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.