10 Years After

Starry Configurations

He picks up Gideons Bible --
open at page one --

Yesterday (and the day before) the Gideons were on campus handing out bibles. While some might protest this, I think it is good. They aren't militant. They are nicely dressed and politely offer a small book to students walking by them in front of the library. The book, if I recall correctly, I didn't take one this week from them, has a few selections from the Old Testament (maybe the Psalms) and then the main books of the New Testament. The Jehova Witnesses sometimes stand in the same area to hand out literature. Nothing offensive. If a student doesn't want to accept they can walk by without any harassment.

This morning in Intro to Lit we discussed vowels. Not terribly interesting stuff. Partially this is because the material is a review of my History of English class. Also, this is because of the speed of the class. Many of the students seem to be confused by the idea of sounds and spelling not being the same. I suppose the concept of transcribing words to something other than the English alphabet is a bit disconcerting. Maybe I was lucky by already realizing that spelling seemed (entirely) arbitrary.

Dialectology is strange. The general overview is hard to really get a grasp on. What the text refers to as matter of fact the instructor recategorizes as a theory. That, in itself, isn't so difficult. However, the book is just ....bland. I think that's the best way to describe it. It's hard to get a grasp on substantial facts. Another annoyance is the preponderance of Scots-Irish influence the book pushes. One example is that the book indicates that there is a possibility that American English has adopted the use of articles that Scot-Irish uses. They cite that British English use the phrase He's in hospital rather than the American English he's in the hospital. They go on to make some wild associate with Souther American English's he's got the headache.

With my CWL instructor out, and not yet having been introduced to the department secretary to have clearance for the computer lab key, I spent the break between Dialectology and CWL in the courtyard of the Science Building. It's wonderfully wooded. When I walked in I thought I spied Dr Gross on the other side walking out. I followed and verified, without him seeing me, that it was in fact him. I walked back through the courtyard and to the English building to get a soda. While exiting back on the English building side I ran into Dr Gross. We exchanged greetings. He was smoking and seemed to be concentrating so I didn't interrupt. (I had intended, when I spotted him, to ask if there as a pronunciation difference between horse and hoarse in some American dialects.)

After retrieving my sprite from the vending machine I returned to the court yard, intending to finish up the Intro to Ling homework he assigned today. Dr Gross was in the walkway talking to a student. We made eye contact and did the head nod thing as I walked past. I settled on the island and laid back to do some reading from my dialectology text. While doing so I became distracted by the overhanging limbs, the beautiful clear blue sky and nature in general. My mind shut out dialectolgoy and instead reflected on some writings about haikus I had read the other night while working on my New Criticism presentation.

Here's what I wrote:
watching the wind swept waves
laying under the white mast
Betula pendula

After waiting several minutes with the rest of the students for CWL to start, I went down to the department office and asked if a GA was going to come to class to take over. The secretary said none was assigned, but sent an office worker up with me to open the classroom. I know there's a lab worker assigned to take before class lets out. Monday, after class was over, I went down to tell them that I didn't think a student worker was in the lab. They assured me there was. I went back up to double check and, sure enough, there was one in there that I hadn't noticed.

Instead of spending class time working on my Web page I've been writing up this post. I have most of my page done. Well, most of the hard work. I have the basic structure - the frames and most of the image mapping. I still need to come up with the icons for the various services and, also, some more copy to fill out the page. Most important, I need the data that the page will be displaying for each building (and floor).

For tomorrow I still have some reading to do for my Milton class and, also, some final prep for my presentation in Literary Criticism. It's too bad I don't have the balls to do a haiku. Still, "The Road Not Taken" is good enough. Most people that have done theirs already received a B. I hope I can avoid their pitfalls and make a solid A. I also need to start brainstorming for an idea for my first paper in Milton. It needs to be 5-7 pages and cover any topic prior to Paradise Lost, which we start next week.