Linguistics

Linguistics is a pretty amazing study. You can write down what people say no matter what language they are speaking. It's awesome. I can look at a speech sample and tell what they are saying by the sound wave graph. Don't you wish you were me right now? Yeah you do. Ready for some IPA?

[go bi waI ju]

sorry can't post all the characters on a blog but thats pretty much what I do for fun now. Listen to people's dialects and transcribe what they are saying. For example, Dee used a pro-predicate 'do' the other day. Typical western us English. I said "Did your roommate go to Chilie on his mission?" he said, "Could have done." I laughed and told him about pro-predicate do's. Also did you know that most Americans don't pronounce a true b? usually we really pronounce a stronger p. But its ok because its just the voiced version of a bilabial consonant. And Craig Klecker always gets mistaken as saying his name is Greg. That's because [k] and [g] are both palatal stops its just the voiced and unvoiced pair. I can also tell you when we clip the vowel [eI] as in safe vs save. Say it out loud. One is a shorter vowel but its the same one. That's because we clip it before a voiceless consonant. Now say 'caught' and 'cot'. Can you hear a difference? If there is a difference you are from the east, if there isn't you grew up in the west.

There you go. Your linguistics lesson for today.

Crazy

Life is crazy... work, school, Dee. That's what I do. Go to work 27 hrs a week at the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum. Which is AWESOME! You should all visit me. Then school. I'm supposed to be writing a 2000 word research paper right now. That's all I did this term. Whip out papers the day they were due. I was thinking I would pull a research paper a la High School and just write it late into the night tonight, but then I'll be wicked tired for my two finals. So I will leave you with this thought:

Why, if everything in the church is translated into ASL, doesn't BYU, an institution run by the church, have an ASL interpreter program?

That's what my research paper is about. Getting Cecil to add ASL as a major because its a great career.

I want to ride my Bicycle!

So I am back in Utah! It is very cold and there is still some snow/ice on the ground from a snowstorm we had last week. I really wasn't expecting to come back, but for some reason... I did. So here I am in cold Provo. After I decided to go (the day before I left) I remembered that I left a very dear friend in Utah... my bike Lily! I was so excited when I remembered that and I couldn't wait to get my bike from Jesse's house. So I finally got it last Sat night and then I got it tuned and fixed on Monday, and got it back from that on Tuesday. I now ride it to and from class! It is very exciting, but very cold.

On BYU campus there is a hill southwest of campus major that is half for bikes and half for pedestrians. It is kinda steep and really fun to go down. Well Wednesday I was going down it and I was keeping my speed down, and tapping my breaks every so often so I wouldn't lose control. I had already avoided two pedestrians walking on the wrong side of the hill when all of a sudden at one of the breaks in the railing a girl on her cell phone steps out in front of me! I slammed on my brakes and almost killed myself in that process, but of course I was going downhill on a semi icy path and I couldn't stop. Luckily someone pulled her out of the way before I reached her or she or I would have died. The moral of the story is LOOK!

So I love my bike, and I love to ride it everywhere. Even when its super cold outside. The way I see it is I am in the cold for less time then if I were to walk. So there you go. I'm crazy yes, but also smart.