New Year plans

For new year's eve, Jody and I are planning a quiet night at home. We will go to Jody's Mom's house after Mass this morning.

Friday evening we stayed up late with a good friend, Curtis. We ate dinner together, went swimming in the pool ,and crocheted, and chatted. It was very fun.

For my friends and family, I wish the best for the new year. And for us too. I will be finishing my Bachelors Degree in spring. It will be a year of adventure and changes. Who knows where we will all be a year from now?

men knit

I found these two fun videos on youtube.com. The first is a trailer for a movie about the new trend: manly knitters. The second is a response to the first. It is verry funny.

Christmas cheer

The managers at our apartment complex have opened the pool for two weeks to celebrate the holiday season. That is really nice of them. They have also decorated the community room, with a tree and lights. I am glad that we ended up moving here, it has turned out to be a nice neighborhood- quiet and friendly. I haven't taken knitting down to work on by the fireplace yet, but that sounds like a good idea. Christmas is less than a week away now. What fun- our first Christmas together!



We have nothing to complain about, but check out this fun choir!

december update

Since I last wrote an update on this blog, we have had a very hectic time. Jody has been sick for about a month, and I have been sick since Thanksgiving. Today we are starting to put the house in order again. Jody is doing dishes, and I am working on the living room. My next task is vacuuming.
School is over for the term, and I have signed up for next term. It should be a good term- I am taking my senior capstone, contemplative practices, and Hebrew 302, and meybe (probably) a linguistics class also. I haven't signed up for that yet- Ling 410 community activism. Books aren't available yet for next term, but as soon as they are, I will go into PSU and get them. I already have the book for Hebrew, and I plan on spending at least an hour a day studying for that class. I finally started my Hebrew blog, and put an embedded video of Chava Alberstein on it. Jody showed me how to do that, and it wasn't at all difficult. Youtube provides the code, and all I had to do was copy and paste onto the blog post. Jody has been putting lots of videos on our joint blog, teamramey.

fig delight

Good morning to all and happy monday. This thursday Jody and I move across the river to Vancouver. Our packing is going well, and we made an important purchase online the other day- three small fig trees. They are special dwarf fig trees that reach somewhere between six and eight feet tall. They get three to four feet wide. They can be house plants or live in a garden or on a patio. According to the website, one harvests figs the very first year! And in years after that, the little guys put out TWO harvests of YUMMY FIGS!!! This is very exciting for the Ramey Household.

new news

It has been a long while since I posted or looked at my blog. Lots of new news. Jody and I will be moving to Vancouver in less than a week now. I am finishing up my final year at PSU, and my classes are awesome. I recieved a scholorship to continue my study of Hebrew. It is a wonderful class, and it is fascinating to hear such fluent conversation. Especially when I can understand it! Syntax is fun, and I am taking it from the best professor in the department. Mideaval litterature is also a good class. We are going over Beowulf right now, and our prof. is very enthousiastic about the material. I am not at my ease in lit classes, but I enjoy the readings and the lecture.
Jody and I went on a little adventure to Washington Square yesterday evening. We wandered into several stores, and then caught the bus back home.

Secret EVIL by the husband

Jody just wants to say "I love you" to his wife, and see how long it takes her to discover my secret posting to her blog. (Evil laughter ensues) ;-) Let me know the day and time you discover this hun.

xoxoxoxoxo

hubby

fall news

Well, school is back in session, and it is nice to be back to the routine of classes and study. I just got some wonderful news yesterday- I have been selected to recieve a scholorship to study third year Hebrew. It will cover the cost of tuition, and possibly the book as well. I was not expecting to be able to continue with Hebrew, mostly because of the schedule- it was going to be Teusday and Thursday evenings. It works out much better for me at its new Monday and Wednesday afternoon time slot. I only have classes three days per week, which is very nice. The other two classes I am taking are Mideaval litterature and Syntax. Both classes have good teachers who care about the subject material.
My husband and I will be moving this term- out to Vancouver. We found a nice little place, and I am looking forward to that. (For wedding related news and pictures, see the team ramey wedding blog)

today in oregon

Today in Oregon the job hunt continues. In addition the melding of my household and my future husband's has begun. What else? The figuring out of the webcasting of the wedding- how the camera works, how the software works, how to set it up at the church. And aside from that? Well, I have also started studying for my syntax class in the fall, and I am taking two credits independent study. That is more of a challange, because it involves writing, which is not my forte.
I would also like to put some more things up on my aplingwordweb blog, that would be fun, and I would like to turn it into a sort of a portfolio, including some sort of project relating to each and every class I have taken or will take in linguistics.

today's adventure

Today, Jody and I are going out to Gresham. It will be an adventure. I haven't been out to Gresham before. According to the internet, they have a cool historic downtown area, and are the 4th largest city in Oregon. They also have an important musical festival there every year- Blues, I think. We will picnick, and have a nice afternoon. This morning at home, I am cutting out flash cards and doing laundry and a little bit of housecleaning. Probably vacuuming, too. I am enjoying my cup of morning tea at the computor. I guess one could call this multitasking- cutting cards, typing, and drinking tea all at once.
My wedding is in 16 days. Not long now. And my husband will move out to Tigard to live with me and my two cats. They will have a little adjustment. Spare likes Jody already. Ariel isn't sure of him yet, but it takes her longer to warm up to poeple. It took weeks for her to decide that she liked me, and she has only seen Jody a few times.

the kitten and the computor

This may sound strange, but my little cat Ariel has changed some of the settings on my computor. She loves to play with the computor when I am trying to work- she jumps up to play with the screen (especially likes following the pointer around the screen) and stepping on the keys. It is in the second that I think she changed the wallpaper (because it wasn't me) and she made some kind of adjustment to the web browser also, because now web pages are looking differently on the monitor than they once did. Very noticable on trimets webpage- the 'little plan your trip' window is now oddly arranged. Oh well, this will be something for Jody to figure out when he moves in after the wedding. He is more computor literate than Ariel and I both put together.

another day in oregon

Today started with gathering papers and catching the bus down to PSU. The route is very familiar. It was not exactly as I had envisioned the day, but then, when is it ever?
Tomorrow, I will work on the newsletter, and my resume and coverletter, and a few other things.
It will be an adventuresome wednesday.
back home

pinkerton update

Pinkerton has been signed over to the garage owner. He will either pass it on to a salvage yard or try to fix it up himself. To replace the engine would have ended up costing about two thousand dollars, which was not affordable for Dad, and even if it had been done, we wouldn't have been assured a reliable car.
It is good that I have not found work that depends on the car. I will carry on my job hunting with public transport in mind. In the end, it might be good that we don't get the car. Fewer expenses and all that. And we are fortunate to live in a place with such good public transportation.

back home

Well, back home. People have asked me: are you glad to be back? Well, yes and no. 'No' because I very much enjoyed the trip, and there are things that I really appreciated about England. If ever faced with the opportunity to live in the UK for a while, I would want to- it would be an awesome adventure. That is not to say that I didn't miss anything about America whilst I was gone. I did. I missed the soft toilate paper. ;)
Now that we are back in the states, we have a lot of last minute things to arrange for the wedding. Including, on my part, figuring out when exactly my family will be arriving in town, and where they will be staying.
But, I will write more later.

another limerick

There once was a little car Pinkerton
who wanted to move out to Beaverton
but a head gasket blew
and its days may be through
without even getting to Washington

The little car Pinkerton suffered a break down on its way from Montana. The head-gasket blew as it was going over Lola Pass, and it is currently in Lola, awaiting a decision on what to do.
So Dad was not able to come for his visit, he ended up catching a greyhound bus home to Bozeman. I was looking forward to spending some time together, but we will see each other soon, when he comes out for the wedding.

lunch out

Today a friend from first year Hebrew and I are meeting for lunch at PSU. I haven't seen much of her lately- since I went on to second year at PSU, and she went on to a semester of biblical Hebrew elsewhere. Our first year class was a nice group of people. Only two of us continued through the end of second year, Sharla and I. Sharla just got married and is moving to Louisianna to go to school there. And I am getting married in September (and on to who knows what kind of adventure;-). Everyone else moved in other directions. Laura and I have had a couple of classes together in the Linguistics department. Virginia switched to Spanish, which last I heard was working out really well for her. Ann I have seen around campus a couple of times for events, but have not had a chance to talk. Mike decided to redo first year from Shirly (she tutored us first year, and now she is teaching classes for the university) rather than take second year. Alexis didn't have time for Hebrew between Linguistics and Chemistry and everything else. and that is all that I have kept track of...

old recipe

We looked at a page from a cookbook from 1390. The spellings are strange and the instructions foreign to modern ears, and it was a bit of a puzzle to figure out what they are trying to say. There are two letters that we no longer have- one looks like a cross between a g and a 3, and the other is called a thorn, it looks like a b with the tail of a p. So I will use the letter y for the first and the combo th for the second:
33 Gees in hoggepot. Take gees and smyte hem on pecys; cast hem in a pot. Do therto half wyne and half water, and to therto a gode quantite of oynouns and erbes. Set it ouer the fyre and couere it fast. Make a layour of brede and blode & lay it therwith; do therto powdour fort and serue it fort.
bon apetit?

Another day in the sun

Today looks like another sunny day. yesterday Jody and I and two of his friends hung out for a while around Portland State University, and in wandering around discovered a very neat fountain that I had never seen before. We took some pictures around there and then went for a visit to the Saturday Market, which is always a fun adventure. There was a booth there selling scones- I got one and it was very tasty- almond and apricot- a nice combo.
In school news: there are three homework assignments due this week, and then next week is the last week of the term. We have a take-home final, which strikes me as odd, but it is good that we do not have to commit to memory all the details we have been studying.

half-time

My history of English class is half over. Two weeks down, two to go. We have been talking mostly about sound change over time, and that is fascinating. One can trace words back and see where they came from, and why they are spelled the way that they are. For example- some perfectly reasonable spellings were changed to make words look more like the Latin words they were (or were thought to be) derived from.
I think that I will do some more reading on this after the end of the term- our book has some suggested further reading, including a book on the English of Shakespear's day. Aparrently a number of his puns hinge on the rhyming of certain words.

history of English

I am signed up for one class this summer, the history of English. It is an interesting class- we are starting with the sound system of Old English and talking about how it changed over time into what we speak today as modern English. Also what factors influenced the spelling system of our language (why it is so irregular now) We have texts to look at and we were treated in class to hearing a recitation of some Old English- that was fun! The plan is to go through each factor that way- first the sound system, then later the vocab, the syntax, whatever other factors we study in this super- short term of only four weeks. We do meet four times per week, so that is good, and we have a good book to read. I may try to scan the book and put a picture of its cover on this page, it is such a pretty cover.

day after Yellowstone

Yesterday we went to Yellowstone, and had a full day seeing many sights and many woodland creatures. We also stopped by Old Faithful to see the geyser go off. I did get to see it this trip. Not only that, Jody and I wandered around on the trails and saw some even cooler geysers, like the beehive and the castle. I posted pictures of our day to the wedding blog, although none with geysers in them. This picture was taken by my father of Old Faithful.

Bozeman MT

I am enjoying a lovely visit here in Montana, spending time with family and friends. It is nice to come in June, when it is still green but not still cold. Jody and I are staying with my parents. Today we are planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park- should be a fun day. Jody has never been to Yellowstone before. The last time I was there was the summer of 2002 (I think it was 2002) when working at Clydehurst Christian Ranch as an assistant cook. Each weekend the staff was taken somewhere fun- one time it was Yellowstone. It rained alot that day, and we didn't end up seeing Old Faithful. Today, who knows?

spring term is over

I took three classes this term, and each one of them was excellent; in content, in teaching, and in the chosen readings. This term has been my favorite. I have added a link to this site to Apling Word Web, this was my final project for my applied linguistics class- and it was very fun to work on. The poetry class I took this term helped me out immesurably in the linguistics class, and I am very glad that I took it.
Not too long now, and I will be all done with my linguistics degree...

Don't worry, pray

At Southwest Bible church this last sunday, Pastor Scott preached on Philippians 4:6&7 'Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.' His message was straitforward: pray about everything, wherever life is building up nervous energy, turn that energy toward prayer. He said also, 'when we are most tempted to worry, we are least able to afford it.' And he gave five reasons to not worry, but pray instead:
1) because God said to
2) because God cares
3) because God can do something about it
4) because we can't do anything about it
5) because it glorifies God
Reason one relates to obedience, two to trust, three and four to wisdom, and five to worship. One last thought from the sermon: There was a sign on the old Alaska Highway before it was paved 'pick your rut carefully- you'll be in it the next 200 miles' Our habits are like that, and we can choose to get into the habit of fretting, or we can choose to get into the habit of praying.
This was a very encouraging message for me. If you would like to hear it yourself, go to www.swbible.org

the willamette

Hello, all! Here is a picture of my fiance, Jody, and I- taken down by the Willamette River during the AAA conference on spirituality this year. We had some good weather, and a good chance to hang out with the international speakers. Lua took this picture and e-mailed it to me from home.

class nearly over- new plans

This term is nearly over, and just over the last couple of days a new plan has emerged- to work full time over the summer and then go part time during the school year, and graduate in the spring of 07 instead of the fall 06. When the details are settled, I will drop out of summer school, and start job-hunting in a serious manner. Of course there is always the temp agency, and they did find me a job at college housing northwest when I left Safeway. That is worth looking into. This is a big change in plans, but I think that it will work out better this way.

spring term...

is nearly over, and this has been a good term. Finals approach, and today is a day to work on a major project- this one for my rhyme and meter class. I have chosen to write about Edgar Allan Poe's poem, the Raven. It is an interesting poem, and I think that the paper is going fairly well so far. On Tuesday, I will turn in a rough draft, and then have a chance to make any changes for the final project. My other major project will be more time consuming and difficult, but possibly more fun as well. That will be for applied linguistics, and it will be a synthesis of three of our weekly articles in an artistic form. Only two terms more before graduation :-)

Serbo-Croatian epic decasyllable

This meter is sung improvisationally. Each line has ten syllables, which is broken into two parts, the first with four syllables and the second with six. An important rule for this meter is that syllables three and four must belong to the same word. That word can be disyllabic or trisyllabic. The same rule applies to the nineth and tenth syllables. The use of stock phrases makes improvising with this form easier for the participants. We applied this meter to English, and wrote some verse in class:
Hasty people travel in the subway
old bums begging for change in the subway
hasty people who won't pay attention
big rats scurry around hasty people
Our topic was New York city, and our stock phrases were 'hasty people' and 'in the subway' It works out nicely to have the phrases be four syllables long, because then they can go into either the first or the second part of the line. Anyway, this was a fun meter to study. If you feel inspired to write a little in this meter, please post it as a comment- that would be fun :-)

Some Fun Quotes

That is what marraige really means: helping one anothere to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life. -Paul Tournier

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distincly what it loves. -Blaise Pascal

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. -Friedrich Nietzsche

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. -W H Auden

Linguistical Limericks

There once was a verb from intransitive
who scoffed at the noun phrase from transitive
one day it collided
with two nouns elided
and now it is living ditransitive

A linguist without any witnesses
set down to the business of synthesis
but her words fell apart
in a scramble for art
and she ended her days in analysis

There once was a poet who tried
to study linguistics applied
when she had to read Krashen
her teeth fell to gnashin'
at the monitor model inside

These were written for my group project in applied linguistics. A very fun class, where we are encouraged to be creative. I have never had a class with a set-up like it before. We have two professors. One Linguist, and one Applied Linguist. We meet three times a week- each professor takes a day to discuss the article of the week, and then the third day a group does their presentation. I was fortunate to have my week be week 5, it made the project into a 'midterm', and now I can focus on the final project, which will take a lot more time to put together. In fact, I picked up three books from the library to read.

analogies

In applied linguistics last week, we made up some analogies for linguistics. There were five started for us, such as: linguistics is to applied linguistics as_____is to____. I came up with one good one myself: pragmatics is to grammar as je ne sait quoi is to savoir faire. Those that got it were tickled pink with this one. Meybe it wasn't fair to do one in French, but those phrases are pretty commonly borrowed into English... Some other ones brought up in class were: lie is to figure of speech as daggar is to pocket knife, and linguistics is to applied linguistics as architecture is to construction. It was a fun class! But then, this class has been one fun surprise after the next... Tomorrow, my group is presenting. I hope that goes well, and I expect that it will...

group work

Today my group in Applied Linguistics is meeting for the first time. Our presentation is a week from friday. It is not worse than the other groups are doing, but I don't like it. We only really have two projects. One of them is the final and the other is this group project. I hope that we can split up the alloted time into segments and each take a segment. I would rather do my work on my own, it would be easier with my schedule. Oh, well, we shall see how this goes. Our group has an interesting article, and that certainly helps.

family in town

My parents are in town for almost a week. They are staying with me, and hanging out in Portland. Yesterday my folks and fiance and his mother all went to lunch together in Vancouver. Then we went to the farmers market. It was a nice and sunny day. Dad made omelettes for us three this morning, and in a little while we will head downtown to go to meet Jody and go to church together. I just recently started another blog, a wedding blog, but there isn't really anything on it yet, since we don't have the date or place picked out yet. soon.

Taxes

Now is that time of the year when taxes are due, and there is some mumbling and complaining about this. However, it is a good thing to have taxes. Taxes pay for the police department, and the fire department, and many other important services. Without that kind of inferstructure society would not run at all smoothly. That is not to say that everything is perfect, just that it is a far sight better than anarchy ever could be. I used to work at PSU, as a building cleaner. Someone would occasionally paint/ draw symbols for anarchy in the elevator, and it was my job to clean up that sort of mess. It made me chuckle to think what this person would experience if there were a little anarchy in his life (I mean, if suddenly, the cleaning crew no longer cleaned up after him) Oh well, some of the best laughs come from some of the most annoying things. So if you are in the camp that is annoyed by taxes, think of something humorous about tax-day. You could even shock your co-workers with a suprise 'tax-day' party. That would be fun!

Passover

Wednesday was passover, a time to celebrate God's miraculous deliverance from Egypt. Pharoah would not let the people of Israel go, and even after nine plagues, he stubbornly refused to let them go. Only after the tenth plague would pharoah relent. The tenth plague was the death of the firstborn.
Moses instructed the people of Israel what to do: The passover lamb was slaughtered and its blood was brushed onto the doorposts of the house. The people were to roast the lamb and serve it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The angel of the Lord passed over the homes marked with the lamb's blood, and smote the firstborn of every other houshold.
There was mourning over all of Egypt. Pharoah finally let the people go, but he changed his mind, and sent his army after them. This is what Moses said, after God rescued them by parting the Red Sea:
"Who is like to you among the gods, O Lord?
Who is like to you, magnificent in holiness?
O terrible of renown, worker of wonders,
when you stretched out your right hand,
the earth swallowed them!
In your mercy you led the people you redeemed;
in your strength you guided them
to your holy dwelling."
Genesis 15: 11-13

what is the monosyllable rule?

Aha! According to the monosyllable rule, a stressed syllable can occur in a weak position only in two situations 1)if it is a monosyllabic word 2)if it belongs to a polysyllabic word, and the stress of this word occurs at the beginning of the line or after a major syntactic break. On the other hand, an unstressed syllable is always ok in a strong position.
Shakespear wrote in iambic pentameter. The stress pattern is: WSWSWSWSWS. In class we are writing out stressed syllables with capitol letters. So the first couple of lines of Hamlet's famous speech would read:
to BE or NOT to BE THAT is the QUES-tion
WHE ther tis NO-bler in the MIND to SU-ffer...
Those spots where there is a stressed syllable in a weak position are at the beginning of a line, and after a syntactic break.
How about the following sonnet- does Shakespear follow the monolsyllable rule? (that is: do the stresses of the polysyllable words fall on the even (strong) syllables?)
Let not to the marraige of true minds
admit impediments. Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
that looks on tempests and is never shaken.

morning muse

Todays assignment in Rhyme and Meter is to compare a poem by Byron to one by Pushkin, who was a big fan of Byron. We scanned the poems and put them into a grid to compare them with the 'ideal' meter they were written in: 12 lines of 4 feet of iamb. Then we counted up the number of words with three or more syllables. Byron's poem had three such words- Pushkin's had twelve. The difference between the two languages in word length very much effects the difference in stress patterns. The poem by Pushkin had fewer stresses per line than did Byron's, which gives the poem a different feel.
This class is not really linguistics, yet it is decidedly related to linguistics. It will be fascinating to learn more about the language of poetry, and how it is put together- both in English and in other languages.

links, sort of

I don't know how to add links to my page, but you might like to check out these other sites. The first two are my fiance's blogs:
www.claiming-disability.blogspot.com
www.blog-jody.blogspot.com
and here's a fun one for learning Hebrew:
www.zigzagworld.com

happy news!

On wednesday of spring break, I went on a little road trip to Salem with my beau. We have been dating for several months, and now we are engaged to be married! It's funny sometimes, how a person can think they have everything figured out, and then God surprises them in a big way. When I went back to university in the fall of '04, I thought I pretty much knew what to expect over the next five years. School. Internship. Career-type job. Buy a house. But marraige? Getting married generally involves dating first (since there aren't match makers like in the old days)...I was not expecting any such thing! Anyways, this is my happy news!

springtime in Portland

It is now spring break, one whole week off from the university. How will I spend it? Studying, of course ;) Researching two topics in linguistics.
Topic one: Subculture expressed through language variety. This may end up being a power point presentation. It will be about the use of special 'in crowd' slang and language use to express membership in a minority group. How does this language use give members of the group a feeling of solidarity? In what ways is this language inclusionary, and to what extent can it be exclusionary? How does group slang originate and how is it spread among a group?
Topic two: Israeli English. This will be a brochure done as independent study next term (well, very likely) so it is good to get started on it now. I already have several articles on the subject, that I have already read. I think that the brochure would cover the use of English in Israel, why it is important (mentioning things like the necessity of passing matriculation tests in English in order to study at the university) and how it is taught. I could also include some resources about teaching English in Israel. The brochure would, hopefully, be distributed at the Jewish Community Center.
Aside from that, I also need to work on a presentation on nutrition for those with special dietary concerns- such as diabetes and celiac and food allergies. That will be for the health and wellness week at PSU, which is coming up pretty soon.
And aside from that, it will be a relaxing week.

rough draft poem

Raising our voices
in one accord,
let's shout out a song
of praise to the Lord,
telling his deeds,
oh, tell them once more!
How He stretched out the heavens
from the tiniest core
thus making vast spaces
where none were before.
August 2005
I've been thinking about this subject for some time, this is just the latest attempt at a poem...

a few poems

digest and reflect
After a good argument, like a good meal
one likes to digest and reflect.
If the words do sit well-
and not with craftiness- can stand the test;
then one must carefully consider them
to be indeed just and scrupulous.
Billings 1998

Sun Myth
Over the mountain, peeks
the sun,
and her fiery tresses flow about her,
tendrils escaping to fly across the heavens.
Gathering her dignity,
she assumes her place.
As a prima donna she holds the stage captive until the last
possible moment.
Turning then, she flips her hair,
her fiery hair,
and it floats across the sky
behind her.
Bozeman 1994?

An Alley
Mon ami Abby,
she is an ally cat-
astrophic. Tin cans posted
on garbage pails that
reek of old fish.
Abby, normally
has little traffic,
except for Tom.

Cuisine
A good meal has two sides
that pair like bosom friends,
for we know very well that cuisine
is art as well as science.
Science on side A of the coin
the chemistry of mixtures and heat,
art on the opposite side
for the eye and the tongue a treat.
Billings 1998

When it rains...

On the news last night, I heard the statistics that we Oregonians have suspected. Not only is there a lot more rain than last year, we have actually had about 300% the average rainfall for the last month. Not that I am complaining. I love the rain. The air smells fresh and clean, the grass grows green, the sound of it is soothing, and it fun to go out walking with an umbrella (and a cup of hot coffee).
Also my cat (S. Augustus Kitty) is not always trying to get outside. He got out the door the other day, and made it down five steps before changing his mind.

Now here is something I have never seen before. I got in a piece of junk mail for my other cat, Ariel Ana Took. Not that it does them any good; Ariel only accepts checks and love letters.

Winter Term 2006

The Lexicon, what is it? The mental dictionary. It includes everything you know about a word: how it is spelled, how it sounds, what it means, and how it is used. In addition it studies the organization of that information in the brain and how it is retrieved.

Sociolinguistics, what about that? Well, this class is more than just a random blend of sociology and linguistics. We will be learning about how people use language in society in different ways. Politeness, for example, is expressed in many different ways. What is polite in one group can be considered impolite in another.

Writing Research Papers. This will be a fun class, and we will learn some helpful tips on note taking, writing rough drafts, picking a topic, and all sorts of useful things. (I only wish I'd taken it sooner)

Dance for fitness. Not at all what I had expected, but better. More like Flamenco and a lot less like 'jazzercise'.

Second Year Hebrew. The best term yet, I can see it already. Now we are getting to the very interesting things, the more complex grammar. The verb structure and sentence composition. We should make great progress this term.

A few good quotes

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one. C. S. Lewis

With our loss of the sinse of majesty has come the furthur loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. A. W. Tozer

...have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Ranier Maria Rilke

We crave nothing less than perfect story; and while we chatter or listen all our lives in a din of craving- jokes, anecdotes, novels, dreams, films, plays, songs, half the words of our days- we are satisfied only by the one short tale we feel to be true; History is the will of a just god who knows us. Reynolds Price

Man's maker was made a man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother's breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die. Augustine

Little Augustus

There is a little cat-
a really wondrous beast,
who'll take a little snack
if he cannot get a feast.

But when his belly's full,
he'll curl up in the sun.
He'll dream of grand adventures,
and trophies he has won.

When the lad's in Africa,
he is a sight to see.
When he shakes his mane and tail,
all mammals turn and flee.

He travels with the circus,
and flies the great trapeze,
soaring through the air
like a bird upon the breeze.

When he sails the roughesty seas,
he never is afraid-
though fighting be his lot,
and piracy his trade.

He loves to be in office,
whether president or king,
or even as count jester-
if he doesn't have to sing.

When cooking up a storm,
he really makes a mess-
but all his tasty dishes
prove he is a chef.

Sometimes a little noise
disturbs his peaceful sleep.
He will wake up thinking of
the secrets he will keep.

And if the lad has secrets
he'll never ever tell,
for he speaks no word of English,
and perhaps it's just as well.

The end
This poem story was inspired by my cat, S. Augustus Kitty.

Do Fairies Go Bootless?

I started working on this story in 1995, and it has been 'a work in progress'

Tourist fairies stroll downtown-
meandering in from woods and downs
trekking from mountain villages hidden.
Identity disclosure? strictly forbidden.
The boots are a must for stealthy disguise
as for their feet? I theorize:

Perhaps hinds feet nimble and true,
turning quick and graceful as dancers' do,
like a home-body hobbit's, silently swift,
aerodynamic for maximum lift.
Disguise tucks foot in boot,
no dancing, no playing the flute.

But when days are warmly sunny,
made for bare feet and full tummies,
sand trickling between toes,
ticklesome grasses in the breeze blow:
No fairy could miss splashing through streams,
laughter sparkling as moonlight gleams.