what I want to read.

The Hobbit. It's strange. I've had this craving to read it for a few months, but the pangs haven't been great enough for me to take any action to acquire a copy. Today, it's killing me. I must get my hands on a copy asap.

It's detrimental to ignore these sorts of urges. You could permanently damage your psyche or lose some brilliant blossom of an idea that is yet unrealized. Or so I find.

I love that book. I have the utmost respect for JRR Tolkien, and I suppose that you could call me a moderate fan of The Lord of the Rings (geekish, I know), but I'm more a fan of the brilliant author and the genius of his linguistic crafts.

I am very familiar with The Lord of the Rings books, though I've never read any of the three in their entirety. But I've read The Hobbit. I really like it. It's shorter, lighter, and more "happy" than the other three seem. I like how it's one complete story in one book, instead of a massive and complex story spread throughout three books.

It's a great adventure story and the good English it's written in along brings enough pleasure to merit a read. Anybody wanna lend me their copy?

.excerpt.
"'What do you mean?' he said. 'Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you fee good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?'" - The Hobbit

work for the weekend

I like this type of work. It's different from the rest of the week.

I've managed to do a million errands, and now I have to settle down and do homework.

:: Take an online test

:: Finish an excel assignment

:: Do paperwork for London

:: Start drafting a support letter

:: Go running

:: Finish watching Chocolat

:: Pull out my mad cleaning skills and clean up the flat

the theatre

I'm not a huge movie person. I rarely go to the theater; I go see maybe six movies a year in theaters. The last movie that I went to was Slumdog Millionare (I could write several blog posts on that movie, and it totally deserved to win Best Picture at the Oscars). But besides my obsession with Mamma Mia, I haven't really been watching anything.

So it's kind of strange that I am craving a movie night.

It's great to see new things, but, I really like a nice, familiar movie. I have been considering these two:

- Dan in Real Life

- Evening, a little-known movie with Claire Danes

- The Village

Any other suggestions?

the ipod

I am now the owner of a baby-blue 8 gigabyte ipod nano.

This might not seem news-worthy to a lot of people, but getting an ipod is a big deal for me. I have never owned one before, and I was anti-ipod for a while (philosophical reasons). I've been a proud hold-out.

Finally, I got over myself. Radio music is frustrating, and my AM station isn't working. I was actually given the money for one at Christmas but kept waiting to find what I wanted.

Finally, I saw what I wanted at the Apple store. I really like this color, and I wanted the rectangle-shaped nano, since it is larger and seemed like it would be harder to lose. And I bought a refurbished one because they are cheaper.

I just my new computer up and running now, so I'm terribly excited about getting all my files back. And new computer means itunes again, so soon little baby blue will have songs! Now if I could only find some earbuds that will fit well in my little ears.

sum up

Well it's not quite over, but here's a report of the weekend. It must have been busy, judging by the pile of clothes and unkempt bed I can see.

:: The race went well! I ran the whole thing, which was my goal. My time was 29:47.

:: The kids were great! They are so handy to have around when you need a hug or a kiss.

:: Homework was turned in, sufficiently, I hope.

:: The out-of-town guests were delightful.

I just made a plate of killer-good pasta. Except that I topped it with white sauce, it couldn't have been that bad for me. I put spinach with a bit of lemon juice on the plate and then mixed the noodles with cooked asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and pine nuts.

weekend list

It's going to be busy but good too.

:: Complete a super-confusing xhtml project for a class

:: Run my 5k

:: Take a quiz for another class

:: Have dinner with an out-of-town friend

:: Hangout with four very energetic kids

:: Do laundry, the dishes, and tidying

daily muse

If you want something to mull over today, here are some light thoughts on gender inequality and perspective on it from another part of the globe. I promise it's interesting and not a rant.


And otherwise, here's a picture to make radical feminists recoil: two of my roomies sheathed in aprons.

{L: Katie in my IKEA apron. R: the newly-become Mrs. Anna Pryor of Fancy is Free}

st patrick's prayer

Read the previous post first, or after this one. Either way, don't miss it.

A prayer, authorship generally credited to St. Patrick:

I arise today
Through a might strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayer of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightening,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today
Against poison,against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a might strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

{as appeared in Philosophizing from the Flat on May 20, 2008}

st. patrick

I'll post this now so you may be adequately prepared to observe tomorrow.

St. Patrick was not Irish. I know, bummer. Fold up the four-leaved clovers wall decorations and save the money you'd have spent on beer. Just kidding. About the beer.

I'll put some links below, so you can get the scintillating details. But here's the skinny:

He grew up in Britain and was kinapped from his village by Irishmen when he was in his teens (this was all towards the end of the fourth century). He had grown up with a strong Christian family, but by his admissions, was a rather wild kid. It was while he was in Ireland working as a slave that he grew to know God.

Years later, he escaped from Ireland. One night, he had a vision in which the Irish were calling out to him to come and work among them again, God telling him to return. Some of what happened in the time between his escape from Ireland and his return to it seem disputed by scholars. But he did return.

Patrick and his monks are largely attributed the credit for lessening the influence of the pagan worshippers and also for spreading Christianity over the island.

These give you some more of the meat: Good, better, best. Seriously, Patrick was one cool dude.

{appearing concurrently in Philosophizings from the Flat}

{spring equinox}

What is March 20th? Why, yes, it's the first day of spring.

It's the spring equinox also.

There are two solstices and two equinoxes yearly. The summer solstice seems to get the most publicity but the rest are just as cool.

Look this stuff up for your own edification, but I will tell you about the things I remember from my own research.

The equinoxes are when the days and nights are equal in length. The summer solstice is the longest day and the winter solstice is the shortest day. Of course, this is all more dramatic if you live very far from the equator, near the poles.

I can totally understand why some Scandinavian countries want to celebrate Midsummer after suffering through near darkeness for the winter months.

I do my utmost do mark all important (especially worthy, obscure) holidays. I'll let you know what plans I cook up.

Glossary of everything- linguistics

During my undergrad career, I took Introduction to Linguistics. It was fascinating. I never had realized how much about language one could study. I couldn't believe that I got to learn this stuff. I couldn't believe how unbelievably difficult it was to understand.

Seriously, we studied syntax, sematics, morphology, phonetics, phonemics, and I think one other one. The only one I could understand a little was semantics. I made it through the class respectablely enough, and scraped out with a B+, mostly thanks to a friend in the class who had been through a similar class and had a better grasp on things.

I still think linguistics rocks.

If you have never heard of the International Phonetic Alphabet, stop reading this post right now and run over and look at this chart. IPA is a chart that represents every known sound in every known language. Each symbol represents an language-sound. It's so cool.

When I was especially obsessed with my major, I started compiling all the interesting terms and concepts into this master glossary, divided up by subject matter. I made such a file for linguistics.

My computer is dead right now, and I had commandeered my out-of-town roommate's for the week (thanks, Katie! hope you don't mind!). But I stumbled across a printed out copy of my linguistic file. As a reward for reading such a long introduction here's a sampling:

Code switching- the way people change their way of speaking depending on different environments

Dialect- variation of a language (we all speak dialects)

Phonetics- the study of speech sounds; studies raw sound

Phonology- the interaction of speech sounds in an environment

Phoneme- word

Okay, that was pretty easy. Here are some of the crazier concepts.

Fricative- with friction

Diphthong- two sounds standing together as one, but is a single sound "(ex. "I")

Flap- the name of the "r" sound in the word "water"

Voiceless- vocal folds relaxed; buzzing at base of larynx, (ex. "s")

Africate- begins with complete closed vocal tract and ends with vocal turbulence, i.e. friction (ex. "judge")


Yup, linguistics for you.

the best of break

This week is my spring break. I'm not doing anything glamorous, extravagant, or stereotypical college (except for the beach one day.) I am working my normal three days at my primary job, but that's it.

I had Monday off; I'll have Friday off. I don't have classes and I don't have to work at my second job. What a great week! I'm still occupied and earning money, but I'm so relaxed. Oh, and tomorrow work will be fun because it's a staff retreat.

This is my last spring break in college.

Freshman year I went to New Orleans, LA to do relief work from Hurricane Katrina - that experience, let me tell you what.

Sophomore year, a friend and I drove up to Tennessee to stay with my best friend from high school and then to see my friend's grandparents.

Junior year, I went to Daytona Beach... (hold your breath).... to hang-out with Japanese students here on a homestay program (yeah, not what you were thinking).

This year, I catapulted into my break with a trip to Jacksonville visit some Navy friends over the weekend. And it's only Wednesday.

calvin and hobbes

Classic.

It was my favorite comic when they were still in the Sunday morning papers. Later, I got into the books. My little brother is six years younger than me, so we didn't always have common interests, but huddling over one of our books was great fun for both of us.

My old boss's two little boys are obsessed with them(and I'm pretty sure her husband still is too), and have been ever since I've known them. Before he could even read, the oldest boy would sit and roar with laughter over the illustrations.

As always, here's a great source for an overview, though I have to say you're kind of a loser if you didn't already know at least a little bit about them.

{image credit}

why I have roommates

To borrow clothes from, of course. My poor wardrobe is going to suffer greatly when our flat splits up this summer.

Anyway, someday you will see pictures of my other siblings too. However, only my older brother was the only sib at the wedding with me.

Nathan and I at Ben and Lilly's wedding to the right.

It was a perfect day for a beachside wedding.

catching up

I feel like it's been a long time, though it really hasn't. It has been a busy few days.

Friday. I worked in the morning then drove down to St. Pete with some friends for a wedding. It was a beautiful wedding on the beach. Two old friends got married. They have been dating since our junior year of school -five years. We were all delighted to finally see them take their vows.

I was too distracted enjoying everything to take many pictures, but I will see if I have one that is suitable to post.

Saturday. I ran errands and did homework then drove up to Jacksonville in the late afternoon. I have navy friends. The day ended with a backyard campfire and then my comfy sleeping bag.

Sunday. It's hard to believe all the things we managed to pack into the day. Watching the sun rise, church, the beach, dinner, and I managed to stay awake on the drive home.

Today. In a rare move, I stayed abed until ten. And now it's twelve and I'm still puttering around in my pj's and catching up on my virtual life, email and what what people have been blogging about.

I'll get moving soon. I have my 5k to get ready for, laundry and unpacking to do, taxes to file, and I really want to straighten up the flat. It's my spring break, but I'm hanging out around here, dudes.

I have London plans to start working on, my job to work, and a week with just work and no school is plenty a break. Besides, didn't you just read about how much fun that I have been having already?

I'll be back soon with more composed thoughts soon.

sights in the AM

So we've covered that I'm a morning person.

I stopped to get coffee on the way to work (don't worry; I'm keeping this splurge in good regulation) this morning and the chat I had with the girl behind the counter will probably be as amiable as any converstaion I'll have today. Seriously, people can be so jovial in the morning, as long as they aren't morning-haters. Those people are next to heathens anyway.

I noticed a girl sitting at a table with her mom. She was in the neighborhood of ten years old, was well-dressed -down to juvenile purple rubber boots- and had two plaits of brown hair. Most impressively, she was quite absorbed in a book at least two inches thick -and it wasn't Harry Potter.

If appearances are any grounds for inferences, she looked quite grown-up and self-assured. She didn't stir when her mom got up for the restroom and left her unattended for the space of several minutes.

As I watied in line, I snuck a peek back at her and saw her split the biggest grin -it had to have been something she read, nothing else amsuing was happening. She paused and partially closed the book, as if to reflect for a moment on whatever had made her smile. Then she took a bit of her bagel, perhaps sipped her iced coffee* when my back was toward her, and austerely continued reading.

You don't see that happening anywhere at 7pm.

*She must be grown-up if her mom is buying her iced coffee. And in the nature/nurture debate, I'd say she acts like a grownup because she is treated like one.

Would you?

Imagine someone offered to let you live in the locale of your choice and would pay all your expenses for a year so you could write.

All you have to do is turn out some sort of book or literary work at the conclusion of the year.

Would you do it?

What would you write about?

title me

Did you know that the plural form of the abbreviation for Mr. is Messrs?

I suppose learned that in etiquette class when I was twelve. Back in the day, these were the traditional titles and their abbreviations:

- Master- a young boy; abbreviation: none I know of
- Mister- a man; abbreviation: Mr. (singular) and Messrs (plural)
- Miss- a young girl or unmarried woman; abbreviation: none
- Mistress- a married woman; abbreviation: Mrs. (plural) and Mmes (plural)

The reason I had forgotten this? When is the last time you had to address, in writing, two mistresses or two misters?

groceries

Funny the things that can be enjoyable. I hate shopping; truly I do. Malls usually leave me feeling utterly depressed and despondent. For some reason, though, I really like doing grocery shopping.

I probably like it because there's not much pressure, since I'm just shopping for myself. Most frequently, my trips include a hand-held basket so full by the end that I can hardly carry it (that is the kind of weight-lifting I do). But somehow I can manage to always having it come out to just plus or minus twenty dollars a trip, which is my weekly allotment for groceries.

Yesterday was a great trip. Everything I wanted seemed to be on sale, and I actually had time to cook and prepare things when I got home. Weekends, I'm telling you, dude.

My little basket included:

~ Bananas
~ A cucumber
~ Romaine lettuce
~ Strawberries
~ Ground beef
~ Tomatoes
~ Spicy hummus (it's the best!)
~ An onion
~ Yogurt
~ An orange
~ Frozen lemonade

{Inspired by yourwishcake's latest post}