Tag: update

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Personal Update

Christmas Card 2023

This photo represents objective reality and has by no means been altered from its original appearance. /s

Dear Auna and Ben,

I don’t know about you guys, but the older I get, the more elusive the Christmas spirit becomes. As a kid, it was always automatic; Christmas morning was the most exciting day of the year by default. Now I have to work for it. I put in my best effort this year, though. Sure, there was rain instead of snow, but there were also Christmas lights in downtown Provo, Christmas concerts and choirs, Bible readings, gingerbread houses, parties with friends new and old, gift deliveries to neighbors, and cozy hours with family. A picturesque holiday, all things considered. Young adulthood is weird.

Okay, but have you seen the movie Klaus? I recognize that I’m four years behind the times on this one. My friends were all saying “This is the best Christmas movie ever made,” and they finally sat me down to watch it. And you know what? It is the best Christmas movie ever made.

2023 felt like four years packed into one. Maybe I need to start counting the seasons instead of the years. I can hardly even remember this January. Spotify tells me I was listening to lots of The Killers and The Airborne Toxic Event at the start of the year, so that’s the main thing, I guess. I took plenty of linguistics classes during the winter semester, survived some drama with an ex-girlfriend and the Celtic folk band, and went through all-around character development. Emotionally, I’m definitely in a better place than last year.

The big flashy highlight of the year was my summer travel to Tonga and then to France. I’ve done summer school every year since I started school, so I finally gave myself a break. Tonga was for some ethnographic research with anthropological researchers from the University of Utah (I wrote a little about it in this essay), and France was to play at some folk music festivals in the southeast (you can read about my nap in Charles de Gaulle here). It reminded me of how much I love traveling. So if I vanish next year, just assume I’ll turn up as an Irish sheepherder sometime in 2030.

What else did I accomplish this year? I asked out a really cute Walmart cashier (!) and we went on a date (!!). I found two new favorite books from opposite sides of the genre spectrum: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli and the Wolf Hall series by Hilary Mantel. My Japanese got good enough that I can finally read simple texts (and more importantly, play Fire Emblem: Three Houses in Japanese). I bought jewelry and subscribed to journalism for the first time. My old crush told me that I’m fun at concerts. I got a lot better at singing! I took a creative writing class and got a lot better at that too, and I started writing a novel (!!!) that I promise I’m actually going to finish. No, seriously. Hold me to it.

I’m serious about watching Klaus. It’s a fantastic movie. Let me know your recommendations, too. I’m always in the market for good movies and music.

Love you guys. Keep in touch,

Eric

Categories
Personal Update

Feeling 21 (Summer Update!)

playing guitar on a stage

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. ∎

Categories
Personal Update

Life Update: Academia, Quotes, Yesterday

I promised heterogeneity when I made this blog, so here’s a historical update, some quotes, and a casual movie review (vague spoilers for a two-year-old film ahead).

One of my favorite touches in the Harry Potter books is when Harry and Ron are complaining about their homework. Never mind that Harry has gotten whisked away from an abusive home and given a new chance at life, never mind that he’s discovered new powers and new friends, the fact remains that doing homework, even wizard homework, is still a chore. It’s beautifully human.

I think that’s the best metaphor for college. It’s a dream to be dedicating so much time to learning about this world’s history and material composition. I’m so privileged to have the opportunity to be here creating more opportunities for my future. I love the freedom of being on campus and exploring this corner of the universe. And yet, it is stressful (in its own lucky way) to stay on top of the constant flow of homework amid lecture, work, commuting, and all life’s other responsibilities. My day has quickly gone from an externally enforced strict routine to complete schedular anarchy to an internally enforced semi-strict routine. In return, here are several nuggets of scholarship that I’ve obtained:

"The point of life is not to have it but to do things with it."
   —Melissa Inouye, Crossings (2019)

“‘Unhappy man,’ said Candide, ‘I too have had some experience of this love, the sovereign of hearts, the soul of our souls; and it never got me anything but a single kiss and twenty kicks in the rear.’” 
   —Voltaire, Candide (1759)

“As a rule, the philosopher is never more of an ass than when he most confidently wishes to play God, when with remarkable assurance, he pronounces on the perfection of the world, wholly convinced that everything moves just so, in a nice, straight line, that every succeeding generation reaches perfection in a completely linear progression, according to his ideals of virtue and happiness. It so happens that he is always the ratio ultima, the last, the highest, link in the chain of being, the very culmination of it all. ‘Just see to what enlightenment, virtue and happiness the world has swung! And here, behold, am I at the top of the pendulum, the gilded tongue of the world’s scales!’” 
   —Johann Gottfried von Herder, On Historicism (1774)

"Eating hamburger with a fork? Might as well just be sprinkling for baptism!" 
   —my biology teacher during lecture, 2021 (my Danish friends would be guilty on both counts)

Last Friday, I watched the film Yesterday (2019). In the long tradition of me being a general liker of things, I liked it. It’s about a guy who’s an aspiring musician but isn’t particularly good at writing songs; only a former schoolmate (the love interest) sees value in the music he makes. A plot event causes everyone else in the world to forget who the Beatles were. The main character capitalizes on this, which catapults him to fame and prominence yet damages the one relationship that matters most of all.

It was immensely satisfying to watch Ed Sheeran play a relatively major role in a thinly-veiled critique of the music industry. I was also intrigued by how similar the balance that our John Lennon stand-in walks was to that of the titular character in Dear Evan Hansen: in both works, the main character sustains a lie that has inadvertently blown up to unexpected proportions and enjoys a better life because of it, yet is haunted by that unavoidable specter called truth.

The essential difference is the role of the main character’s romantic relationship: in Dear Evan Hansen, the relationship is merely an appendage of the world created by the lie; in the lighter Yesterday, it’s the thread that tugs him back to the real one. Both characters are trying to do the right thing in an out-of-control situation, but while Evan’s lie self-destructs when it reaches its agonizing breaking point, the more idealized Yesterday gives Jack the motive to face the problems he created on his own terms, enabling the film to comfortably win a rom-com ending even as it flirts with the conflict between reality and desire. The moral is simple, yet delivered beautifully at a crucial point in the story: “You want a good life? It’s not complicated. Tell the girl you love that you love her. And tell the truth to everyone whenever you can.”

That’s clearer wisdom than you’ll find in any university library. ∎