some of my favorite things to do

currently:

creating a perimeter of soap and dousing it with left-over boiled water to sanitize the sink.

binding packets at work.

replacing the staples in a stapler.




previously:

mopping the floors at departure

going running after work at wycliffe

buffing stainless steel

fahrenheit and celsius, for my own reference

Quick reference for myself, when I'm talking to British people

3 degrees Celsius, 37 degrees Fahrenheit

5 degrees Celsius, 41 degrees Fahrenheit

10 degrees Celsius, 50 degrees Fahrenheit

16 degrees Celsius, 60 degrees Fahrenheit

20 degrees Celsius, 68 degrees Fahrenheit

25 degrees Celsius, 77 degrees Fahrenheit

32 degrees Celsius, 90 degrees Fahrenheit

35 degrees Celsius, 95 degrees Fahrenheit

38 degrees Celsius, 100 degrees Fahrenheit



So I guess double and then add 30 roughly works?

ice breakers

"If your life were a tv show, what show would it be?"

My old roommate told me that mine would be "Fraser". I'm okay with that. I just love it.

Fraser and Niles are so smart. The dad keeps a touch of reality, and I love that a Brit is one of the main characters.

normal blog things.

I would share recipes on here, like a good blogger, but I never cook any more.

an england remnant

I needed a band-aid the other day. I dug around looking for one, reached down into the bottom of the bag and fished out - a plaster!

"Band-aids" are "plasters" in the UK, and they are always blue because apparently it's the law or something. I don't know but I only ever saw blue ones. Health and safety.

winter solstice!

Today: shortest day of the year

Tomorrow: a day a little bit longer than yesterday

Day after tomorrow: longer days until midsummers!

this is my surehope.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Horatio G. Spafford, 1873
Psalm 146:1

being back.. day 28

Here are the numbers

4 cities. Baltimore, Orlando, Tampa, Pensacola

7 days. longest stay at one time

9 different hosts

2 very important weddings

0 cars acquired

4 bags, two large, two small which follow me around

1 call for a job interview


In my normal life, I'm a lot more sedentary.

back to the basics.

Job searching.

Car searching (or wishing it was already done).

Home searching, i.e. temporary lodgings. I don't want to commit to a lease until I find item one.

there goes my handshake.

I am proud of my handshake. And I like shaking hands. It's a personal, jovial touch to interacting with people.

Recently, in an interactive role-play, my English friends let me know that they wouldn't offer a hand shake in a situation where I did. "It's very formal," they told me. Oh.

Not quite finished with my Jeremy Paxman's The English: A Portrait of a People, I am moving on to Kate Fox's Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior.

Fox is an anthropologist who, like Paxman, is herself English.

She says, in general, "There is no universal prescription of handshakes on initial introduction- indeed, they may be regarded as too "businesslike" - and the normal business practice of giving one's name at this point is also regarded as inappropriate (Fox 39)."

Got it. No handshakes and don't start off with names; ease into it. Glad I am learning this two weeks before I leave.

calculating women

Anne Boleyn.
Eva Peron.
Pamela Churchill.

I can't help it. I really admire someone who knows what they want and is able to get it. It seems so much more salacious when it is a woman as well.

Innate intelligence coupled with good genes, and then developed ambition and shrewdness and honed people skills. You've got to admire it.

about the author

About the trajectory of my life I was asked once, "Is there a dream?" I am not sure how to articulate it, but there is one.

Current city: Washington DC metro area
Former city: London
Former city: Orlando

I have never-ending hope, and I don't stay up too late.

about

I am wondering if there is a unifying theme. Tell me if you see one.

recovering from traveling

Belfast and back to London within twenty-four hours. A lot of talking and little liquids. Today, I'm making it up to my body. Consuming within two hours of waking up:

. A tumbler of apple juice.
. A bit of soy milk in cereal.
. A glass of water.
. A mug of instant coffee.
. More apple juice.
. Another glass of water.

time differences

Eastern Standard Time :: Saudi Arabia
8 hours

Eastern Standard Time :: London
5 hours

Eastern Standard Time :: Washington state
3 hours

"when we do the numbers..."

Approximately 7,000 languages spoken worldwide.

Just 500 languages have a complete Bible.

There are over 500 versions of the complete Bible in English.

It's time to spread the love.



source: ethnologue.com

bit of london litany

So perhaps you recall me talking a bit about London? At least mentioning?

I certainly hope so, because I feel like I've talked about it several times. It's almost one of the themes of this blog, in my mind. And if it hasn't been evident, it ought to be soon.

London's the plan. That is "what I plan to do when I graduate". I've been accepted to the program, I'm finishing a support letter, and I hope to leave in early September.

There are far too many unknowns to gush about the trip now, not to mention being preoccupied with this whole graduating thing, but I am terribly excited about this plan.

I'll be living two teensy-eensy miles from the Thames and London Bridge!

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.