ooh, I feel villainous

For those of you who don't know already, I'm back in school, hoping to start on a second master's degree in linguistics (a field I've been fascinated by for years, albeit from a distance). I'm currently just taking two classes: a graduate intro-level "Fundamentals of Linguistics" class, and "Sociolinguistics," aka "Language and Culture," which is a bit like anthropology but specifically as it relates to languages and speech use.

Anyway, one of my classmates just told me she sees me as the "future arch-nemesis" of our sociolinguistics professor.

What does that even mean? This friend appears to like me, so I don't think it's that I'm scary or mean. (Well, I might BE both those things, but I don't think that's what she was saying here, anyway.) And it's not that the professor reviles me or anything; she manages to appear to like everyone in the class (more kudos to her!)

I think it has to do with the difference between the two classes; as far as I can tell so far (and take this with a grain of salt, as I'm a newbie!) sociolinguistics is a bit softer and fuzzier, more about people and how they relate and communicate, far more qualitative than quantitative, etc. Traditional linguistics seems to be very analytical, logical...for lack of a better word, "math-y." It involves deriving grammatical rules from the language use you observe; setting up taxonomies and hierarchies, structures and syntax, that sort of thing. I am far more analytical than creative, and hence seem to be fairly good at it (which is tremendously egotistical to say, considering I've been studying this for all of eight weeks or so now, but bear with me...)

I think my friend's comment means that she sees me as good at traditional/theoretical linguistics (not sure if that's really a technical term, but "Chomskyan" may not mean much to anyone outside the field), and that type of linguistics appears to have quite a rivalry with socio, so she's anticipating me developing into a rival for any sociolinguistics advocate, my professor included.

Anyway, I'm sort of flattered; being an arch-nemesis sounds kind of cool, and I've certainly never been described that way to my face before. But I'm trying not to be slightly hurt, too, because I happen to LIKE socio, and to find it really interesting. I would like to be good at it, too, and not just relegated to "oh, that girl who's just weirdly good at math." Is she saying that I'm not good at socio, or that my comments in class are somehow lacking in content or quality? Or I'm just bad with people, and would do better in fields that don't involve them?

For what it's worth, this whole post would probably not have been worth writing if I wasn't thinking about the linguistic value of my friend's comment to me. What does it mean? Just pondering...

Why would I want to teach my kids to tell time?

It's been one of those afternoons. You know, when it's only 5:30, and it's becoming a struggle not to simply plop your kids in front of the TV so you could get a little peace? One of those.

I can't really complain, because they DID both take good naps, and I got some teaching and some paperwork in during that time. But for some reason, the post-nap hours degenerate quickly into whining on some days, usually having to do with dinnertime, but sometimes I wonder if my own lack of patience just exacerbates the problem.

So we start dinner a little early, and since Evil Mommy only allows them 35 minutes to eat their simple bowls of red beans and rice, neither child manages to finish in the allotted time. Too bad, no dessert tonight. We head upstairs, don pajamas, and I decide to move bedtime forward a little. And I am struck with gratitude that my kids don't know how to read an analog clock yet.

Why is that a skill we want to teach early? Yes, Miles can read a digital clock, though I think his grasp of time is pretty vague when it comes to real life. But we don't have a single clock upstairs aside from my phone (safely in my pocket) and my watch (analog, HA!)

I put Eleanor down a few minutes before her bedtime, at around 6:50. Then Miles wants to play Old Maid (actually, his first choice was Guitar Hero, but I couldn't summon the energy tonight; him "playing" guitar means I have to do the real playing and just let him pretend to play along on the second guitar; he can't hit enough notes to keep it from failing in the first few seconds, and he gets bored with that really quickly).

Well, and I get bored with Old Maid really quickly myself, particularly the two-player variety. The game, anyway; Miles playing it is fairly entertaining. He ALWAYS will choose my left-most card when he draws - every single time, tonight. And then when he draws the Old Maid (hysterical giggling) I tell him to mix it up in his hand "so I don't know where it is!" He then waves his cards back and forth (not rearranging them in the least, but wiggling his legs frantically in the process; I've no idea why they're related but apparently they are). Often the Old Maid will end up facing backward (that is, facing ME) while all his other cards are in the proper position. That reminds me of a scene in...some movie...hmm, bad memory...but I choose the Old Maid card anyway, and am rewarded by sheer glee and giggles. It's payment enough.

Miles' hair is getting kind of long now - long enough to start clumping in little circular ringlets again. So tonight I told him I wanted to comb it out, since we haven't done that in ages. He protested that it would hurt too much (his baby sister's bad influence; on HER hair it probably does hurt), but I told him I'd be gentle, and he'd look very handsome with his hair fluffed up.

So I work on his hair for a while (it's not long enough to tangle yet, so it's pretty simple to do), before hearing a gentle murmur, "Oh, it doesn't hurt..."

I finish and tell him to look at himself.

A pause to reflect and assess, and then, "Mommy, can you do the front a little bit? And over there?"

The vanity of him! Mommy complies.

He preens in the mirror for a moment. "There! Now I'm all poofy!"

Another idea I thought was a good one at the time...

I love Crayola Color Wonder markers. It's really great to have an art medium that cannot possibly damage anything ELSE in my house. So this morning, upon getting home from the gym (and feeling pretty smug that I made it to the gym at all, I admit), I plopped the kids down with our Color Wonder markers and papers and dashed in to take a quick shower.

Normally, I can take one of two types of showers: the kind with a closed door and someone pounding on the door or wailing, or the kind with an open door, and someone pulling back the shower curtain on both sides, trying to climb in the tub, and turning the faucet to ice-cold whenever my back is turned. Neither is the type of blissful experience that cleansing myself used to be.

I figured, I'd be quick, and they couldn't do any damage with the markers, right? And it was a peaceful experience, with lots of hot water pounding down on me....mmmmmmm.

I emerged to find these



and this



I forgot that Eleanor will eat anything when it isn't mealtime. Out of fourteen markers, we had four survivors; the rest got decapitated. So much for Color Wonder.

I wonder if I could get Crayola to sponsor my blog? I could use some replacement markers...

obsession of the day: violin!

So I'm praying that maybe the obsession with drums is tapering off, because it's awfully loud and is ruining my furniture. Hooray for "Elmo's Musical Adventures: Peter and the Wolf," because Miles is going around today singing the "Peter" theme and telling me which instrument goes with which character. He, of course, wants to be Elmo (who plays Peter and also the violin) but is now scared of horns (which play the wolf).

Anyway, today Miles dug out two of my wooden spoons and said, "this is my violin!" He's walking around holding one up to his chin and scraping the other across it like a bow. We dug out "Music of the Heart" and I let him watch the ending concert sequence, with all the kids playing their violins; he stood and "played" along for the whole thing.

Hey, something's sinking in!

Tonight, when I asked Miles to please go upstairs and try to find his pajamas top, he said he couldn't (he didn't try). Then he said, "If I ask Jesus, he will help me." He clarified, "Jesus is going to help me find my PJs top." We said a little prayer, and sure enough, Jesus helped him find his PJs top (in the pajamas drawer right where it was supposed to be, thank goodness).

Rehashing the PJ-finding event afterward, Miles reiterated that this morning at church, "We had a good worship, didn't we Mama? I like to sing to Jesus." (Not that he ever actually sings at worship, but rather just stares at the drummer and drums along.) And then he said "Yeah, he's a good Jesus, isn't he?"

Yeah, he is a good Jesus.