Back To Where I Once Belonged

Vinegar Day
UN World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
World Juggling Day
Anniversary - Watergate Day
Independence Day (Iceland)

 

I’m back!

 

Hoo.

 

Moving.

 

I tellya.

 

So the Grand College Exodus has finally begun for Oregon, which has its own little concept of spacetime and thus gets out two weeks after everyone else. I was not looking forward to Dread Finals Week—not because of finals, which I can survive with minimal distress, but more because of moving out. I hate transitions, especially when it involves lots of packing and cleaning. I find out that I have all this god damn STUFF everywhere. And I went through the experience that all those who move have gone through: the hell of packing.

 

Oh, I started out at a leisurely pace, selecting a box and arranging books and DVDs and wrapping each individual stuff into its own little nest of grocery bags or washcloths or socks or whatever. I got a box and a half arranged beautifully that way.

Then I panicked.

 

By the time the family got there, I was indiscriminately flinging things into boxes, using my fancy clothes as packing material for my TV, throwing away plastic bottles rather than wash out whatever the hell was in them and recycling them like a good Oregonian, and swearing like a pirate about the amount of trash I seem to own or accumulated. “HOW THE HELL DO YOU PACK 57 PENNIES?” I remember shouting at one point.

 

At least the siblings decided to surprise me by coming along after they’d said they wouldn’t. I wrecked their surprise by looking out my window and seeing them entering the building, but I’m impressed they made it all the way there without giving something away.* Then Liz and Emily were treated to the horrible spectacle of myself and three of my closest kin all having severe hypoglycemia and trying to pack at the same time. Liz is zen, but Emily may have psychological scars forever after that flurry of activity.

 

I was adamant that she meet my family, though. I am weirdly close to them; meeting my family explains a lot about me. It’s hard to describe 妹’s comedic timing and voice inflection, and her utter intrinsic coolness, unless you’ve met her in person. And as for the Dude, the truth is that I’m not sure where I end and he begins. After we’d eaten some food, I felt much better for having my two partners in crime with me, even if we didn’t get to the tattoo/piercing parlor.**

 

Then, after a farewell to everybody, it was off on a two-day drive, much of which was through Scenic Idaho! and through my own home state of Utah, which is pretty ugly right near the highway. Don’t be fooled by all those lovely romantic songs about Movin’ Along The Highway and I’m A Travelin’ Wanderin’ Rambler. Higways are boring. Unless you get one of those psycho truckers or something who wants to go faster than the car in front of him, and then they’re terrifying.

 

But damn, it’s all worth it just to see that familiar view of the city and the distant mountains, and to return to the Treehouse where I live. All is right with the world, until tomorrow.

 

 

*Granted, I’m the most gullible person in the world in some respects, so this actually might not have been too difficult.

 

**Yet.

The College Experience: Spring '06

Things I Learned This Term:

 

• Russian is a free word order language.
• Eugene is in one of the most pollen-heavy areas in the US, because the Willamette Valley’s major export is grass. (Lawn grass, you stoners.) This means a lot of wild plant orgying going on everywhere. And those of you with allergies WILL regret it.
• The best way to say “A rabbit ate my homework” in Japanese is with a passive that marks inconvenience to the speaker, as hopefully follows: 私の宿題は兎に食べられた。In romaji, that would be watashi no shukudai wa usagi ni taberareta (unless I got my kanji wrong). This is a very handy sentence, especially if you actually own a rabbit.*
• Rampant Crazed Drooling Fangirliness: It Could Happen To YOU!
• The process of phonological change isn’t as mysterious as I thought, but it’s hard to keep track of in some of the more complex languages.
• Uranus’ axis is tilted almost all the way on its side, so that the sun actually spirals through the sky from pole to pole and back through the year and it has the most extreme seasons ever.
• I’ll pause while the snickers at the mention of ‘Uranus’ subside.
• Other people apparently develop planets, too. Enough that there is a book on how to do it.      …               As far as sci-fi goes, it’s a cookbook.**
• There is a different sign in ASL for ‘sea turtle’ than for ‘turtle.’
• Neutrogena Lip Moisturizer is made of magical powdered unicorn horn, phoenix tears, and athelas.
• Apparently the guy who plays the younger Finucci brother in Oscar is Harry Shearer, who also does the voice of several Simpsons characters, including Principal Skinner.
• When you go temporarily deaf in one ear, it does not help if you sign to your friends to try to get them to sign back. They still do not know sign language. And they don’t understand you.
• You can have growth spurts in certain chestal areas at a somewhat late age.
• The patterns for stress and topicalization in different languages is definitely something I should pay more attention to.  Everything I learn in this major wanders back into conlanging eventually.
• Somebody already had my idea for Doctors … in … SPACE!: James White with his Sector General books, which are pretty fun but kinda pulpy. Dammit, Jim!
• The Dead Baby People really are hateful. Comparing abortion to genocide is just stupid.
• Apparently this year matches were not allowed in the dorms, although last year they were and I specifically made sure it was okay to use them for sealing wax.
• Well done henna can bring a discussion class to a screeching halt if the GTF is a linguist and wants to know what the mysterious script on the back of your hand says.
• You can get ridiculously excited about an apartment if it’s your first ever.
• As far as disaster track records go, Indonesia sucks.
• Someday I’m going to learn play hulusi.
• Doing my linguistics studies with a focus on ASL may be viable.
• Medical transcription may be a good thing for me to look into.

 

*In 11^th-grade I took jewelry class and had to start over on my first assignment—a lost wax piece, where you carve a ring or a pendant out of a lump of wax and then do some magic and get a silver piece out of it—because my rabbit ate my first lump.

 

**Ha ha! Did anybody get that?