Gee whiz. It’s probably time for another update. Life sneaks up on you sometimes—it’s been a whole year since I’ve been back in the United States, and last month I hit the ripe old age of 21, which means I’m officially overage in all respects except health insurance and rental cars.
My oven blew up last month. It was an adequately showy coronation of my adulthood. One moment, I was studying in my room while an innocuous pan of fish filets and crescent rolls was baking, and the next—BANG! I ran out to the kitchen to see blue and orange flames bursting from the control panel of the oven. I went for the fire extinguisher (not the first time that has happened with this oven), but fortunately the flames went out before I got to use it. The fire did leave a nice black spot on our wall. I spent the night on a friend’s couch thanks to the noxious odor that the explosion released, and we luckily got a new oven from management within the week.
I’m still at BYU studying linguistics, which will probably be the case for a while. Most of my time is spent on school and work right now. Over spring term I took Japanese and grammar, which was a hefty load for the abbreviated term, but I survived Japanese and ended up getting hired on as a TA for grammar starting in the fall. This summer term I’ve only been in Japanese 202, which has honestly been enough of a handful by itself. I definitely underestimated how difficult Japanese would be, and I’m a little scared of 301 in the fall. I’ve also been working a few research jobs in addition to my desk job of linguistics secretary: I finished my religion project, edited a couple papers for a professor, and have been helping another professor in the department with a paper on Danish phonetics/phonology.
For the last couple weeks I’ve also been participating in a workshop to learn how to rate language proficiency on the ACTFL scale. It’s also been assigning homework, but I’ve enjoyed learning about the factors that the ratings are based on and practice doing some proficiency interviews myself; there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than I’d have thought. I’m still trying to find out what niche in linguistics I want to specialize in, so I’m glad I could get a taste of the assessment side.
Oh, and I joined a Celtic folk band! It turns out there’s plenty of cool musicians hiding in Provo if you know where to look. The conductor/professor is Mark Geslison, who’s incredibly fun and talented, and he also happens to be the brother-in-law of some of my favorite people in Denmark. All of the members have such vibrant personalities, and I definitely feel unqualified to be playing with them. But I reckon that feeling is always a part of being involved in music or any performing art, and ultimately I’m just happy to be there.
I also started reading Harry Potter again, which is a trap. You can’t read one of those books without reading the whole series. I wish I knew what it was that makes Rowling’s writing so engaging. I’ve got opinions though. Book Ginny is vastly superior to Movie Ginny and is honestly magnetic. And the fifth movie should not have cut the scene at the end where Harry smashes Dumbledore’s office.
No recap is complete without quotes from the semester. In the spirit of the @BYUoverheard Instagram account, there’s a fair number of overheard quotes here from anonymous strangers. Enjoy.
"And then someone makes you listen to stuff you don't normally listen to...and now I'm quite partial to digeridoo music." "If I had a nickel for every time I've made out in the MARB, I'd have more than a few nickels." "He's a guy. He's not a boy, he's not a man, he's a guy." "I’m a simple woman; I like collocates and pina coladas." –Auna, Greek Goddess of Linguistics and Serial Killers "Pax Mongolica: after the Mongols killed everyone, there was peace." –Gross oversimplification of history, courtesy of Brandon "I'm going to do a literature review on funeral potatoes." –Ben, the third mandolinist in a row "That joke just nailed me in the coffin. Wait" –Sals "I’m single as an…individually wrapped cookie." And this overheard exchange on the ground floor of the library: "Is this floor number three?" "Yeah." "Why on God’s green earth is this floor number three?"
So there’s a lengthy update on where I’ve been for the last couple months. As always, I’m so grateful for my friends and family and all the people who make this journey worth taking. ∎