the chat by which both participants mutually agree that they are willing to have a conversation, since the online indicator takes care of that.

However, I have also noticed that not all IM conversations begin that way. Sometimes they begin with something like "hey" which certainly seems like an initiator. Perhaps in these situations, even though the people are both online, the person still feels a need to verify that a conversation is wanted?

Feel free to respond with your thoughts...

Vote for Me!

2009-07-14T21:28:00.005-06:00

My blog has been nominated for a contest! I received a comment recently that I was nominated for bab.la/lexiophiles.com's Top 100 Language Blogs 2009 under the category "Language Professionals".

To vote for me, click the button at the top of this post and choose the blog "Colorless Green Ideas". To see the list of blogs nominated in my category click here. To see more information about the contest, click here.

I'm not sure what the prize for this contest is, but I assume it's pretty much just bragging rights and maybe I will get to put a cool badge on my blog! Tell your friends!

Why variation across cultures in SLA?

2009-07-13T21:42:00.000-06:00

As a student of SLA theory, I think I can summarize a lot of theory and research by making this statement: we don't know what explains the differences in the ways people learn language, although we have a lot of ideas. I have particularly been thinking about a few of those factors in light of my recent experiences.

This summer I had the opportunity again to visit beautiful Europe, which always helps me to reflect on my experiences both as a language learner. This year I went straight from the Czech Republic, where proficient English speakers are relatively difficult to find, to Sweden, where speaking advanced English is the norm.

Surely I am not the first person who has wondered: why is it that in two European countries relatively close to each other there is such a noticeable difference in the proficiency of the general population in English?

(At this point I would like to insert the comment that I do not wish to imply by asking this question that people should learn English. People are free to learn or not learn whatever languages they choose. Nor am I trying to imply that I think Sweden is better than the Czech Republic somehow -- I have dear friends in both cultures. In this post I am simply using the two cultures as an example of obvious variation in language learning success on an overall sociocultural level.)

Let's discuss some possibilities:
1. History.
During the communist time, Czechs usually only studied Russian or German at school. If I recall correctly, the Velvet Revolution that led to the overthrow of communism and, ultimately, return of widespread English teaching to Czechs. This explains why basically an entire generation of Czech people doesn't speak English, and why the most proficient users of English are likely to be elderly people (who learned it before the communist time) or younger people (who learned it after).

But this can't be the only explanation, because even just looking at the younger people there is a noticeable difference in the language learning success overall between Swedes and Czechs. While they start learning the language at more or less the same grade in school, many young people in Sweden are highly proficient in English while their Czech counterparts are struggling with beginning-level vocabulary and grammar.

2. Methodology.
It is true that language teaching methods are different in different areas of the world, but I'm not sure that this is the explanation either. When I first started participating in teacher education workshops in the Czech Republic a few years ago, we inappropriately expected that we would be preaching the merits of communicative language teaching and found ourselves quite humbled when we discovered that our Czech colleagues had heard it all before. In the Czech schools I have worked in, the teachers have had access to the most updated curricula and texts for English language teaching and have learned current methods at their training colleges.

3. Language/cultural background.
You might think that, perhaps because Swedish is more closely related to English than Czech is, people who already have a background in Swedish would find it easier to learn English. Research in SLA doesn't seem to support this line of thinking, however. Studies have shown that, regardless of language background, learners tend to progress through the same stages when learning a new language. In addition, Swedish and Czech are both Indo-European languages, and therefore neither of them is particularly far from English.

In a more subtle way, however, cultural factors may be at work. In my experience, Swedes self-identify with Western Europeans and Americans closer than other cultural groups. It stands to reason then that identifying so closely with native speakers of English in Britain and America may be a cultural reason that Swedish people seem to be more successful at learning English overall. But can a slight cultural difference (the one between Eastern and Western Europe) be the explanation for such variation in language learning?

4. Exposure.
It does seem more likely that exposure to English is one factor in the differential English-learning success between Swedish and Czech learners. While both groups have access to plenty of English-speaking television programs, movies, music, etc. in the original language, English seems to have a noticeable presence in Swedish popular culture that Czech does not. English is more likely to appear on Swedish billboards, t-shirts, and so forth. In the Czech Republic it is prestigious to have English words on your clothing, but the meaning of these words is apparently not important. Or at least it seems that way because of the amount of "engrish" that can be observed on clothing in the Czech Republic. In addition, because the population in general is less proficient in English in CZ, I could argue that people get less exposure to other people speaking English as part of everyday life. For example, a Swedish friend of mine told me that her parents used to speak English to each other when they didn't want the children to understand what they were saying. While she did not understand English at that time, she quite possibly picked up some phonotactic information or even rudimentary vocabulary and grammar of English because of that exposure. Since highly proficient English speakers are still at a premium in the Czech Republic, the overall chance for a person to hear English spoken in or out of the classroom seems less.

5. Attitude/Motivation/Learner Beliefs.
Many Czechs that I have talked to have expressed to me the difficulty they experience in learning English. It does not surprise me; I understand well that English has many irregularities and grammatical surprises. In Sweden, however, an English learner is constantly surrounded with other people who use English proficiently, perhaps causing Swedish learners to be more confident in their abilities to learn English in comparison to their Czech counterparts. Perhaps the fact that everyone else is doing it is the reason that Swedes can do it so well.

6. Strength of need for English as a lingua franca.
Both Czech and Swedish are relatively nonprestigious linguistically, so it stands to reason that the people would need a lingua franca. German has been an accessible and historical lingua franca for Czechs, while Swedes don't have the same historical background with German speakers. The area of the Czech Republic where I lived, for example, receives many German-speaking tourists but hardly any American or British tourists. So perhaps English is not as necessary in the Czech Republic because German is more used. Personally this point doesn't feel like the explanation to me, and I feel that I hardly know the history of language contact in Sweden well enough to claim that English is more necessary than German there. Both countries, are, after all, extremely close to Germany.

I give this list as a set of possibilities, believing that some of them are more likely to be the correct explanation than others. Feel free to add your comments and observations to fill in factors that I may have overlooked.

Lead thou me on...

2009-07-13T12:00:00.001-06:00

It's hard to summarize on this blog all the things that have happened in the past few months in my life. I made a third trip to beautiful Europe and enjoyed it thoroughly. I enjoyed it so well that I really didn't want to come home, and if it were a possibility to get a job and not just mooch off of my friend's mom for a place to live, it's possible that I would have stayed. Nevertheless I returned home as planned and have been discharging my responsibilities here and looking for a job. I was really hoping to get the job that I interviewed for in Denmark but was finally informed that the job had been offered to someone else. So in the meantime I am working on my dissertation, looking for another job, and trying to not let my life go stale just because plans didn't work out the way I thought they would.

The whole time I have felt faithful and confident that something good would come along at the right time. I was hoping that this job would lead me to Denmark, where I would meet a nice Danish man and begin the relationship/marriage phase of my life. Obviously that is not going to happen now just as I hoped... but I still have faith that I can be led to something good, if I am paying attention. I know that sometimes in life when I have gone through periods like this it has just been because I had to wait for the timing to be right, and then something really good happened. I feel that this might be one of those periods.

But it doesn't seem right to just put myself on deep freeze waiting for something good to happen. First of all, that is extremely boring and frustrating. Second, I can take advantage of the time to improve myself and get ready for whatever is coming in the future. I am particularly afraid that I might miss the subtle, quiet Divine promptings that are shepherding me in the right direction. I often pray lately that I will be able to pay attention to them.

In the meantime, I have a dissertation to work on and hopefully will be able to start teaching ESL in about a month. I'm even taking a crack at online dating, just as a way to get out of the routine, get out of the house, and meet people.

To see the hymn "Lead, Kindly Light" (the basis for this post's title), please click here. It's one of my favorites.

Music

2009-05-05T23:22:00.005-06:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about my music choices. A couple of years ago, mostly influenced by experiences that I had in Europe and changes in my worldview at that time, I changed my music listening from listening to a lot of oldies and "lite" music and started listening to popular/top 40/hip-hop music. This music is exciting and interesting to me because of its beat. But lately I have been thinking about the influence my music choices have had on my thoughts. Especially lately I have noticed an increase in the number of swear words that are played on the radio. The word d*** seems to be especially prevalent to the point that I have wondered if people don't consider it to be a cuss word anymore.

Why is this a concern for me? Because music is such a big influence on my mind. I know just about everyone likes and appreciates music, but my brain seems to be especially tuned to it. I have noticed, for example, when I am at work that I am always paying attention to the song that is playing as background music. When I do work on the computer I find it difficult to concentrate without having some kind of music or sound in the background. I basically always have some music going on in my head, even if I'm not listening to music at the time. When I hear a catchy song it will often stay in my head for a long time, even for a couple of days. Therefore, when I'm singing along with music in my head, if the music contains an inappropriate word, I will tend to sing that word. I don't like having those words come off my lips. Even if the word is bleeped out or blanked out by the radio station, pretty much everybody knows what the word is anyway. My mind just fills it in. Lately it seems like curse words are quicker to occur in my mind, quite possibly as a result of the increased exposure I have had to them through music.

Secondly, I have started wondering about the messages that my mind is absorbing along with the lyrics of the songs. Here are a few examples of lines from popular songs that contain messages I'm not sure I agree with, along with my paraphrases of the possible underlying implications:

"And when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun..." -- Poker Face, Lady Gaga
(Rough sexual interaction is the best way to interact with someone of the opposite sex; in fact, this is "love".)

"Baby if you strip you could get a tip because I like you just the way you are..." -- "The Way You Are", Timbaland
(My love for you is based on your physical appearance, especially when you are naked.)

"But now we're rocking on the dance floor, acting naughty..." -- "Please Don't Stop the Music", Rihanna
(The best way to have fun is to be "naughty". Dancing and physical attraction is the basis for a relationship.)

"Hey ladies, when your man wanna go buck wild, just go on and hit 'em up style. Get your hands on his cash and spend it to the last dime for all the hard times..." -- "Hit 'Em Up Style", Blu Cantrell
(When your man cheats on you, you should get revenge by spending all his money. Revenge will make you feel better.)

And so on, and so forth. There are many such messages in today's songs.

There are also some songs that are not particularly bad, but pretty much pointless. Consider lyrics like the following:

"I'm like a ringleader; I call the shots. I'm like a firecracker; I make it hot." -- "Circus", Britney Spears

"Somebody call 911, shorty fire burning on the dance floor." -- "Fire Burning", Sean Kingston

This type of song seems to be particularly catchy to my mind, and often repeats over and over many times after I've heard it.

Inappropriate messages in music are not new, neither are swear words or nonsense songs. But I have felt the need lately to be more careful about what songs I will listen to. I don't intend to force my choices onto other people. But I hereby declare my desire to be a little more choosy about the musical food I give my mind. I don't plan to quit listening to hits entirely, but I hope that I will change the station when a song I don't agree with comes along.

Love languages

2009-04-29T13:02:00.000-06:00

One of the books that has most affected my way of thinking over the past few years (other than scripture, of course) is The Five Love Languages by Chapman. I recommend the book to anyone who would like a practical way to improve their relationships.

The basic thesis of the book is that different people have certain "love languages" that are more meaningful to them. These languages are ways of expressing and receiving love. The five love languages are:
Physical Touch (e.g. hugs and kisses, caresses)
Words of Affirmation (e.g. terms of endearment)
Quality Time (i.e. time spent in quality conversation with an intimate)
Acts of Service (e.g. doing chores and errands for the person)
Gifts

According to Chapman, each person has a primary love language, meaning that each person prefers one of these ways for giving and receiving love. He has many examples of relationships in trouble where the people involved simply expected and gave love through different modalities, and when they were taught to be aware of and sensitive to their relationship partner's primary love language they were able to express and receive love in ways that they mutually understood.

This book has enhanced my way of understanding that people have different needs and expectations in relationships. As I recall there is a workbook at the back that can help you to identify your primary love language and answer questions that will help you in your relationships.

I appreciate Chapman for giving us all an easily manageable system for understanding how to give love to and receive love from others. I feel that reality is somewhat more complex than the five categories he gave, but this is a good place to start.

It's no surprise to people who know me well that my primary love language is physical touch. In any relationship I feel that the relationship is held back somewhat unless the physical element is there. I absolutely crave to be touched, held, and kissed. I find it rather unusual that this is such an important modality for me, since I grew up in a culture and in a family that isn't particularly physically intimate. But nonetheless, I feel that a relationship is somewhat held back unless the physical element is there. However, I also value quality time spent in conversation with my intimates very much, and I find that words of affirmation are also important to me. My ideal loving relationship would have lots of all three. Nevertheless I identify physical touch as my primary love language because that is the one that always seems to need to be present.

This is an example of one of the ways in which my thinking on the subject goes beyond what Chapman has written. Chapman has the idea that people can be "bilingual", meaning that they are equally happy to give and receive love through two of the above-mentioned languages. But the way I have described myself is somewhat different from this idea of bilingualism as I understand it. Rather than being satisfied with one or the other love language, I find that a combination of three is what I most desire. This is not "bilingualism" but more like a "simultaneous multilingual" experience that I want.

Another way in which my experiences go beyond the initial system outlined by Chapman is that I have found that people can have different primary love languages for giving and receiving love. I have one friend, for example, who is incredibly physically affectionate with people she cares for. However, when people show love for her, she most prefers gifts. So this is another extension of the idea of having a primary love language: people do not necessarily prefer to give and receive through the same modality, so apparently it's possible to have different primary love languages of reception and expression.

In addition I can also argue that the love languages overlap to some degree. For example, when you give someone a gift, do they most appreciate the gift itself, or the fact that you did an act of service while choosing the gift? And sharing words of affirmation with someone presupposes that you are spending some time talking to each other, which creates an overlap between words of affirmation and quality time. But this is a minimal argument. After all Chapman is not trying to create a scientific theory of relationships but rather trying to help everyday people improve the giving and receiving of love in their lives. And I have certainly benefited in this way from reading the book.

I would be interested to hear others' experiences with the ideas in this book. What do you think? How have the ideas helped your relationships and your life?

My thoughts of late

2009-04-21T23:39:00.000-06:00

Last night as I returned from my trip to Southern Utah I had some time to think to myself, since I had nothing to do but drive at night, listening to United States Parts 1-4 by Laurie Anderson and reflect on my life and what I had learned. Here are some comments I would like to make about the experience.

1. It is totally worth it to go to Ivins, just to see the red hills next to the town. Notice that I said Ivins, not St. George. St. George's landscape is nice, but Ivins takes the cake.

2. The stars are better at night in Southern Utah too. I easily saw Orion and realized that it had been a while. There were many more visible stars. It's kind of a shame that I didn't spend much time outside at night.

3. Laurie Anderson's United States Parts 1-4 is sufficiently long and engaging to listen to on a road trip, but some of the individual tracks get samey in a hurry. I'm sure it would be much more compelling to have seen the performance in all its glory rather than listen to a recording. Yes, I know that I am a weirdo for even having this recording on my iPod. I promise I won't make you listen to it if you don't want to.

4. On Friday morning, I get to interview for the job that I really really want -- a position at a Danish university. I am excited that I will have the opportunity to interview and that there is a possibility of getting the job, and I am simultaneously scared that I might not get the job. My heart has turned so much to this job and the life it would bring me in the past couple of months, and it's hard for me to envision myself doing anything else right now. If I didn't get the job, it would take some major adjustment (not to mention more hard work to find another job). In the meantime I have plenty of work to do to study up for the interview so I know what I'm talking about. I also realize that getting the job would mean moving away from family and friends, becoming an ex-pat, living in a new culture, having an experience I never thought I would have, and generally introducing some big, big changes into my life. But at the same time, I feel I have changed a lot over the past couple of years, and those changes have made me happier. If whatever changes are coming will continue that trend, I welcome them. Do I dare to hope that this is the way some major blessings will come into my life? And in the meantime I realize that time is passing quickly and my dissertation is progressing, but not as fast as I would hope.

5. It's a relief just to have gotten word about the job. Coming home and checking my e-mail and mailbox every day with no information was killing me.

6. There's not much to see in Central Utah, but when you get to Southern Utah it's worth it.

7. Scipio is still really, really cool. Just because it is. The last time I can even remember being in Scipio was the time my friends and I took a trip to Cedar City for the Shakespearean Festival, which was surely something like 10 or more years ago. Scipio is just awesome; that's all there is to it.

8. There's something about a long stretch of driving that seems to reset or retune your perception after a while. When I make short freeway trips in the city, 65 mph seems sufficiently fast. But after driving at 75 or 80 for a while, 65 seems like a slow cruise, and 40 seems like a bore. Apparently my brain is kicking into "faster driving" mode and it takes a while to move in and out of it. I wonder how that works.

9. Speaking of long road trips, before I lived in Canada I'm not sure I could have handled driving for more than an hour or two at a time. But making the trip between Winnipeg and Fort Frances about a dozen times with me as the only driver became more comfortable after a while. I started to understand why people in Fort Frances will go to Winnipeg just for the day to see a hockey game or shop at Wal-Mart -- it's just not that big of a deal. And this allows me to be very independent, since I can take trips of reasonable length by myself.

10. North America is a big, big continent. And if I end up living in Europe I hope I don't forget that.

Well, those are the kinds of things that I was thinking about on my drive. Thanks to my friends that I visited when I was down South. The weather was beautiful and I had a great time.

Anti.

2009-04-05T21:23:00.005-06:00

Today I had the opportunity to attend a session of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As usual, there were protesters outside the Conference Center preaching about how latter-day saints are deceived and need to repent, etc. The picture is a photo that I took today of one of the street preachers. I apologize for the quality; my camera phone was the only camera I had with me and the sun made it difficult to see what I was shooting. In this picture you'll see that the preacher is holding a sign that spells out the acronym "LDS" using the words "Liars Deceivers Seducers".

I am not aware of any major religious conference of any other faith that is regularly protested in this way. It is understandable why people of my faith sometimes feel offended when such preachers cry that we are going to hell or that we are not Christian. Indeed, we worship the Lord Jesus Christ and sometimes find it difficult to understand why others would think we are not Christian. A sentence I have heard referring to this kind of situation is, "I don't know why they have to push their religion on others."

In this blog post I would like to defend the right of these street preachers to preach as they do, and explain why I feel that way.

I would first of all like to clarify that I think that shouting that people are going to hell, etc. as they walk by on the street is probably not a very effective way to proselyte. However, freedom of speech and freedom of religions are some of the most fundamental and revered rights upon which the United States of America is founded. While I don't agree with these protesters' opinions, they have the right to share them. As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I volunteered full-time for a year and a half to share the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ with whomever would listen. Sometimes people would say that we were trying to push our religion on them, but we didn't see it that way. We were trying to give people the opportunity to learn about it if they wished. It seems to me that it's not really possible to force someone to believe in a religion, is it? At any rate, if I wasn't pushing my religion as a missionary, I don't believe that General Conference protesters are pushing their religion either. As long as their methods of preaching and protest are legal, I think they have the right to speak their minds. Latter-day saints generally treasure freedom of religion wherever it is available around the world.

While I disagree with their doctrines and methods, it seems that the efforts of these street preachers is based in a desire to help people to be saved. They apparently think that we are deceived, misguided people who are on the wrong path. While I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true and correct, I appreciate that these people are apparently concerned for the welfare of my soul. After all, we have many beliefs in common, such as believing that Jesus Christ is the Savior and believing that the Bible is the word of God.

I think that acceptance of the fact that other people can have beliefs and opinions different from mine is a characteristic of being a mature adult. While these street messages are sometimes delivered in an ascerbic manner, and while the doctrine they contain does not accord with what I believe, as far as I have observed I have seen nothing that would overstep the rights that these preachers have to exercise their freedom of speech. I hope that I will always be found reacting to this anti-Mormon preaching in a Christlike way.

80's Music Paradise

2009-02-27T21:40:00.003-07:00

Recipe:
1 pinch Scandanavia
1 free website with tons of music videos
=
The a-ha channel on MTV's website:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/a-ha/53809/train-of-thought.jhtml#artist=1556
You're welcome!

Things that I really, really don't like

2009-02-19T10:34:00.001-07:00

Injustice.
Abuse.
Prejudice.
Suffering.
Stigma.
Anxiety.
Rape.
Racism.
Hunger.
Loneliness.

Elevator music

2009-02-11T22:35:00.010-07:00

Honestly I didn't notice when they stopped playing elevator music in the grocery store. All I remember is that, years ago, I used to be bopping along in the grocery aisle to violin versions of Eurythmics hits and smugly thinking to myself how ironic it seemed to be playing a sanitized version of "Sweet Dreams". I would often find myself singing along. Sometime, only a few months ago it seems, I noticed that all of a sudden the music they play in the grocery store is not Muzak anymore but the actual songs. By the actual artists. With vocals. When did that happen?

Today I found the apparent last bastion of elevator music: Apollo Burger. As I ate my gyro with all the trimmings I noticed that the sickeningly familiar sounds of elevator music were playing in the background. It gave me a strange nostalgia. Apparently the world hasn't changed so completely.

Flirting

2009-02-10T21:38:00.004-07:00

I am seriously like the worst flirt. Ever. Here's an example of my lack of flirting skills.

Yesterday I went to the gym and I got up to the treadmills where I was planning on working out. As I walked past one of the treadmills a guy who was standing on the treadmill saw me and stuck out his hand to shake mine. It was a guy that I used to go to church with. Our conversations went something like this:
"Do you come here?" he said.
"Yeah," I replied. "I come here at all different times of day."
"I've been coming here for the past three weeks. It's all cardio. Gotta get back in shape."
"That's great. I'm so glad that you're getting in shape." (Oops! Did I just imply that I think he isn't in shape?)

Patting him on the arm, I went over to the treadmill and did my workout. As I worked I looked over at him a couple of times and thought about what I could say him when I passed him again on the way out. After my workout was over, I went back in his direction. He was watching the TV on the treadmill, so he had his earphones on. This made it a little difficult to get the subtlety into the conversation that I wanted...
"You're doing awesome!"
"What?"
"You're doing awesome!"
"I usually do 45 minutes a day."
And now for my brilliant line that it took me a whole workout to cook up:
"Hopefully I'll see you around soon."
"See you around!"

And I walked off.
Sorry I stink so bad at flirting, boys. It's not that I'm not interested.

One word

2009-02-02T10:31:00.019-07:00

There are a lot of really fun thingies like this going around right now! This one is fun because it's like a word game as well as informational. If you like it, give it a shot!

1. Where is your cell phone? upstairs
2. Your significant other? Denmark (ha ha!)
3. Your hair? up
4. Your mother? nice
5. Your father? working
6. Your favorite thing? friends
7. Your dream last night? unknown
8. Your favorite drink? water
9. Your dream/goal? joy
10. What room you are in? family
11. Your hobby? music
12. Your fear? static
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? family
14. Where were you last night? bed
16. Muffins? delicious
17. Wish list item? mp3s
18. Where you grew up? Holladay
19. Last thing you did? facebook
20. What are you wearing? bathrobe
21. Your TV? blah
22. Your pets? missed
23. Friends? AMAZING
24. Your life? happy
25. Your mood? good
26. Missing some one? yes
27. Car? trooper
28. Something you're not wearing? makeup
29. Your favorite store? amazon.com
30. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? today
34. Last time you cried? January
35. Who will resend this? linden?
36. One place that I go to over and over? Provo
37. One person who emails me regularly? soldier
38. My favorite place to eat? Olympian
39. Why you participated in this survey? fun
40. What are you doing tonight? unknown

Launchcast

2009-01-29T21:07:00.003-07:00

Caught this little blurb on the Yahoo! Launchcast website today:

Starting February 16, 2009 LAUNCHcast will be powered by CBS Radio. We will be offering over 150 exclusive stations, but your customized station will no longer be available. We appreciate your patience during this exciting transition.

That's about it for me then. Basically 99.9% of my time spent listening to Launchcast was listening to my personalized station. I guess I won't be using Yahoo! Music services much anymore, unless I feel like watching music videos. Pandora, anyone?

Most beautiful songs

2009-01-28T21:21:00.002-07:00

There are some popular songs that for whatever reason, strike me as just beautiful. Here is a short list of some that come to mind:
"Boys of Summer" by Don Henley
"Here Comes the Rain Again" by Eurythmics
"Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell
"Stand by Me" by Ben E. King
"Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister

Any other contributions? Leave me a comment!

Waiting

2009-01-18T12:08:00.007-07:00

I am content to wait here by the apples.
Holding a basket, I stand quietly as you select your fruit.
I'd rather be with you at the market than alone somewhere else.

I am content to wait here on the couch.
Thinking of what else I could be doing, I sit quietly as you dress in the other room.
I'd rather be with you at your apartment than alone somewhere else.

I am content to wait here by the curb.
Checking the time, I watch for you to appear at the door.
I'd rather drive you than go home alone.

I am content to wait here by the apples.
Forgive me that, once in a while, I wish you would leave the apples
And touch me instead.

Eulogy

2009-01-06T12:45:00.002-07:00

I have been thinking today about what I would like to be said of me after I die. Don't worry; I am not planning on dying anytime soon. I have just been thinking about where I would like to be at the end of my life when it is time to pass into the next phase of existence. So I decided to write myself a short eulogy. I hope this doesn't seem morbid. I see it as an expression of the person I hope I can be.

She left many, many friends and loved ones behind. She was always known as someone with a discreet listening ear. She heard the problems and good news of others with empathy and compassion and kept their confidences. She lived by the adage, "Your name is safe in our home," choosing to see and reinforce the positive in others and keep the negative in its proper place. She took the example of the Lord Jesus Christ in sharing love and kindness generously with others. She was very loyal to her friends and family. Her students knew her as someone who cared more about them than about her relationship to them in the social hierarchy.

She was a very intelligent person but never gave the impression of being a know-it-all or feeling superior to others. She spoke only when she knew what she was talking about and listened well to gather the knowledge that others have to share. She was always open and listening to the promptings and ideas that can come from the Holy Ghost. She was wise with her resources and yet also very generous.

Her main motivator was not selfish desires or fear but rather charity, the pure love of Christ. She found true joy in serving others, starting with her family, and extending to her friends and all mankind. She was always known as one who would apply her knowledge and abilities to a righteous purpose. She spent time developing her talents so that they could better be of use to God's children. She always chose to do what was right, even when it seemed to be the unpopular thing to do.

That's what I have come up with so far. In some of these points, I think I do pretty well. In others I think I have something to work on. I suppose that this little eulogy is a quite personal self-revelation; it is a concise statement of some of my life goals. I would love to hear what the life goals of my readers are as well.

What a way to get closure for 2008

2009-01-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

2008 Google Zeitgeist report

HA HA!

2008-12-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/ballardstreet;_ylt=Ak5QL4JaTdm1hRE_9hzA8pDTcLQF

Cool Change

2008-12-24T01:38:00.006-07:00

The way this works is you put your iPod on shuffle and see what comes up. I did edit a bit because there were some that I thought, in the context, were somewhat inappropriate. The answers that came up are pretty funny if you don't take them too seriously!

1.IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Why Walk When You Can Fly -- Mary Chapin Carpenter
(Hee hee; never satisfied.)

2.WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Try to Make It True -- Quarterflash
(Honest! :) )

3.WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Introit for Sexagesima Sunday -- Choir of the Vienna Hofburgkapelle
(...)

4.WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
The Mysterious "J" -- Laurie Anderson
(Ooo, mystery.)

5.WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Example #22 -- Laurie Anderson
(...)

6.WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Flashback -- Imagination
(Yeah, I am older than a lot of my friends.)

7.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Child Grew from Oratorio on the Life of Christ -- Brian Crosby
(...)

8.WHAT IS 2+2?
Kammersymphonie No. 1, Movt. 4 -- Schoenberg
(Movement 4, okay...)

9.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Quia ergo femina mortem instruxit -- Hildegard von Bingen
(Woah.)

10.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Fall on Me -- R.E.M.
(Hee hee... that would be one way to get to know each other.)

11.WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
The End of my Pirate Days -- Mary Chapin Carpenter
(Oh yeah, I used to be quite the pirate.)

12.WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Sechs Stuecke F. Orch. Op. 6 -- Anton Webern
(Six Pieces for Orchestra?)

13.WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Straight Lines -- Suzanne Vega
(...)

14.WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Lute Concerto in D. R. 93 Movt. 2: Largo -- Vivaldi
(Largo -- They think I'm slow?)

15.WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
The Memory of Trees -- Enya
(I've always thought Enya songs made good soundtracks, but I don't know about my wedding.)

16.WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Season of Hollow Soul -- k.d. lang
(Freaky.)

17.WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Coming Up Close -- 'Til Tuesday
(Ha!)

18.WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair) -- Scott McKenzie
(Yeah, I used to be a hippie as well as a pirate.)

19.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Think of Laura -- Christopher Cross
(Funny, I don't really have a friend named Laura, but if I did this would be perfect!)

20.WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Glasspiece #2 (Facades) -- Philip Glass
(I hate facades, apparently.)

21.HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Die schoene Musi! from Der Rosenkavalier -- R. Strauss
(Does this mean the Muses are gonna get me?)

22.WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Not Sorry -- The Cranberries
(No regrets either, apparently.)

23.WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
All I Can Do -- The Carpenters
(Oh yeah, I laugh at everything...)

24.WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Ill Ciel! mio padre! from Aida -- Verdi
(My father... ouch.)

25.WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
She Loves Me -- Stephen Duffy
(Sounds like a yes!)

26.WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
I Dreamed I Had to Take a Test... -- Laurie Anderson
(Ha ha! It's even funnier considering that the full line is "I dreamed I had to take a test in a Dairy Queen on another planet.")

27.DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
The Pirate of Penance -- Joni Mitchell
(Whoever that is.)

28.IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Funny Way of Laughing -- Burl Ives
(Again, ouch.)

29.WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Piano Concerto #2 in F Minor Op. 21 - Maestoso -- Chopin
(Piano hurts? Well, practicing it is kind of tedious sometimes.)

30.WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Cool Change -- Little River Band

Christmas irony

2008-12-15T00:41:00.005-07:00

I was asked to prepare some brief remarks for a church service in which members of my choir spoke and performed today. Hopefully it won't seem too self-indulgent if I post a somewhat expanded version of my talk here.

At this Christmas season, as I've reflected on the story of the birth of Jesus, I've noticed that there are many ironies in the story. For example, although Jesus is very important, He was born in Bethlehem, a relatively small, inconsequential town:
But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel;... (Micah 5:2)

Another irony is that, apparently, this same prophecy of Christ's birth was used by Herod to discover the location of Jesus' birth. He subsequently issued an order for all children two years old and under to be killed in an attempt to eliminate the perceived threat to his power (Matthew 2:16). Apparently, the words of the prophet were good enough for Herod to use to get information, but Herod didn't have enough respect for the words of the prophet to welcome the Messiah of which Micah prophesied.

Another ironic thing surrounding the birth of Christ is that, while He is the most important King that has ever been born in the world, the first people to learn of his birth were humble shepherds (Luke 2:8-11). The great Jehovah condescended to be born in humble circumstances (1 Nephi 11:16).

Indeed, He came unto his own, and His own received Him not (3 Nephi 9:16).

The sense of irony that I feel when I reflect on things like these is, I guess, caused by an inconsistency with my sense of justice. The injustice is that there is a mismatch between what Jesus deserved and what He got.

It is perhaps the greatest irony or injustice that Jesus, One who truly did not deserve to suffer for sin, suffered to pay the price for all our sins and took upon Himself all our suffering:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him: and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

But justice is done. While Jesus was mistreated, disrespected, and eventually crucified by many who did not see Him for the Messiah that He is, He now reigns in heaven, and will return again in His glory.

There is another application of justice, one that is more troubling to me. It is the reality that I have sinned, and that I deserve to suffer for my sins. It is not possible for us to be redeemed on our own merits:
And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins... (Alma 22:14)
Wherefore, all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer. (1 Nephi 10:6)

Without the intercession of Christ, justice would mean condemnation for me and all sinners. So as much as my sense of justice is offended by ironies like the ones I've mentioned above, when pondering my own sins, I hope that there is some way that mercy can be done also.

And it is possible. Both justice and mercy are satisfied through the sacrifice of our Great Redeemer. He paid the price required by justice and extends to us His mercy.
...and mercy claimeth the penitent, and mercy cometh because of the atonement; and the atonement bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead bringeth back men into the presence of God; and thus they are restored into his presence, to be judged according to their words, according to the law and justice. For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own... (Alma 42:23-24)

Through the sacrifice of Jesus, justice is done, and mercy also. I know that Jesus is the Savior. I hope that you also find enjoyment in pondering the ironies of Christmas as I have at this time of year. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

And now...

2008-11-30T21:51:00.010-07:00

...the blog post you've all been waiting for: pictures of the mantis!

If you happened to read this blog post of a couple of weeks ago, you learned that we currently have a pet praying mantis. My dad found her (more like she found him) while he was working and now she lives in a terrarium at our house. As far as mantises go, I think she's pretty good-looking. :) I got out the camera today and took a few photos so you can all see how cool she is.

Some things you might be wondering:
Q: What does she eat?
A: Things that move, usually house flies and crickets that we bought at the pet store. We just put the other insects in her cage along with her and she eats them at the appropriate time. It's a pretty good way to use those flies that buzz around the house sometimes, and she seems to like them.

Q: Why is the picture so bad?
A: This is actually the best photo of her that I got. The tank she is living in has a lot of water spots on it, and the macro setting on my camera leaves something to be desired. Please click on the picture to see it in a bigger format.

Q: Why is she brown?
A: Apparently some mantises just come that way. She changes between a creamy brown and a dark brown during the day.

Q: How does she eat flies?
A: First, she grabs them with her forelegs. Then she bites off the head and eats that first, while holding on to the rest of her body with her foreleg. Then she eats the rest.

Q: Does she always catch them on the first try?
A: No. It seems to maybe have something to do with how hungry she is. These days she's pretty well fed, so if something happens to walk by, she'll reach for it, but doesn't seem to be really into it.

Q: How do you know she's a female?
A: According to informational websites on mantises, males have eight abdominal segments and females have six. I did count six, but the dead giveaway was when she laid eggs one night at about 1:00 in the morning. My brother came and got me after I had just gotten into bed and said something like, "You might not be interested, depending on how asleep you are, but the mantis is laying eggs right now." I got out of bed and watched the process for the next hour or so. I was really tired the next day but it was worth it.

This is a photo of the first egg sac she made. It's about the size of a small walnut, and it's stuck to the wire mesh on the top of the screen over her house. She has laid two more smaller egg sacs since then.

Q: Are you gonna have baby mantises?
A: Unknown. It's possible that she may have mated before she came to us, but she also might have just expelled the eggs because it was time. At any rate, the baby mantises would be most beneficial out in our yard, where they could take care of insect pests, so we will probably put the egg sacs outside and let them hatch (if they will) in the springtime. Which means we may likely never know whether the eggs are viable or not.

Q: Is this the most spoiled praying mantis ever?
A: We are definitely not the first people to keep a mantis as a pet, but she does have a pretty sweet life. Check out this photo of her digs:
We had this tank as a home for previous pet lizards we had. You can see that she has rocks and branches to climb on, a light for light and heat, an electric hot rock, a little water dish and a blue netting thing that she likes to climb on and hide under. The other things you see in there are pieces of potato and banana that the crickets eat.

Q: Is having a mantis as a pet really as cool as you say?
A: I am not normally a person who has feelings of affection for animals that are not soft and furry. Even things like hamsters and gerbils don't appeal to me that much; I prefer more intelligent animals. But as invertebrates go, this mantis is pretty awesome. She is fun to watch as she climbs around the cage and looks around at what is going on. By observation and by research I have also learned quite a bit about insect anatomy and behavior.

Q: What's her name?
A: My dad never officially named her because we don't expect her to live that long (in the wild she would likely have already frozen by now). But my mom suggested the name "Millie".

Have any more questions about the mantis? Feel free to leave a comment!

So I'm a copycat...

2008-11-25T01:08:00.007-07:00

But this looked like so much fun.

What were you doing 20 years ago?

Wow... November of 1988. Let's see... I was 11 years old, and I would have been in the *gasp* fifth grade, I guess. My teacher was Mr. P. One thing I remember about Mr. P is that he taught us a recipe for chocolate peanut-butter squares that I still use successfully today. It's easy to remember because it's one of everything:

1 package graham crackers (not the box, the plastic-wrapped thing in the box)
1 stick butter
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup chocolate chips

Crush graham crackers. Melt butter and peanut butter and mix together with sugar and graham crackers. Press into 8X8 pan. Melt chocolate chips and spread on the top.

The texture of the bars depends on how finely you crush the graham crackers. These have never failed me. Give it a try.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Ok... 1998... well I was 21, so that was just before I went on the mish. November of 1998... wow, now that I think about it that was a pretty interesting time for me. I had just received my patriarchal blessing some months before, and I was in the middle of making a lot of life changes. For the better. I was also finishing up my last year of my undergraduate. That summer it was off to the MTC and Canada for one of the biggest, scariest, hardest, funnest adventures of my life. I can say that was the period of my life where I learned the power of fasting. It enabled me to have strength I wouldn't have otherwise had on my own.

What were you doing on 9/11/2001?

I was in school again. I was enrolled in a technical writing class, and we were scheduled to have class that day. I didn't even hear about the attacks until I was on the way to school in the car and heard about it on the radio. When I got to class, the instructor came, but he then said that he didn't think it was right for us to have class on a day like this. So I went home and watched some of the coverage on TV. Crazy day.

What were you doing 5 years ago?

2003. In the final year of my master's degree (wow, this series of questions coincides with some important points in my academic career!). I would have just taken the comprehensive exam for the M.A. program and happy I was done with that. Let's see now... that might have been the semester that we had the girl in my class who was REALLY pregnant and she actually thought she was going into labor during class. It turned out she wasn't. But it was a class of all girls and the professor was so nice. The professor gave her her phone so she could call her husband and everything.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

November 2007. Hm... nothing in particular comes to mind. I suppose it was getting close to the end of the semester. I was in Bro. D's choir, so we were getting ready for the big Christmas program at Kingsbury Hall. I remember one of our friends was really, really sick that day and he came to the rehearsal all wrapped up in his blanket, which to me looked like one of the paper collages made by Matisse. I like Matisse, especially during his paper period.

What did you do yesterday?

Yesterday I went to a sacrament meeting at the branch where my parents serve to hear a friend sing a beautiful musical number, "I Know That My Redeemer Lives". I don't usually like people who have a pop style of singing so much but there is something about her when she sings; during the last verse I found myself anticipating every line, wanting to join in myself. It was inexplicably thrilling. After that I went to ward choir practice and then we had our regular church meetings. After church I was invited to go to a scone party at the house of some people in the ward. It was fun to visit and get to know people better. By the time it was over it was dark outside and I didn't have a jacket because I had walked to church when the sun was out and it was warmer. The host kindly offered to drive me home and I wanted to take his offer but I was too proud so I pretended like it wasn't a big deal and said I would be fine. And you know what? As soon as I stepped outside, I realized it wasn't as cold as I thought it was. I had a few goosebumps when I got home, but it was really ok, not to mention that I only had to walk like two blocks. And on the way home I called the girl that I visit teach and ended up going to her house and having a visit with her.

What am I doing today?

Well I'm writing this at almost 1:30 in the morning so today is pretty much over. Last night I realized I was getting a cold so I tried to go to bed somewhat early and today I got up at about 9:00. I ate some granola and decided that I felt like working on schoolwork so I did that for a couple of hours. I wrote an e-mail to my professor that basically said, "I know we have an appointment to talk about my work but I'm not sure if you want me to come to your office coughing today." She wrote back that I could e-mail what I was working on and she would give me some feedback. After that I took a long, long nap in the afternoon and had some bad dreams, although I can't remember them now. Then I watched TV programs for a while and did a little more schoolwork, then watched more TV programs while trying to download a couple of mp3s from Napster. Things really weren't working well on their end and it was taking forever for stuff to load. They almost lost my business today... except they have the biggest availability of Aaliyah mp3s on the web and I am really into Aaliyah right now.

(I hope I'm not the only person who thinks of days as sleep to sleep rather than stopping and starting at midnight. I mean, it's 1:30, but it's still today because I haven't been to sleep yet. And in a few hours, it'll be the same day on the calendar, but it'll be tomorrow. Know what I mean?)

What will I do tomorrow?

Assuming that I will be feeling somewhat better (which I think is true) I will get up in the morning and have some breakfast and hopefully get some more work done for school. I am really getting close to being ready with this big project, and the closer I get the sooner I want to get it done, so I work on it a lot lately. Also I should practice the piano but we'll see if I talk myself out of it. In the evening one of my friends is playing a piano recital (yay! that is so awesome!) and after that there is a get-together at a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of our choir friends. Oh, and at some point I want to swing by and pick up a birthday gift; I'm thinking a couple of gourmet chocolate bars.

So that's what's up in my life. The more things change, the more they stay the same... kind of. I think that a few years from now my answers will be very different.

Telephone interpreting

2008-11-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97356045&ft=1&f=1003
This is an NPR item I just heard on the radio. I thought it captured some of the difficulties when languages and cultures come in contact in a very sensitive way. I hope you enjoy it.

Will all of this make Jack Benny come back?

2008-11-21T16:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTSS8E7bKXg

Chain blog...

2008-11-20T17:55:00.005-07:00

Got this in an e-mail and I thought I'd do it on my blog instead of by e-mail. Anybody who wants to, feel fre to do it, and please leave me a comment so I will know that you did it and go to your blog to see.

TAG - YOU'RE IT!
If you opened it, you have to do it (it only takes a couple minutes I promise!)

Two names you go by:
1.ww
2. (no comment, don't want to reveal my identity on my blog)

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. shiny Christmas socks
2. knit workout pants

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. to master a section of about four measures or so in the piano piece I'm working on
2. to be finished with a certain large academic project I'm working on

Two people who will most likely send this back (i.e. post it on their blogs):
1. Linden
2. Red

Two things you did last night:
1. Went to choir practice
2. Parking-lot-danced for a really long time! It was awesome!

Two things you ate yesterday:
1. Granola
2. PB&J

Two people you last spoke to:
1. My dad
2. The lady who is in charge of musical numbers in my parents' branch

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. Having a piano lesson
2.Working on my large academic project (hopefully)

Two states you'd like to visit:
1. Arizona
2. Texas

Two favorite beverages:
1 Water
2. Juice

Hope

2008-11-15T21:28:00.002-07:00

The following are some thoughts that I've been having in association with the talk that I was asked to give in church tomorrow. I was asked to discuss one of the talks from the recent General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I felt drawn to study and talk about "The Infinite Power of Hope" by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

While studying about hope, I have sort of organized my thoughts in answer to a set of questions. I give each question, with a brief response.

1. What is hope?
As taught by President Uchtdorf, hope is a powerful force. For example, he told the story about when he and his mother and siblings were fleeing from Czechoslovakia to Germany during World War II. At a certain train station, his mother left the train to get food for them, and when she returned the train was gone. With the possibility that she might never see her children again, his mother searched through the train station, "hoping against hope", and finally found the train after it had been moved.

Hope is a part of the great triad of faith, hope, and charity. Faith leads to hope, and hope leads to faith.

Hope in particular drives us to salvation. Our great hope is in Jesus Christ, that through his death and resurrection, we can be saved and enjoy eternal life. This hope can keep us going through difficult times and sad circumstances of life.

2. How can we have greater hope?
I studied a number of references that talked about how to feed our hope, but one idea that I noticed in particular is that we can gain hope by study of the scriptures. (I encourage you to read the references included with President Uchtdorf's talk to see this idea come up repeatedly in the scriptures themselves, as well as some other ways to increase hope.) How can the scriptures give us hope? Scripture is the word of God, and in the scriptures it's taught that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and that through His great Atonement we can resurrected and receive eternal life. As we read the holy word of God, the Holy Ghost confirms that these ideas are true. So reading the scriptures increases our knowledge of the great plan of our Father in Heaven, and also invites the Holy Ghost to be a bolstering force in our lives.

3. How can we help others to have hope?
I have spent a lot of time thinking about the topic of hope lately, and analyzing events around me in light of the topic. I have recently learned that a friend of mine, a smart, good person, and someone I like very much, has decided to pursue a gay lifestyle. While I never claim to say what causes some people to be attracted to those of the same sex, I believe that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and that it is not appropriate to engage in sexual relations under any other circumstances but between a husband and wife. For those who cannot envision themselves becoming involved in a serious relationship with someone of the opposite sex, like my friend, the future can seem long and lonely in light of that truth. It is easy to see how some people like my friend can be tempted to give up their principles in the face of that kind of loneliness.

It's not as if those who are attracted to people of the same sex are the only ones who struggle. There are people everywhere who deal with loneliness, despair, unemployment, divorce, frustration, abuse, poverty, and all of life's other negative feelings and situations. But unfortunately sometimes we add to others' problems by judging them, not understanding them, and treating them like they are bad people. This is not the Christian thing to do; it is well-known that our Savior spent time during His mortal ministry with "publicans and sinners" and that He continually ministers to people who are shunned by society. We should follow His example. People would never consider criticizing someone who had cancer or diabetes, for example. But what about people who struggle with less-fashionable circumstances, such as same-sex attraction, addiction, divorce, or a host of other things that people look down on? It seems to me that it certainly doesn't help people who are struggling for others to judge them and run away from them. Therefore, I urge us all (myself included) to encourage hope in others by treating them in more Christlike ways, by overlooking their circumstances and loving them.

I believe that the love of others helps us to have hope and security in a world that is otherwise often depressing and insecure. I can attest to the palpable feeling of security and confidence that I have in the love of my good friends. And the love of good people hopefully serves as a guide to the love and salvation that we can find in Christ. Our capacities for loving are inadequate in comparison to His, to be sure, but maybe we will learn to be more like Him as we continue to practice this love. Our hope in Christ will encourage others to hope in Him as well. And He is able and mighty to save and be the Fulfillment of our hope.

And so the message I would like to send is two-fold: (1) to those who struggle, there is hope in Christ, the powerful Redeemer of the world, and (2) to those who know them, we should love people and treat them well regardless of their circumstances. And it seems to me that basically everyone in the congregation is part of both groups.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

If you have any comments on these thoughts, or even stories that I could incorporate into this talk, I would be happy to learn them.

Thoughts on Perry Mason

2008-11-05T23:04:00.005-07:00

Raymond Burr is quite heavyset in some episodes, but he is still cast as the heroic leading man. It just goes to show how different standards about body image were back in the days that Perry Mason was made.

It seems that nobody on the show remembers their fifth-amendment rights. The murder almost always confesses on the stand, except when they confess when they're not on the stand. (Actually, while I was writing this, an episode showed where the accomplice ratted out the murderer... but this is the exception to the rule.)

Berger is like the worst district attorney ever -- he never wins a case, and never accuses the right person. Not to mention the detective, Lieutenant Tragg; his theories of the case are always wrong too.

Umbrellas in Japan

2008-11-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading this essay:
http://www.hackwriters.com/umbrellas.htm

Today for the first time I used the umbrella/parasol that was sent to me by my sister-in-law's grandmother in Japan. It is very compact and worked great!

"No abrir el puerta. Tienes una alarme gracias."*

2008-11-01T10:16:00.002-06:00

Just got a link to this article about a bad translation on a road sign:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7702913.stm

This story is entertaining and I can totally see how that happened, although honestly they should have checked on things when the e-mail came back all in Welsh. But it reminds me of something I see around where I live all the time: bad translations into Spanish.

Now, I'm not a native speaker of Spanish, but honestly it seems to me that when you are going to translate something into Spanish you should at least put enough effort into it to, let's say, check it out with a native speaker of Spanish. I mean, it's not like there aren't any native Spanish speakers around. For example, the title of this post is a paraphrase of a sign that hangs on one of the doors in the building where I work, easily visible from the main second-floor hallway. I happen to personally know at least three native speakers of Spanish who actually work in the building who could have easily said, "Um, nope, this is what you want to say." Not to mention that there are plenty of proficient non-native speakers around who wouldn't make such obvious errors in gender and subject-verb agreement, not to mention using the word "alarme", which doesn't even exist. (They should have gone with alarma.) In my more socially activated moments, I find it a little disrespectful to the Spanish-speaking community in the area that people won't even bother to do a good job with their Spanish translations of signs around in the area. It's kind of like saying, "We recognize that we should provide something in Spanish for you because there are enough Spanish speakers around, but we don't respect you or your language enough to actually do a half-decent job."

English speakers find it comical when obvious mistranslations have been done by non-native speakers who obviously don't know English well enough to know how badly they are doing. Two websites that are dedicated to the phenomenon are engrish.com and engrishfunny.com. But you will also often hear people complaining about incomprehensible owner's manuals which came with foreign products they have purchased and beefing about, "Why can't you just learn to speak English?" To people with this attitude I say, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Seriously though, through my study of sociolinguistics I have learned that people often use linguistic discrimination as a way to cover up honest-to-goodness prejudice against another group of people. It might not be acceptable to make fun of a group of people, but people will often find it acceptable if you make fun of the way they talk. That's why one linguist has called linguistic discrimination the last acceptable form of discrimination. (*shudder*)

Note to people who are posting signs in Spanish in my building: I am not a native speaker, but I could certainly do a better job than whoever is doing your translation now. And I work cheap.

*"Don't open the door. You have an alarm thank you."

The saga of the sink, continued...

2008-10-27T23:12:00.000-06:00

Remember my bathroom sink? The one that leaked when it wasn't clogged and stopped leaking when it clogged up a little? So a couple of weeks ago when it started getting slow again, I was reluctant to do anything to it right away, because I knew that if I put some drain opener down it it would unclog the sink, but following the pattern, it would start leaking again. So I just continued to use it and let it drain slowly as long as I could stand it. But when it became clogged completely, I knew I had to do something about it. (Otherwise I'm brushing my teeth in the tub every night!) So I went down to the Lowe's by the freeway and bought a new P-trap and another couple of parts and at a moment when I was really bored with what was on TV I decided to attack the sink.

First, I had to clean out the area under the sink, which was kind of involved but I won't go there on my blog. After that I had to find a container to put underneath it. I borrowed a plastic pan that my mom brought home from the hospital and started taking off the old P-trap. What clogged up the sink can only be described as black sludge (I'm guessing a mixture of mildew and soap scum?). There was a surprising lack of hair clogs or anything like that, just a few stray hairs in there.

Anyway, since the new P-trap is on, the sink drains a lot better, mainly because the new pipes that I put on don't have a coating of black goo in them yet. Unfortunately, I can't reach all the stuff that's blocking up the piping all the way from my sink to the sewer so I will still have to put some drain opener down to get it running well. But -- here's the best part -- it doesn't leak! My brother actually went to the garage and found a roll of plumber's tape for me. A little bit of that on the threads and the pipes keep all the water in like a champ.

So I am no longer afraid of unclogging my sink for fear that it will start leaking again. And I satisfied myself that I do have enough plumbing skills to do some simple home repairs.

If anyone needs a P-trap installed, I will work for chocolate cake...

Ha!

2008-10-25T10:41:00.001-06:00

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hwFew2vQ69x6-RFPFXQPyPFCceGgD93RQIM81

If only...

2008-10-25T10:13:00.000-06:00

Have you ever had the experience where you were calling someone and hoping that you wouldn't actually talk to them but just get the voice mail? I definitely feel this way sometimes... maybe it's because you have a little bit of bad news, you are turning down an invitation to do something and you don't want to get talked out of it, or you don't have a lot of time to talk and just want to deliver the message without a full conversation. I think it would be so great if somehow you could call someone but then press a button that allowed you to go straight to voice mail instead of actually ringing their phone.

So why do we make calls when we don't actually want to talk to someone? I guess it's sort of a tug-of-war between our desire to deliver some message (out of a sense of duty? something we need to get done even though we don't want to?) and our desire to not talk to someone (because we want more freedom with our time? because we want to save face while delivering bad news?).

Now, it is true that through my voice mail system I can send voice messages to others... but it only works if that person happens to be on the same voice mail system as me, meaning we have the same phone company. Otherwise I get a message that the voice mail could not be delivered.

What would be some messages that we would rather deliver by voice mail only? Here are some possibilities:
"After putting some thought into it, I've decided not to accept your proposal of marriage."
"Remember the car? I mean, the car we used to have?"
"Just to let you know, the cops are on the way to your house..."

People You May Know

2008-10-19T23:06:00.000-06:00

All you Facebook users out there are probably familiar with a new feature that Facebook introduced this fall or so called "People You May Know". Based on your characteristics (and probably mutual friends and stuff) it presents you with the names and pictures of other Facebook users that you might know, in case you want to become friends with them.

I have to say that I actually have found some Facebook friends through People You May Know. Often people I actually do know will show up in my People You May Know just after they join Facebook. But, I have a true confession: there are some people on my People You May Know who I "know", but am not friends with.

I think just about everybody has slightly different criteria for how they choose to "make friends" on Facebook with someone. Just about all of my Facebook friends are people I have some honest-to-goodness real-life connection to, and I have met all but maybe two in person. And I'm pretty good at finding friends for myself. Which means that the people who come up for me in People You May Know generally fall into one of three categories:
1. Friends of my friends that I don't know
2. People that went to the same school as I did
3. Brothers and sisters of my friends

So for me, People You May Know is often more like "People You May Know Of". I might have seen the guy at church, but never talked to him. Or I might have waved at my friend's little sister one time as I visited their house back in high school. For me, these aren't quite enough reason to make Facebook friends with someone.

So no offense, but if I haven't actually talked to you before and stuff, and you come up in People You May Know, I'm probably not going to add you, even if I know who you are. But feel free to add me if you know who I am... mutual recognition is a good enough reason to add. :)

Why does Facebook have People You May Know? My theory is that Facebook wants people to have more friends, because that will make them more interested in the site, which will make them want to spend more time on the site, which will make them ultimately view more advertising. So, in an indirect way, People You May Know is good for Facebook's pocketbook. You can't begrudge them that.

How to rip DVDs and play them on your Palm Tungsten E2

2008-10-16T22:35:00.009-06:00

I've had the E2 for a few years now but I've never tried to play video on it until today.

After reading the information on the support forums on the Palm website and unsuccessfully trying to follow their instructions to get the video to play on the built-in player, here is my advice about what to do to rip a DVD and play it on your Tungsten E2.

1. Rip the DVD using whatever software you happen to have, or Free DVD Ripper. I ripped files into avi format.
2. Convert the file to the right size and resolution using Windows Movie Maker.
3. Copy the result to your SD card using your SD card reader.
4. Install TCPMP on your Palm.
5. Use TCPMP to play the video file.

It might be possible to convert the file directly to the right size and resolution using the DVD ripping program, which would allow you to skip step 2 as long as you put the file into a format that TCPMP will play (which shouldn't be too hard). I'm looking forward to bringing my own handheld video to watch on my next airplane flight or something like that. Please do not violate copyright laws.

I also found this article very informative:
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/editorials/DVD-to_PDA-ripping.htm

Wow!

2008-10-15T22:34:00.001-06:00

I just found out about this place called The Organ Loft, soon to be called Edison Street. It's a club that sometimes hosts dinner and dances, and sometimes hosts silent movies with accompaniment on their own organ! I can't believe I never heard of this before today! Who wants to come?
http://www.organloftslc.com/faces/template/t_movies.faces

An interesting article my coworker passed on about language learning

2008-10-15T13:52:00.001-06:00

http://tigerweekly.com/article/10-15-2008/9462

Window shopping.

2008-10-14T23:22:00.006-06:00

I don't know if it's the time of year, or some internal clock that tells me it's time to buy some new technology, but I've developed a hankering to increase my computing/online power lately. The old Inspiron laptop is about 4 years old now, and still running quite well, but not perfect, and I know that it won't last forever. At the pretty cheap prices of some things I have been considering lately, I could easily see myself buying something new before the end of the school year.

Here are the options I'm considering:
Option 1: A sublaptop computer
Mini laptops like the Acer Aspire One and Dell Inspiron Mini are all the rage right now. I first saw one in the hand of one of my former students a few months ago, and instantly fell in love with the idea of having an actual laptop computer in a size that would allow me to carry it anywhere. These mini machines also have flash memory instead of a hard drive, meaning that there are less mechanical parts to worry about and they boot faster than a larger computer. Also, they are super affordable right now, starting at prices around $350.

I think if I went with this option, I would want to get a machine that could basically replace my current laptop and be a step up in computing power, meaning that I would most likely want to upgrade RAM upon purchase to at least 1 GB and buy an external DVD-ROM drive.

Pros: Lots of power packed into a small size.
Cons: A significant chunk of change.

Option 2: A Wi-Fi card for my PDA
I already have a Palm Tungsten E2, so why not upgrade it with a Wi-Fi card to make it possible for me to surf the net with a device I already carry around?

Pros: Increased functionality in a device I already carry around. Not as much need to bring a computer with me. Not very expensive. (I think a card would be something like $75.)
Cons: I've had the Tungsten for a couple of years now. It could do some basic browsing and document editing, but I'd still have to use my semi-aging laptop for more serious computing tasks.

Option 3: A Blackberry-type phone
What about upgrading my cell phone to a model that includes browsing capability? Today's smart phones could replace a lot of functions of my computer and PDA in one shot.

Pros: Again, portability. Being able to access the Internet just about anywhere. Coolness factor.
Cons: Pricey! And I'm not sure if I love the idea of surfing the web on THAT tiny of a screen.

So I haven't yet decided what to do, nor have I allocated money for whatever the purchase turns out to be. But it occurs to me that I might want to take advantage of educational pricing while it is available, however that turns out. Any ideas?

You know you're a linguist when...

2008-10-10T19:07:00.003-06:00

Tonight on my drive home I saw a cat in my neighborhood.
That got me thinking about the cat we used to have.
We called her "Kitty" (original name, I know, but there's a story behind it), and she also had a variety of nicknames, one of which was "Kissy". Although it is obviously related to the generic nickname "kitty", I have noticed that it doesn't feel right to use "Kissy" with other cats; that name belongs more to her.
Then I started thinking about the phonological derivation of "Kissy" from "Kitty".
By the time I got home, I had realized that it was a simple change of manner of articulation, changing the alveolar flap in "Kitty" to an alveolar fricative.
You know you're a linguist when you discover the phonological rule by which you made your cat's nickname.
By the way, we also used to call the cat "Kiss", which is obviously just a deleted version of "Kissy"...

What not to say when your friend tells you they're in a relationship

2008-10-02T15:21:00.002-06:00

There are polite phrases for many situations in life. For example, if someone gives you a cookie, the appropriate thing to do is say, "Thank you." If someone is having a new baby, the appropriate thing is to congratulate them.

But what about when your friend announces that he/she has just started a relationship with someone special? Society and etiquette books don't seem to have an approved, polite phrase to say in that situation, so you're on your own.

Just to help you out, here are some phrases that are completely appropriate in some situations, but NOT when your friend tells you they're seeing someone...
"Knock yourself out!"
"Thank you."
"I love you, too."
"I'm sorry for your loss."

Just a word to the wise.

The newest in language learning.

2008-09-24T21:25:00.000-06:00

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/29639324.html

I just don't get it

2008-09-16T23:25:00.003-06:00

How does Dolly Parton play the guitar with those super-long fingernails? If you watch her, you can see that she's really playing, not just moving her hands around like they do sometimes on TV. But if I had fingernails like that and I tried to play, I wouldn't be able to get the fingers in the right position to make the notes sound right. Maybe her playing-with-long-fingernail talent is one explanation for why she has been so popular for so long.

So true.

2008-09-13T21:00:00.001-06:00

These two graphs in particular just hit me the right way:
http://graphjam.com/2008/09/10/song-chart-memes-google-chrome/
http://graphjam.com/2008/09/11/song-chart-memes-authoring-report-in-microsoft-word/

A little investigation

2008-09-06T17:44:00.000-06:00

I had the idea to do this a little while ago so I decided to do it this morning. Basically what I have done is, in graphical form, figure out the amount of pages spent on certain amounts of time in the Book of Mormon. It is my suspicion that the time periods on which the Book of Mormon spends more writing are important time periods to study.

Here's how I did it: I made a spreadsheet that contained one data point for each page in the Book of Mormon. I went through the book and typed in the year at the bottom of each page. When more than one year was featured on a page, I always used the latest year available on that page. Then I graphed the results. The following graph, therefore, shows the amount of pages spent on each time period in the Book of Mormon.

It should be noted that some of the years in the Book of Mormon are estimated, while some are exact calculations. Also, Ether does not have any years listed at the bottom of the page; basically all of the events in the Book of Ether happened before the rest of the Book of Mormon did. This is the reason for the blank area in the graph between pages 487 and 517. Years B.C. were plotted as negative numbers and years A.D. were plotted as positive numbers.

Click on the image below to see the graph in larger form.

The graph slopes upward, which means that the general organization of accounts in the Book of Mormon is from earlier to later, with a few exceptions. I also notice that the graph is made of a number of relatively flat areas, meaning that the book focuses on one time period for some pages, then quickly moves to focusing on another time period.

To show how much the Book of Mormon focuses on one time period and then jumps to another period of focus, look at the following graph. In this graph, I plotted the difference in amount of years between the previous page and the current page. Therefore, pages that cover a large amount of time have points on the graph that are far from 0 and pages that cover a short amount of time have points closer to 0. Again, please click on the image below to see the graph in more detail.

In this graph we can see that the line sticks mostly close to the 0 point, meaning that the Book of Mormon, page-by-page, has the trend of covering with more depth certain periods of time, and then quickly moving to cover another period of time in focus.

To me this shows just how carefully the prophets Mormon and Moroni selected the material they were going to put into the Book of Mormon. They focused mostly on the events that they thought were most important, not giving much attention to the information in between. I actually didn't expect this graph to be as flat as it is, so this shows me that it is important to focus on the teachings of the entire book.

Google Chrome: my two cents

2008-09-05T21:33:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Linden's heads-up, I learned about Google Chrome and downloaded it pretty soon after it became available.

If you don't want to read the rest of my review, here's the short version: Chrome is great, but I'm not quite ready to give up Firefox completely just yet.

The pros of Google Chrome:
The promises are true. I tried it out on a couple of pages that usually take a long time to load and they loaded SIGNIFICANTLY faster.
Also, when one tab crashes, it doesn't take the whole computer down with it. Just close the tab and pretty soon the memory will catch up and everything will be fine. Pretty sweet.
I am relieved to see that it loads the website that I work for as designed. So I don't have to do any redesigning for now. Phew!
The developers of Google Chrome rightly realized that tabs belong at the top of the window and the overall look is well-designed, if spartan.

The cons of Google Chrome:
It's the little things. For one thing, I miss the "Undo Close Tab" choice that comes up when you right-click on the tabs in Firefox. I use that all the time.
Also (and this might be a remnant of my days of being a Windows 3.11 user) I often close windows by double-clicking on the icon in the upper left corner. Since Chrome hides this icon you can't close the window that way. I find myself doing a little "oh yeah" and moving the mouse over to the right side of the window to click on the X.
I have actually seen it load one page wrong, but that's not actually a big deal, since this page doesn't work all that well in Firefox either. (I know a lot of people use Internet Exploder, but tsk tsk.)
Unfortunately, the memory savings aren't enough to allow me to load ALL the tabs I want at the same time. But this has a lot to do with the fact that the old Inspiron laptop isn't as young as it used to be.
Shockwave player doesn't seem to work perfectly in Chrome. Not sure if this is a Chrome problem or a Shockwave problem.

So, in summary, I like Chrome, and it's already got a place in my Quick Launch. But I haven't found that I could switch over to Chrome exclusively yet. I still have to use Firefox and *gulp* even IE for some tasks.

For perhaps the first time ever...

2008-08-31T23:55:00.000-06:00

... I find myself with basically nothing to say. I keep thinking about what I am going to write next on this blog and I don't really have much to contribute at this time. The past few days I've been fighting loneliness. I have rediscovered just how long the hours can be when you are lonely. At this point in my life I feel like the people I need, want and miss are basically inaccessible, because of either geography or timing. But I've also found myself clinging to beautiful promises, finding perspective and getting a bit of hope. These are cycles that repeat, sometimes in a matter of minutes. But honestly, all's well. It's kind of telling that I have so much freedom and so many resources that I have time to sit around and worry about the future. Many people on this earth don't have that luxury.

So keep those prayers going on my behalf and keep the e-mails and text messages coming my way. And, most of all, your presence, if possible.

Covers

2008-08-23T14:03:00.004-06:00

The following is a message from the ww opinion system.
*stepping onto soapbox*

It seems to me that most covers are pointless. The kind of cover I'm talking about is when someone re-records their version of a song. For example, the Carpenters did a cover of the Beatles' "Please Mr. Postman". The practice of covering is certainly not new, but it seems like these days there are more covers than ever.

Why do I think they are pointless? Because, in many cases, the cover doesn't add anything new to the artistic expression in the song. It seems like it's just an excuse to make money off a song that they didn't have to write themselves. For example, No Doubt's version of Talk Talk's "It's My Life" is basically the exact same as the original arrangement, except for a girl is singing instead of a guy. Likewise, Smashing Pumpkins' version of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" is, as far as I can tell, exactly like the original, except a guy is singing instead of a girl.

I remember asking my friends on Facebook what they thought of covers, and one of the responses that I got was like this: "I don't mind covers, as long as they stay true to the original vision of the artist and pay appropriate homage to them." I really couldn't disagree more. If you respect the original musician that much, why not let that person's version stand as the definitive version of the song? I have no doubt that it was her admiration for the excellent songwriting skills of Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot that caused Sarah McLachlan to cover "Blue" and "Song for a Winter's Night", but her arrangements, while layered with ephemeral voices, don't really add anything new to the song. The only relative consolation I feel about these kind of covers is that at least the original author of the song is hopefully getting some additional royalties to reward them for their excellent songwriting in the first place.

There is an occasional cover that is a completely different artistic interpretation of the song in question. I have no problem with these reinterpretations. For example, "Mad World", as performed by Michael Andrews, gives a completely different feel than the original Tears for Fears version. And there are certain good songwriters who are such bad singers that they beg to be covered: Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, to name a couple. There are great songwriters like Burt Bacharach who rarely perform their own songs but purposely write them to be performed by someone else. But Counting Crows and Amy Grant seemed to leave something out when they covered Joni Mitchell's playfully sarcastically serious version of her "Big Yellow Taxi".

This is my general message to those musicians who want to make a quick buck by covering a good song that was written and performed by someone else: it would be much better if you made your money off of your own creativity instead of someone else's.

And don't even get me started on remakes of movies.

*stepping off of soapbox*
You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.

I am SO entertained by this

2008-08-21T22:54:00.011-06:00

I just used the site yearbookyourself.com to create some pictures of what I might look like in yearbook photos from different years. Here are some of the best ones:

1952

1960
(I think I look a lot like my grandma in this one.)

1992

1994
(As I recall, my actual hairstyle in that era wasn't all that different.)

I just have one thing to say about this: BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

What?

2008-08-21T21:43:00.001-06:00

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=4070673

Road trip update.

2008-08-19T23:48:00.002-06:00

I accomplished my goal of going to the following places this weekend:
Logan, UT
Idaho Falls, ID
Jackson, WY

The following places were added to the list for future visits:
Logan, UT
Alpine, WY
Oregon

Here are some examples of the amazing views I had the past couple of days.

Next direction: South, I think. :)

I've got the fever and I don't want a cure

2008-08-15T21:03:00.003-06:00

Travel fever. I have it. Bad. Every time I learn that I know someone in a place that I haven't been before (or lately) I want to visit them. The more friends I make, the more traveling I want to do. Here are some places on my list, ranked in order of how soon I want to go there...

Logan, UT
Idaho Falls, ID
Jackson, WY
Ivins, UT
Tempe, AZ
Houston, TX
Eagle, ID

and some destinations that are a little more removed...

Czech Republic
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Fort Frances, Ontario
Laie, HI
Trinidad
Venezuela
Argentina
Mexico City, Mexico

I guess that's good for starters... :)

"The grass is always greener..."

2008-08-11T21:58:00.000-06:00

Is that true? Because the grass on the other side of the fence looks pretty good right now... *sigh*.

Postlude

2008-08-10T21:05:00.000-06:00

Today I sang a solo in church and I tried to use the principles that I learned in Vocal Beauty Boot Camp. Lots of people came up to me after the meeting and told me that they had enjoyed the musical number and that it was beautiful. I sang "Guide Me to Thee", which I knew very well after having sung it all week at the camp. My father had attended the meeting just to hear me sing and said that some of the notes that I sang were just "transporting". That's a high compliment coming from him. Thanks, Vocal Beauty Boot Camp, for helping me to bring beautiful music into the church setting. While my performance was inconsistent in applying the new principles I have learned, I did a better job than I would have done, and apparently people enjoyed the performance. I certainly hope that the performance helped to invite the presence of the Holy Ghost into the meeting.

Vocal Beauty Boot Camp: Day Four

2008-08-09T00:30:00.000-06:00

Today in Vocal Beauty Boot Camp I finally learned how to get a legato line with my breath support. Unfortunately my abdominal muscles were so tired that they didn't really hold out through the afternoon as much as I would have liked. But I feel happy with the improvements I was able to make in the quality of my squillo. Overall I am happy with what I have learned about breath support, legato line, vibrato, and squillo. It remains for me to make my placements very consistent so I can have good intonation all the time and for me to find the absolute best ways to pronounce vowels. I think I am going to give my abs a break tomorrow so I will hopefully be able to sing well when I sing a solo in sacrament meeting on Sunday. Fortunately, I'm singing one of the pieces that we practiced in Boot Camp so I know it VERY well. People were very tired today after having the intensive boot camp classes plus not getting much sleep in the dorms so today was a more laid-back day, but we also heard some of the best singing of the entire camp from just about everyone. We also discussed how we can share what we have learned about beautiful singing with others, such as ward choirs.

The people at Vocal Beauty Boot Camp really jelled over the course of the short period of the boot camp. Today a group of us all had lunch together at the Museum Cafe and we talked about our favorite hymns and really had a good time. Apparently the instant friendship between me and Shelley was noticeable enough that someone else at boot camp asked her how we know each other; we only met on Tuesday just like everyone else. At the end of the day we took pictures with our "cocktail" faces and some of the people had the brilliant idea to get some cards for our teachers and accompanist, along with a beautiful bouquet for the accompanist. There were hugs and I received a couple of invitations to stay with people when I visit their hometowns. Afterwards I went back with Shelley as she got her stuff together and she drove me to my car, where we said goodbye with hugs and ideas about when we can see each other again.

Vocal Beauty Boot Camp is a really intense experience and I'm not sure that I could realistically do it for a longer time; a lot of stuff in my life has been put on the back burner while I was doing it. But at the same time I wish it lasted a little longer. It is nice to have an excuse to lay many of my responsibilities aside for a while. I would love to have a longer time to work on my vocal technique and improve my singing, and also I would love a little longer time to spend with the wonderful people who attended the boot camp.

Vocal Beauty Boot Camp: Day Three

2008-08-07T22:51:00.003-06:00

I was a little frustrated through much of day two until the little glimmer of hope I got near the end, but day three was great. In the morning I tried holding my tongue down while making the "fruit cocktail" face and it was pretty successful. I was able to get some "ring" into my sound by really stretching the cheeks up to lift the velum. In the afternoon we just stood around and mostly listened to each other sing and it was so great to hear such beautiful and pleasant sounds that were coming out of people. Everyone -- everyone -- has made progress. Not only are all the individuals in the group making progress, but we are also happy for each other's progress. On many occasions during the class today we broke out in applause and cheers for our classmates when they got something that they had been trying to do. I'm really excited for day four, but I also wish that the boot camp weren't quite over. I'd like to continue the opportunities to make progress! I finally feel that I'm starting to figure out the basic interactions between breath and the openness of the vocal tract -- I need more time to refine my vowel pronunciation and confirm what I have been practicing.

Tonight the boot camp participants along with participants in some other music conferences at BYU went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We attended a rehearsal of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and we got to sit in the choir seats with the choir and sing along with them a bit. They didn't anticipate as many of us as there were so some of us sat in extra chairs that they put out around the conductor, which actually gave us a pretty good view of things.

While I was waiting for my friends to show up at Temple Square on the bus, I took a few pictures of myself. This is a portrait of me making the "fruit cocktail" face that I make now when I am singing.

I'm going to be sad when boot camp is over.

Vocal Beauty Boot Camp: Day Two

2008-08-06T21:41:00.002-06:00

Today in vocal beauty boot camp was intense. The trust among the participants is growing, as is the vocal beauty of the group. Spirits were high this morning as we heard some increasingly beautiful sounds coming from some of our classmates during the morning video-recording session. (I was going to be up next, but then we sort of ran out of time.) Apparently the room we were in needed to be worked on in the afternoon so we transferred to another room, which I actually liked a little better; it was a little bit of a better size for our group. During the breakout sessions in the afternoon at one point three different people were shedding tears at the same time. I had some hope when Dr. Robison promised me that my voice would blossom like others when I got the pharyngeal openness right. He had me speaking the words to the song in a dramatic, spooky voice to teach me what to do. In fact, he wouldn't allow me to sing at that point because every time I tried to sing it I was closing up, but I would stay open when I was speaking dramatically. Anyone who was observing from outside wouldn't know what was going on. By the end of the day, Dr. Robison asked if we could offer a closing prayer to give thanks for the things that had happened. There truly were some great changes today. In fact, at one point a woman started singing behind me, and I had to turn around to find out who it was because her voice was so different (and gorgeous!).

I didn't stay for the hymn sing they had tonight; I just went home. I expected the Utah County rush-hour traffic to be pretty crowded but it wasn't very bad. I felt pretty good when I got home, but also a little tired. I came home and started reading the scriptures, then fell asleep for quite a while. I think I'm going to need a good night's sleep to be ready for boot camp tomorrow.

A few more gems that I learned today:
Being like a little child. Little babies, when they are learning to walk, don't just get frustrated and give up if they can't do it the first time, nor do they give up if they fall down after they walk a little bit. They just keep going forward. We adults can be the same way. In boot camp, for example, people get it sometimes and lose it other times. Instead of being frustrated about the loss, we should look at the potential we have and keep moving forward. Likewise, when we sin, our attitude should be one of moving forward and trying for better, instead of repeatedly wallowing in past sins.
Worshiping through hymns. Since hymns are a form of prayer, it is "vain repetition" if we sing hymns without bringing out the sacred meaning of the words. Adding the meaning makes the hymn much more beautiful, exciting, touching, and musical, for both the performer and the audience.
Why am I doing this? As I look inside myself and look at my motivations for attending Vocal Beauty Boot Camp, I have to admit that my motives may not be entirely unselfish. I am well-known in my ward as the person that everyone can hear in sacrament meeting, because my voice carries over the singing of the congregation. But at vocal beauty boot camp I have discovered that I have a lot of work to do to reach my full potential. I'm afraid that if my goal is to get more acclaim and attention by improving my singing, the improvements probably won't come in the way I want. If my motives are more pure and I desire to sing beautifully because I want to worship and help others worship, I think I will be more blessed with the improvement I want. So I must make sure that my intentions are appropriate if I want to sing very beautifully.

Vocal Beauty Boot Camp: Day One

2008-08-05T22:55:00.001-06:00

When the alarm went off at 6:30, I wasn't particularly excited about getting right up, especially since I hadn't really gotten to sleep until around 12:30 or 1:00 the night before. (Serves me right for not memorizing my pieces earlier!) But anyway I did get up after pressing the snooze a few times and got ready pretty quickly, telling myself that, as long as I got there during the registration period from 8:00-9:00 I would be fine. I parked in Lot 49 of the BYU campus as instructed, which is kind of way over on the side by the stadium and the Marriott Center, and walked to the Harris Fine Arts building, near the north side of campus.

The building had quite a few people and a lot of energy going on because there is an organ workshop going on at the same time as Vocal Beauty Boot Camp. I checked in, where I got my official BYU water bottle (it's green, by the way) and my folder of information about the camp.

The name boot camp is an okay description of the intensity of the experience, but not necessarily the overall tone. Dr. Robison warned us that he can be exacting at times, but he actually makes corrections in such a sincere way that they never seemed to me to be over the top or offensive. The morning session consisted of some warm-up and then each of us took turns singing in front of the class with Dr. Robison. There was a video camera to the side of us and a TV in front of us, so that during each of our turns, we could see ourselves on the video screen. Watching ourselves while singing is an important part of the learning process. Also they recorded each of the sessions on our personal videotape so we can watch ourselves later and learn from that. As others are singing, we are supposed to pay attention to what is happening with them and learn from it as well. During each person's turn, Dr. Robison stands near and makes comments or corrections if he thinks it will help. After lunch in the afternoon we had a breakout session with our TA, Jason. During this session, we did a lot of singing as a group and also worked again with the video camera. The closing session of the afternoon was all of us working together again with Dr. Robison singing together as a group. Sometimes he would indicate that one person was to sing alone and we would all listen, then usually on the next verse we would all join in again.

Today I learned some things that have already made some major improvements in my singing. The first one is the proper position of my chest. I learned to lift my chest but later on today I learned to lift it even more. Then I learned about the breath energy that is coming from the lower abdomen. Finally today, I learned the importance of relaxing my jaw instead of closing it in the upper range so that I can use my breath equally through the head voice as well as the chest voice. When I got home tonight I watched my video and learned even more about just what a difference those adjustments made. I'm excited to retain those as habits and build on it from there. This was just day one; I am looking forward to what will be happening on day four!

Tonight we had an optional conducting class where we learned some principles behind getting a choir or congregation to add expression and musicality to music. This was done through a number of unconventional activities, such as mirroring the movements of a partner and also singing while we were performing a number of unconventional body movements. It seems fruity, but it got the point across. Dr. Robison's teaching methods remind me of the teaching methods of a professor in my department who is often criticized for being unconventional: it seems that students either love him or hate him. Dr. Robison allows the students to teach themselves through experiencing and observing, only "getting in the way" when necessary.

Before I made the postural adjustments that I made today, I would normally have a very tired voice after the amount and strength of singing I did today. But lifting my chest into the right position helped me to feel so much freer and makes my breathing easier and my singing more comfortable. At the end of the day I felt like I could sing a lot more.

The day was made that much more special by the lunch that I shared with my good friend R. Believe it or not, although we have exchanged e-mail and even talked on the phone we haven't actually seen each other in about two years. Unfortunately my lunch time was restricted to an hour but it was really great to see her.

Vocal Beauty Boot Camp: The Night Before

2008-08-04T22:25:00.002-06:00

A few people have expressed interest in finding out about my experiences about Vocal Beauty Boot Camp. For those who don't know, VBBC is a four-day program where a group of people learns to sing beautifully. It's basically like a four-day group voice lesson, held at Brigham Young University. It is administered out of the division of continuing education, which means that anyone can register.

I first heard about VBBC when I saw the program called "Beautiful Singing: Not Just for the Chosen" on BYU-TV. It's a short program that is designed to demonstrate the principles of beautiful singing, as shown in the improvement of the students at the camp. I really enjoyed the program and wished I could go to the camp. However, shortly after I found out about it, I learned that the main professor, Clayne Robison, would be going on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his wife, and therefore would not be holding the camp that year. I was sad to think that I had missed my chance. Therefore, when I found out that Prof. Robison is offering the camp again this year, I signed up.

There were a number of assignments that I had to prepare in order to attend the Vocal Beauty Boot Camp this year. Here they are:
1. Watch the program "Beautiful Singing: Not Just for the Chosen".
Well, I'd seen this program at least three or four times already on BYU-TV, but I decided to watch it again with the perspective of preparing to go to the camp. It was pretty fun to look at what they were doing on the video and say to myself, "That's gonna be me!" By the way, the DVD is available at the Salt Lake City Library.
2. Read the book Beautiful Singing: "Mind Warp Moments".
This was an interesting book. It is actually a collection of pretty disjointed chapters. If I had to summarize the book, I would say it's basically everything that Clayne Robison has to say on just about any subject. It includes autobiography, scientific studies of vocal acoustics, voice pedagogy, spirituality and even a discussion of the relationships among the voice faculty at Brigham Young University.
3. Memorize and prepare to sing the following songs from the collection Sabbath Song II: "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty", "Guide Me to Thee", and "Weepin' Mary".
This is an assignment that I unfortunately put off until tonight. It's a good thing that I have at least heard all of these pieces before. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only arrangement of "Weepin' Mary" that I've heard before is the one that I will be singing. I started with "Guide Me to Thee" because I thought it would be relatively easier than "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" but actually it took me much longer to work on that one. I think it's because the words of the latter are more familiar, I guess. Both are in the hymnbook that we use at church but I suppose I hear/sing "Praise to the Lord" more often. All of the arrangements are relatively simple, but all also have quirks like different rhythm or key changes that you have to be careful about. The book is supplemented with a CD of the accompaniments to all songs in the book so you can practice singing along with the CD. This is helpful. Perhaps needless to say, my memorization of the words of the pieces is still pretty shaky. "Weepin' Mary"'s words are the easiest because there is only one line that is different in each of the verses. I ripped the three tracks from the CD and put them on the memory card on my phone so I can practice them on the drive down to BYU tomorrow. So if you hear about a Corolla that caused a wreck on southbound I-15 tomorrow because the driver was distracted, that would be me. :S

Here are some questions you might be asking about my boot camp experience:
Are you going to stay in Provo the whole time?
No, I am going to drive back and forth. I know that with today's gas prices, a 45-minute to one-hour commute to and again from BYU every day isn't going to be light on the wallet, but I'd much rather sleep in my own bed than in some BYU dorm or on one of my friends' floors for three nights.
How long does the boot camp last?
Four days, Tuesday through Friday, August 5-8. The boot camp is 9:00-5:00 on all these days, but tomorrow there is registration/breakfast at 8:00 that I will have to show up to. We get a lunch break from 12:00 to 12:55. Also I am allowed to go to a conducting workshop on Tuesday night, a hymn-sing on Wednesday night, and a field trip to a Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal on Thursday night. So far the conducting workshop is the only one that I think I will attend.
Where can I see videos of what happens at Vocal Beauty Boot Camp?
As already mentioned, you can see the program "Beautiful Singing: Not Just for the Chosen", which is available on DVD. Also, on Prof. Robison's website, beautifulsinging.com, you can see a few interesting videos that appeal to both the musician and the phonetician in me.
How much did you pay to attend Vocal Beauty Boot Camp?
Tuition was $325, plus I bought copies of the two books mentioned above. I kind of doubt that I'll get my act together to pack a lunch or dinner tomorrow either, so I guess I'll be buying some kind of fast food at the BYU campus.
How much money to you have in your checking account now?
Let's just say I'm gonna have to be careful when I put gas in my car to make sure I have enough for lunch tomorrow too. But it's gonna be worth it. And I think I'm getting paid tomorrow, or if not then then hopefully in a couple of days.

I plan to post about my activities at Vocal Beauty Boot Camp every night after the day's learning. If I understand correctly, each student will get a video copy of his/her progress in the boot camp. Awesome.

Small world.

2008-07-28T19:58:00.001-06:00

When I was a kid I used to be kind of irritated with people who would ask if I knew someone. Like if they found out where I lived, "Oh, you're from Holladay? Do you know Dick Dickson, my cousin in Holladay?" I thought like it was annoying to ask those questions because of course I wouldn't know them. But now I realize sometimes I do.

I guess Stanley Milgram was the first to try to document the smallness of the world with his experiment that I first heard about in my intro to sociology class. In Milgram's experiment, it was found that, on average, for the people who he was able to track, there was an average of six people between the original person involved and the target person.

Now there is a new way to quantify the "small world" phenomenon: Mutual Friends.

Those who are already on Facebook are likely aware that there is a feature on Facebook called Mutual Friends. When you look at someone's Facebook profile, if you have Facebook friends in common with that person, those people will be displayed in Mutual Friends. Sometimes I am quite surprised by the number of Mutual Friends I have with someone on Facebook. It sometimes leads to those moments where you say something like, "*gasp* HE knows HER?"

For example:

My friend's mission companion is friends with my other friend's former visiting teaching companion.
A girl that served in the same mission with me is friends with the cousin of a girl who grew up in my neighborhood (who also happens to have worked at the English school where one of my fellow students used to work). Oh and by the way this same cousin knows my piano teacher and a professor on my Ph.D. committee.
A girl from my German class knows a whole bunch of people from my former singles' ward.
The guy my friend used to date is friends with my former stake president's daughter.
My mom's secretary is friends with a girl that used to sing in the same choir with me.
A guy I kind-of-sort-of went out with one time is friends with a guy I knew in high school.

It truly is a small world after all.

Extreme makeover

2008-07-25T00:49:00.000-06:00

I have to admit that I am not immune to the guilty pleasure of watching reality shows. In fact, there are some reality shows that I find educational, such as nanny shows where nannies teach parenting skills. But there is one problem with the basic premise behind many reality shows, and that is the concept of the "extreme makeover".

On many reality shows, the basic premise is that, if something is wrong in your life, your life will be instantly better if you just get a makeover, new house, and/or plastic surgery. That is, if things look better, they must be better.

I recently saw a reality show called "Clean House" where the people featured won a contest for the messiest house in America. The people from the show came in to help them clean up their house, hosted a yard sale, and remodeled the house for them, leaving them with a lot less clutter, a new paint job and nice furnishings. But I couldn't help but wonder if it was really going to work for the people. As the show's hosts maneuvered through the incredibly cluttered and dirty house, they revealed that the cause for this couple's incredible amount of clutter was that they were both depressed: he was depressed because he had been injured and was not able to work as a firefighter, and she was depressed because she was not able to have children. The irony, of course, is that in its condition, their house wouldn't have been healthy for children anyway. The "Clean House" team did a great job remodeling and redesigning their living space, but I couldn't help but wonder if the extra assistance they got was enough to help them get over the hump. If their psychological situation was the cause for them to collect so much clutter and dirt, getting a new paint job and living room chairs might not cut it in the long term.

The ultimate bad example of this phenomenon is the show "Extreme Makeover". In this show, they take people who have poor body image and give them plastic surgery, personal training, a new hairstyle, new clothing, and new makeup. Of course they are thrilled, but does this really solve their problems? It seems to me that it actually just reinforces their belief that they aren't worthwhile because of their appearance. So over the long term, it can actually make the problem worse, can't it? We have all heard of people who are "addicted" to plastic surgery; no matter how "beautiful" they look, they can't shake their poor self-worth and poor body image. So they pursue it by getting more plastic surgery, and so forth, never satisfied because they are trying to address their need in the wrong way.

Personally I understand the power of using confidence in your looks to help you out when you're not feeling too great about things. Sometimes a new hairstyle or some makeup can really give you the extra umph you need to fake it until you make it in a difficult situation. But overall quick fixes are not the ultimate solution to a lack of self-worth.

I don't agree with the message that such television shows are sending that making your house, wardrobe, makeup or skin beautiful in appearance is going to make you happy. It seems to me that it's almost the other way around: if you feel a sense of self-worth, you'll improve your appearance and environment.

Here's an article on a related topic that I found through a Google search.

It's nice to know that Dear Abby is on our side.

2008-07-23T17:55:00.001-06:00

Today's Dear Abby column features a situation where Abby doesn't fall for the argument of a would-be linguistic prescriptivist.

Army worms

2008-07-22T23:12:00.000-06:00

When I was living in Fort Frances, Ontario, several years ago I was introduced to the species of caterpillar known as "army worms". Actually, the true name is tent caterpillar. It's my understanding that they have this name because when they make a cocoon, they do it by folding a leaf over and sealing the edge with silk, so they are inside a little "tent". I'm guessing people call them army worms because they were EVERYWHERE, and because they are often seen "marching" in the same direction.

Apparently the population of this particular insect has a cycle that waxes and wanes about every seven years. It just so happened that the spring I was living in Fort Frances was the year that these guys had their big boom. They were on the sidewalks. They were on the trees. They were on the sides of the houses. If you walked under a tree they would often drop onto you. You could see them on the road, all walking in the same direction. In a nearby town cars were sliding because there were so many of them on the road. There were a couple of days in the spring when the leaves just started to come out on the poplar trees. Two or three days later the leaves were gone because they had all been eaten. It looked like winter again.

I was pretty grossed out by the ubiquitous caterpillars and resented the fact that they were everywhere. I got pretty good at flicking them off of me when they would fall on me as we were walking down the street. Sometimes they would even manage to climb under the door frame and into our apartment.

I'm not sure how we got the idea, but we caught an army worm and kept it in a jar in our apartment for a while. We named it Walter, after my companion's boyfriend. We would look at what the other worms were eating outside and bring it leaves to eat. Over time my attitude changed toward the army worms. I came to appreciate their funky beauty. They are black with orange, blue, and yellow "footprint" marks on their backs. Pretty soon I kind of felt attached to them, especially to Walter.

Walter made a tent one day and turned into an small, ugly light-brown moth. I didn't find out his metamorphosis had completed until he had already tried to fly around the jar so much that he had beat his wings apart against the jar and died. I would have let him go outside if I had known. After seeing the pedestrian brown moth that Walter had turned into, I sort of wished that he were back to being a black colorful caterpillar again.

Here is a Wikipedia article, including a picture of what these guys look like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_tent_caterpillar
There are a few different species mentioned on Wikipedia, but this one looks the most like the way I remember them.

Claims to fame.

2008-07-21T23:42:00.002-06:00

I have sort of a mental list of all my claims to fame. Here are some examples:

My grandfather's cousin is a well-known local composer and music educator. He wrote a couple of hymns in the hymnal we use at church.

My high-school counselor's son used to be the boyfriend/drummer of Natalie Merchant.

My mother once sat next to Maurice Abravanel at a party.

I've shaken Thurl Bailey's hand.

I used to go to school with an Osmond nephew.

I knew the guy who plays the snotty blond guy in "Napoleon Dynamite" before he played the snotty blond guy. I went to high school with the girl in the glamor shot in that movie.

I also went to high school with the winner of the reality TV show "The Rebel Billionaire".

My classmate/colleague/friend will be running in the Olympics in Beijing this year.

As you can see, I'm somewhat indirectly connected to fame, but don't have any real claims on it myself. That's probably a good thing.

One thing I love about my friends

2008-07-15T23:26:00.002-06:00

They laugh at my jokes. At least the funny ones.

Seriously, though, it's nice to find someone with whom you connect on a humor level.

Things I didn't know about teachers until I became one

2008-07-13T23:11:00.004-06:00

1. Teachers are not always as confident or prepared as they may look.

2. Even when my students don't necessarily tell me what's wrong, I can tell if they are having a problem in their lives because it affects their performance in the class. A lot of times people's performance will be affected by outside circumstances that have little to do with their motivation, study habits, or intelligence.

3. I am surprised how sometimes students will share very personal details of their lives with me, things that, if it were me, I wouldn't tell someone that I didn't know that well. I appreciate their trust.

4. It's not that you are being sneaky and getting away with passing notes or sending text messages in class without us knowing about it. We know about it. We just decided not to do anything about it at the time.

It's not that I'm not patriotic...

2008-07-08T22:30:00.006-06:00

Around this time of year I sometimes get a little uncomfortable about the way some people talk about our country. Don't get me wrong: I am happy that I was born in and am a citizen of the United States. I would like to express my feelings about America and the countries of the world. I think I'll do it as a list.

1. America is a wonderful country, but it's not perfect.
I know that the United States is a unique place. Its government setup allowed for religious freedom at a crucial time in the world's history and paved the way for the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a very important thing. But, like all countries, we have social problems. Although our Constitution is established by God (D&C 101:80) it is not the perfect form of government, as I understand it. According to my reading of the Book of Mormon, the best form of government is to have a righteous king (cf. Mosiah 29:13), but since it cannot always be guaranteed that kings are righteous, a republic such as the one we have is a relatively good alternate. It bothers me when people say such things as, "If you don't like America move somewhere else," or something like that. It seems to me that the very freedom of speech that is established in our Constitution allows people the right to speak up about things they don't like and make changes in our system for the better.

2. Other countries are good too.
The United States of America is not the only country in the world where people enjoy religious freedom, freedom of speech, and other important protections. These are available in many places in the world. I have spent some serious time in Canada, the Czech Republic, and Mexico, as well as traveling in other countries, and I have never found impediments to my chosen lifestyle. While governmental policies vary from country to country, there are many places in the world where people enjoy freedom.

3. The United States of America does not exclusively contain Zion or the promised land.
The Book of Mormon also teaches that the American continent is a special place. It was a promised land for the Nephite people who left Jerusalem 600 years before Christ and crossed the sea, led by God. It is also the future location of Zion, the New Jerusalem. But the United States of America is not the only nation that participates in these important blessings. After all, the USA was not to be established for hundreds of years after the Book of Mormon took place. It seems to me that the promises extend to all the people and land of the Americas, not just U.S. territory. While the center place of Zion will be located in the area currently known as the United States, Zion is located anywhere her stakes are established. At this time there are stakes of Zion all over the world.

4. Borders are a fluid concept.
When I lived in Canada, I spent several months in Fort Frances, Ontario. Fort Frances is on one side of the border and International Falls, Minnesota, is on the other side. The border between the two countries follows the Rainy River which flows through that area. People from both sides of the border cross freely. For example, people on the Canadian side of the border would often drive over to the American side to get better gas prices. Many Americans would be found living on the Canadian side as well. If I looked out the back window of my apartment, I could see the other side of the river, but if I called the missionaries in that town, it would be an international telephone call. Living in a border town helped me to see how fluid and, in a way, unreal borders between countries are. I once saw a television show about a woman who lives in Mexico. In order to support her children, she crosses the border illegally into the United States every night to sell cigarettes she brings with her. Then she crosses back to Mexico to help her children get off to school in the morning. Obviously, for this woman, the border is not a big obstacle to her way of life. While I don't support illegal actions, I don't see borders as that important either.

It seems to me that the United States is built on a heritage of immigration and accepting people of many different origins, beliefs, and backgrounds. I wonder sometimes as we sing patriotic hymns in church, for example, whether there are people in the congregation who feel unwelcome because they are not from the United States of America. Perhaps such people feel the way I do when I sing "O Canada": I sincerely love and respect the country, and enjoyed living there. I guess I don't feel that you have to feel that your place is better than other places to be patriotic. It should be okay to like more than one country, right?

Addendum: The Wikipedia article on "O Canada" is awesome! I highly recommend that you listen to the recordings at the bottom.

The things you can learn on the Internet...

2008-07-02T23:49:00.002-06:00

This news story got my attention:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,320571,00.html

P.S. Soylent green is people.

ABCs about me

2008-06-27T22:54:00.003-06:00

I saw this on another blog and liked it. So there.

A) attached or single - single
B) best friend - well, according to my phone wallpaper, it's K
C) cake or pie - Which one is within arm's reach?
D) day - Used to be Saturday, the day I would go to the Conference Center. Now I suppose it's Sunday.
E) essential item - Something to put on my lips, and my phone if I remember it.
F) favorite color - blue
G) gummie bears or worms - bears. But I'd rather have chocolate.
H) home town - Holladay, UT
I) indulgence - Chocolate. And in the hot weather I like taking cool showers.
J) January or July - September.
K) kids - I have not borne any children myself, but I like them
L) life is incomplete without - The Book of Mormon, guitars, and dark chocolate
M) marriage date - How would I know?
N) # of siblings - 2
O) oranges or apples - oranges, because I've had a lot of bad apples. But I'm trying to learn to like them more.
P) phobias or fears - pleading the 5th on this one
Q) quote - With my memory, I'm happy to remember only a few.
R) reason to smile - My amazing recent birthday celebration
S) season - Always fall. Not only is it not too hot and not too cold, but there are beautiful colors everywhere. I always miss Winnipeg in the fall.
T) tag - Red.
U) unknown fact about me - I go through toilet paper really fast.
V) vegetarian or oppressor of animal - I don't eat a lot of meat. Usually once a day or less.
W) worst habit - see P.
X) rays or ultrasounds - random! However, thinking of x-rays makes me think of going through security at the airport, which means that I'm going on a trip somewhere, so I'll take x-rays.
Y) your favorite food - pizza
Z) Zodiac sign - Cancer, but I think that astrology is silly.

Firsts.

2008-06-17T07:54:00.003-06:00

A sampling of things I did for the first time in Europe this year:
1. See a hedgehog in the wild.
2. Go to Germany.
3. Take a shower in the dining room.
4. Ride on a subway train without a driver (at least, the driver was not on the train).
5. Consider coming back in 2009. And maybe for a while.