Okay, so at the beginning of the Fall term, I decided to change my major. Yes, again. I went from being a TESOL major to being an Applied Linguistics major. All I had to do, really, was cut the teaching portion out of the TESOL degree, and I was left with linguistics. I like the way it sounds to say I have (or will have, whatever) a degree in Linguistics. Impressive. A little cryptic. Until whoever I'm talking to asks me to be more specific. "Linguistics?" they say. "What does that mean, exactly?" Well, polite coworker in the elevator, it means grammar. Yeah. I have a degree in grammar, and I know a lot about how people learn languages. Less impressive.

The thing is, I actually couldn't be happier with my decision to drop the teaching portion of my degree. I listen to some of my friends who are going to be teachers talking about their student teaching experiences, or about how excited they are to be in the classroom, and all I can think about while I'm smiling and nodding along to the conversation is God, I'm so glad that isn't me. Seriously. I don't know what I was thinking when I thought teaching was a good idea. Well, I do, actually. Travel. I was thinking that teaching, especially teaching ESL, would be a great career path for me because it afforded a ton of opportunity for travel. I could teach literally anywhere in the world for however long I wanted and then move on. Plus I have summers off. What could be better? The longer I was in the program, however, the more clearly I understood this wasn't the career for me.

BUT, now I have no direction. I know I don't like my current job enough to stay there for very long, but where do I even start looking for jobs? What do I even want to do?I thought about taking that Foreign Service Officers Test, but I don't know. It sounds cool, but it also sounds really strict. Plus I have to choose a career path, and that's the path I have to stay on the entire time I'm in the State Department. I'm feeling a little claustrophobic just thinking about it. Someone made a joke about me joining the FBI, which surprised me a little, because I hadn't told anyone about that. The truth is, I was actually considering it, and I had looked into it already. You have to be 23 to apply. And the application process take forever. And I don't know if I could shoot a gun at a person, if it came to it. Maybe at a non-kill zone. But I would definitely want to be an agent, not an office peon. But also, it is pretty hard to get in, I think, so my chances probably aren't that good.

I'm reading this book right now about how to make long term travel work. The idea sounds really cool and doable. Inexpensive, even. The writer suggest working some entry level jobs for a few months and then hitting the road for a few. The whole time I read it, I'm planning a vague summer long road trip across America but I know I'm too chicken to go it alone or even explain to my parent what I want to do.

Maybe I'm destined to be directionless.

Scoff at them

My grammar professor (who I think might be a spy, but that story another time), showed us how to identify and avoid using sentence fragments. Which I already knew how to do. As you can see. Anyway, he said that they are sometimes used by "professional writers" who "know what they are doing" and "use them on purpose". My professor said for the purpose of our class, however, they would not be acceptable. He said we should "recognize them, and scoff at them." Scoff at them, I swear he said it. I intended to follow his advice. Unintentional fragments, beware.

Time Travel Theory

I thought I should update this once again, so I'm putting my time travel theory onto the internet for all to read. I don't have time to research and formulate a more coherent idea, so if you, random reader, have the ambition to do it yourself, knock your proverbial self out. It was my idea first though. You just proved it possible/likely. Ha.

So, I stumbled upon this article online.(Did I say I didn't have time to research..?) It told the story of a map maker. An incredibly accurate mapmaker from a time when accurate mapmaking was a bit of an oxymoron. He drew a map of Antarctica and South America and Africa based on other maps that he found that showed Antarctica as it would have been 4000 b.c. Read the article if you are intrigued.

This is the conclusion the article came up with:

Apart from its great historic interest, the map has been alleged to contain details no European could have known in the 1500's, and therefore proves the existence of ancient technological civilizations, visits by extraterrestrials, or both.

Both of these could be possible, I guess, but I would like to throw my theory on the table. Humans from the future (near future, anyone?) overcame the barriers of time and space and went back 6000 years. They already knew how to map things and figure out latitudes and longitudes accurately. They probably got bored with the primitive nature of the humans at the time. They had to do something with their pent-up intelligence, so they drew maps. And then they laughed because they knew that this map would puzzle scientists world-wide for hundreds of years.

I feel the need to qualify my theory. I am not crazy; I am curious and willing to accept unusual solutions to problems. I'm not saying my theory is possible, or even likely. But I'm also not the only person who believes that time travel is the answer to some scientific problems.

I like this song.

It is depressing and intriguing and poderable:

Everyone's afraid of their own lives.
If you could be anything you want I bet you'd be disappointed.
Am I right?

No one really knows the ones they love.
If you knew everything they thought I bet you'd wish that they'd just shut up.

Well, you were the dull sound of sharp math when you were alive.
Not one's gonna play the harp when you die.
And if I had a nickel for every damn dime I might have half the time.
Do you mind?

Everyone's afraid of their own lives.
If you could be anything you want I bet you'd be disappointed.
Am I right?

It's our lives.

It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember we're alive for the first time.
It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember we're alive for the last time.
It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember to live before you die.
It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember that our lives are such a short time.
It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember when it takes such a time.

It's hard to remember, it's hard to remember.
My mom's god is a woman and my mom she is a witch.
I. like. this.

My hell comes from inside, comes from inside myself.
Why. fight. this.

Everyone's afraid of their own life.
If you could be anything you want I bet you'd be disappointed.
Am I right?

The cutest thing ever

I got back from Alabama today. The trip was good, but it's good to be back.

Anyway, in the Minneapolis airport, I saw the most adorable thing ever. I would have cried if it had been a movie that I was watching, and not live and in front of a hundred people. I have to maintain an image, you know ;).

Let me paint you a picture of the male leader on our trip. He is tall. Like 6 foot 8 tall. That is almost 7 feet, which is about two feet (or 40%) taller than me, to give you some perspective. And he is black. These things combined give him a...formidable appearance. But don't get me wrong, he was a great leader, and he is a very likable guy. Intellegent and everything. Just a little intimidating at first sight.

Anyway, we are walking to baggage claim, and I didn't know he was about 15 feet behind us. I see these two little kids come running at me, and I'm like...um...those kids are going to run into us. And then I see the leader running (or rather taking long quick steps, as it takes a lot to get him running), and the oldest and fastest of the kids dodges out of our way and yells "Daddy!" right before he leaps into the air. The leader bends to his knees to catch the boy, just as the younger also throws his arms around his neck. Seriously, I almost died. While we were getting our bags, the boys wouldn't let go of him. It was adorable, and the kids were cuties too. I think a guy has to be a pretty good dad for his kids to miss him that much. I wonder if I was like that with my dad when I was a kid.

Pet peeve

Something I heard:

News anchor: Can we hear an exert from your book?
Author: *continues as though nothing happened*

What I wish I heard:

News anchor: Can we hear an exert from your book?
Author, after anchor *mysteriously* starts bleeding: Oh my God! Here, let me EXERT pressure on this wound, while I read you an EXCERPT from my book.

If the second scenario happened, I think that the anchor wouldn't be so quick to confuse those words again. What do you think?

I found this interesting

Click the title for the article.