Under the Skin

In the past, I've talked about how people have obsessions with not doing what they consider to be "judging."  I don't have a lot of good feelings for this movement.  But today, I acknowledge the other side.  This stems from an experience I had the other day.  As I have said, my major is very small, and thus very tight-knit and family-like.  One of the members of our "family" recently had a lot of health problems, such that she eventually had to drop all her classes and go home.  During the time when she was trying to keep it all together and stay at BYU for the semester, our major-family rallied around her.  Get-well cards abounded, and people pooled their class notes together to give to her.  It was a good thing.  I think it was a show of charity. However, a few weeks ago, another member of our "family" was not well.  He chose, however, to mostly keep it to himself.  Generally, unless asked, he would not discuss it.  He woul...

Some people like to pretend that the place they're from doesn't have an accent. This is actually linguistically impossible.  It made the ELang major smile when he came to our apartment to collect survey answers for his dialect study.  The survey asked things like, "Where are you from?", "Do people in your hometown have an accent?", "Does the accent of your hometown sound educated, uneducated, or make no implication?", "Are there any parts of the United States where the accent makes people sound less uneducated?", etc.  We also got to fill out a map of the US and mark all the accents.  One of the questions was, "Is there any place where there is no accent?" When I answered "linguistically impossible," and explained why, he smiled.  I also learned that that line that people give in Seattle about how newscasters are taught to speak like they're from Seattle because it's neutral is something that everyone believes ...

I have discovered a conspiracy. Turkeys are sold by the pound.  Turkey necks have a fair bit of weight in them.  Nobody actually eats the turkey necks (except for in the Pacific Islands, and such).  The turkey instructions on the bag even tell you to throw it away.  And yet, they package it with the turkeys.  Because then the turkeys cost more.  Think on it, guys.  Just think about it.

With the last Twilight movie coming out, we all hear about it.  I've even heard that this one was genuinely good.  I must admit, I have not read all of the Twilight books.  I started the first one.  I can actually excuse bad writing to mediocre, if the story is quite good (for example, Harry Potter).   However, Twilight was badly written smut, so I never felt any need to finish it.  Recently, however, I've really been thinking about the messages that Twilight sends to young girls.  People tell me that Edward Cullen is not abusive.  I answered a crisis line for many years.  I am very versed in the patterns and symptoms of abusive relationships.  And just because he really does love her, and protects her, and gives her gifts, doesn't make him not abusive.  Newsflash to people who don't know about abusive relationships:  most abusive partners do the three above things.  Abusive relationships are not about hate, they are ...

There are always the violins, the pianos, the flutes and the voices.  And this isn't to put those down.  But there are so many instruments out there that maybe you don't know about.  Some movie soundtrack writers have recently begun to capitalize on some of these gorgeous-but-exotic instruments.  So, Ten Beautiful Instruments You Never Knew Existed: 1. The duduk Probably the biggest deal of this gorgeous Armenian flute is that recently, it was used in a movie.  In "The Chronicles of Narnia," the faun Mr. Tumnus plays a flute to put Lucy to sleep.  The composer of the movie music looked far and wide for a beautiful, exotic flute and finally settled on the duduk.  It has a deep, rich, very woody sound.  Honestly, the most beautiful instrument in the world, according to me.   2.  The kantele I think of the this as the Finns' version of a cross between a harp and a zither.  And I know those are already ridiculously simi...

            I can’t really explain why I have chosen the career that I have. Whenever people ask me what I want to do with my life, I say, “I really want to work in medical research.”   That’s basically my solution for not having to explain everything to people who didn’t really want to know.   But sometimes, people just ask for it.               They say, “Oh, you mean, like with cancer or something?”   It’s not really my fault.   Once they have said that, we’re in for the long-haul.   I will have to explain what I want to do, and usually this is followed up with, because they don’t really know what hemophilia is.             “Well, kind of,” I’ll explain.   “I really want to research genetic bleeding disorders.”   When I say this, I have to be very sure to really, really...

I am a huge Christmas lover.  In fact, small children have asked me whether or not Santa Claus is my father.  Kind of funny, considering my father is not a Christmas-lover, really at all.  But, Christmas is very important to me.  I wish that Christmas decorations could be up for all of November and December.  Sadly, there are people who for some bizarre reason are very, very adamant that Christmas doesn't start until after Thanksgiving.  This wouldn't bother as much if it weren't for the fact that they seem to think that they are somehow better than me because they wait on Christmas.  As if they were some sort of a Divine Defender of Christmas, and by me trying to celebrate it, I am somehow threatening their charge.  I find that people are nicer, kinder and happier when there are Christmas decorations up.  People are cheerier when the radios are playing, "Peace on Earth, good will to men," and "O Come, O Come Immanuel," as opposed to when the...

Today was a bit of a rough day.  We received our mid-semester evaluations in American Heritage TA meeting.  Basically, this is where the students are invited to say most anything that they want about their TA--good and bad--and then it all gets put on a piece of paper and we get to read it all.  I can take criticism.  I find myself pretty good at taking criticism. But part of why it's so hard is the range.  On one piece of paper, you have comments saying something you do that one student loves, and another student completely hates.  You have comments about how you're an amazing TA who really cares about her students and goes the extra mile, followed by comments about how you're a TA who they're afraid to approach because they feel like they're a nuisance to me.  And then, there are suggestions that you should spend more hours in the TA room (when you can't by labor laws), or completely transgress department, college or university policy, or completely ...

One of my favorite movies is Ratatouille.  There is a part in Ratatouille where the food critic, Anton Ego, comes to review the restaurant.  Linguini and his little, food-loving rat, Remy frantically try to put together the lost cause of the restaurant to get a good review from Ego.  In the end, Ego finds out that the food was made by a rat.  In Ego's review, he writes, "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." I had an experience like that.  And it's funny for me to be commenting on this, because I like to write critiques.  It is fun to read, and to write.  But, the other day, I was reading a r...