days of birth parties

i get do do one of these fun super-short posts this time because i'm an alien and my birthdays only happen every 32.6 earth years. so i wouldn't know what they're like.

You Say It's Your Birthday...

It was my birthday almost two months ago. Hmm...somehow I think the Beatles had it right the other way. Oh well. Let me first say happy birthday to Jane and Nick (who's birthday was yesterday - Hey! Why don't you celebrate by posting something? *Sorry* Does that violate some birthday rule about harassing the person?) On to the topic!

All of my memorable birthdays are the horrible ones. I mean, yes, I've had fun birthdays, but the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that were complete crap. Like my 13th birthday. My mother was a cook at a camp in the mountains in VA, so my brother and I had to spend the summer at the camp. Don't get me wrong - that summer was a blast, but my birthday sucked. My mom had told me there was some carnival in the next town, so that night we went, and found no carnival, and eventually saw a sign that said it was the next weekend. (Oh - important detail - my mother invited along the head chef who was a complete douche, and that night was no exception - I cant think of any specific grievance, but rather general rudeness). So she suggested bowling - closed, and then finally a movie. What pinnacle of cinematic history did we see, you ask? Angels in the Outfield, and we were about 20/30 minutes late. (This was before the 1/2 hr of previews and commercials we have now). Even back then I didn't want to see the movie. When it was done my mother dropped Jerry off at his house, and he stormed in before she got a chance to get out my cake. So, we went back to camp, and I left the cake out on the counter untouched. The next day, someone had picked off all the sugar lettering.

The other worst birthday also took place at camp. (Hmmm...there seems to be a pattern. *Note to self: avoid any camps around August from now on*) I've already talked about it on this blog - here. In case you don't want to follow my lovely little link, let me sum it up. I was at camp, the day of my birthday I laid in bed most of the day with horrible stomach pains that I toughed out 3 days before I was back home, and had to have my gall bladder removed. The worst part was that my grandma cooked my favorite meal and bought cheesecake for my birthday and I couldn't eat it cause I felt like shit.

This year was pretty sub par too, but that's because the people I chose to go bowling with (cast mates of Midsummer) have not sense of time or the decency to call when they're going to be ridiculously late. Seriously? Two of them - Danielle and Mandi - didn't show up 'til 10 and we were to meet at 7:30 - needless to say we were already done bowling).

Jane and Nick I hope you had better birthdays than I just described.

English and birthdays

Hey guys! So sorry I've been absent-- I've been in 32 solid hous of training at work this week, my dad is visiting me, and my internet at home hasn't been working anyway since my neighbors are out of town. (I'm actually in training now, but don't have anything to do at the moment). I was really interested in the previous language topic, by the way, although I couldn't get the time to post on it. I'm a copyedtior (although you wouldn't be able to guess that from my posts here!), among other roles, so my approach to language is very different than, say, Caitlin's approach, and I find them both fascinating. I'm also one of those people who has worked dilligently to cover her southern accent-- my brother has lived in Columbia, SC for 6 or so years now and he's enhanced his to the point that I sometimes have trouble understanding him. Hard to believe we grew up in the same house listening to the same parents.

But on to this week's topic. I think my young birthdays were overall more interesting than my older birthdays. The older I get, the more I realize birthday parties are just eating and drinking with people I like, which isn't a whole lot different from a normal weekend. I tried getting people to skydive with me one year, but it was too expensive. I've already figured I wouldn't have a party this year-- too stressful.
But when I was little, my parties rocked. When I was 4 (I think) I had a pirate party, complete with cardboard pirate ship and my 7 foot tall uncle (maybe 6.5, but he was big!) dressed as a very authentic pirate.
Later, I had an Indiana Jones party with a treasure hunt through the yard. We made whips too by tying strips of leather through wooden sticks.
And one year, when I was a bit too young probably, I had a horror movie slumber party where we rented and watched The Blob, Night of the Living Dead, and (eek!) Psycho. At the end of Psycho, all the girls screamed like crazy and (it was about 2am) my mom called the phone from another extension. I picked up and she said in a creepy voice, "Hello, this is Norman Bates..." which made us scream even louder. After that, we all went to the bathroom in pairs, scared that someone would jump out and get us. I still insist on clear shower curtains.

Back to training now.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, I am now officially 29 years old. As my birthday was a mere two days ago, I'm going to take the lazy route and refer you to my blog entry for it, in case you're curious as to how I spent the first day of my 29th year.

Other than that, I just have one comment to share on having a birthday in September: When I was a kid - especially in elementary school - I had few friends who stayed my close friends from year to year. Each year, my best friends came from those who were in my class at school. Of course, by late September, while school has been in session for four or five weeks, it's not really enough time to have developed good, solid friendships. In third grade (and I wrote a lengthy post on this here), there was a girl in my class who was a bully - she made my life a living hell - and yet if you hunt up the photos from my birthday party that year, there she is. She didn't start the bullying until early October. It still bugs me, twenty years later, that she was at my house, partaking of my hopsitality, weeks before turning into my worst nightmare. See, if my birthday had been just a little later on in the school year, she never would've been invited.

Birthday Fun

Well, sorry that I have been a huge slacker lately, but I didn't want to tell my "druids" story for the 8 millionth time in blog format. I have kind of a mix between a Canadian accent and a southern accent. It's mainly a nowhere accent, though. Though goddamnit, if I hear anybody laugh when I say "sorry" again, I might snap. It's been fourteen years of that shit already.

Since I am posting this on Jane's birthday, I thought I would have the topic this week be memorable birthday stories. I know it's kind of lame, but the past few topics I've picked that I've thought were great were apparently duds, so whatev.

Anyway, I've only had a few really fun birthdays in my adult life. Since I've spent so much of my time in school or around people who are in school, my early May birthday is kind of a wrench. Everybody usually takes off at exactly the time my birthday rolls around. But there have been a couple of fun ones. Like once in Tallahassee I went to a Chinese buffet with a bunch of friends of mine and ate more than I've ever eaten before or since. Basically I was worried about a sign they had that said customers would be charged extra if they didn't finish everything, so after I got full a couple of bites into my 3rd or 4th plate I forced the rest down. I remember just getting really dizzy and wanting to puke it all back up. But that didn't seem very grateful to my friends who paid for the dinner. So I stuck with it and immediately gained 95 pounds.

Two birthdays ago was also pretty good. My girlfriend at the time threw together a bar party for me, which was fun except somebody brought a pinata full of candy. You guys might not know this about me, but I loves me some candy. So I think I ate half the pinata full of candy in addition to five or six beers. That was a bad combination and I later had to clean my girlfriend's car. I think I had to clean her car anyway. If she reads this she can corroborate the fact that I definitely cleaned her car.

Also, when I was 13 some friends and I went and saw The Sand Lot.

Those are lame stories. I guess the lesson is I am the worst BSG member.

Y'uns Have No Idea

Language. I use it. Southern dialect? Creeping into my usage more and more. I'll write more on all of this later this evening, I thought I'd just go ahead and put in this small post so that I don't disrupt the order if Glenn decides to post the new topic before I have a chance to write.

**UPDATE**

Alright, so since posting that and reading the comments I've had time to think about some issues.

First, interestingly enough, most of my friends have a non-regional dialect. Or well, I guess more correctly, don't really have accents. I was raised in VA for the first half of my life, my grandparents on my mothers side are Yankees, and my parents don't have accents either. So, for most of my life I haven't really had one. However, I have found I am easily influenced by the people I am around, and tend to pick up mannerisms or certain sayings. So, for 4 yrs now (well and two others, but there was a gap in-between), I've worked with a couple of people who have Southern accents, and have been developing more of one myself. This comes out more at work because it seems friendlier. I don't know if that's because it's associated with southern hospitality, or whether people with southern accents are generally thought of as dumber, and therefore non-threatening. It bothers me somewhat. I was actually quite proud of my non-accent, but I get it back if I actually pay attention. I slip into southern when I get lazy.

I do say some words that are obviously not southernized. Like aunt. I pronounce it "awnt", whereas most people down here probably say "ant". Or pecan - I say "picahn", whereas most probably say "pee-can". I say soda, or the name of the particular soda I'd like, but I don't usually just offer or ask for a coke. I took Caitlin's little dialect test - not the one online though. She had one that had two similar sounding words - like cot and caught, and depending on how you pronounced them, there were markers for a certain southern accent. I'm pretty sure I don't have those markers.

As far as the term "y'uns" goes, I actually first heard it in TN, not PA, though most people associate it with that area. Apparently it is the plural form of "y'all", even though to me, "y'all" is already plural. I can't refer to a single person as "y'all", only "you", but I guess that is the magic of Tennessee. My friend Jeff was the first person I heard use that term. He had a pretty thick accent, and one of the church groups that came to the camp we worked at actually thought he had introduced himself as "Jif", like JIF peanut butter.

I don't have a problem with the words "dinner" or "supper" - they're interchangeable to me for the evening meal, though usually I just say dinner. I don't like it when it's used for the midday meal - that's "lunch", and nothing else. My grandmother often calls lunch "supper", and it irks me. She and her side of the family (my father's side) are from south GA. In fact, we still have farm land up there. She uses words like "yonder" and "dungarees", and we harass her to no end for it.

In closing - here's a hilarious quote from The Office I just saw the other night - not really to do with accents, but it's relevant:

Gareth: "My dad, for example, he's not as cosmopolitan or as educated as me and it can be embarrassing you know. He doesn't understand all the new trendy words - like he'll say 'poofs' instead of 'gays', 'birds' instead of 'women', 'darkies' instead of 'coloureds'."

On being a foreigner in my own neighborhood

As someone who does a lot of traveling overseas, I have become accostomed to finiding myself in situations where I cannot understand 100% of what is being said around me. Depending on where I am and the context in which I find myself, sometimes I understand most, but not all, while many other time I understand fifty percent or less. When you live like that for extended periods, you find yourself developing coping mechanisms. One of these is the noncommittal response: a shrug of the shoulders and "mmmmm" while nodding the head. There's also the smile and nod or even the laugh and nod (although if you're ever traveling in Russia, I'd suggest avoiding the smiling/laughing as that might get miscronstrued as I want to sleep with you). Also, if it is obvious that you've been asked a question, sometimes smiling and nodding works then too (although then who knows what you're agreed to!) although a hapless smile and a shrug seems to get one out of these situations easily in a lot of places. Certainly, there are plenty of situations where using these techniques should be avoided, but when strangers on the street or distant acquaintances babble things at you in a foreign tongue, I've found that these tricks work well. That way you don't always come across as the imbecile foriegner who hasn't bothered to master the local tongue.

The accents of the people in my neighborhood here in the US are, in many cases, nearly unintelligible to me. The other day, the man who lives at the house behind me asked me a question four times before I understood him. The first three times, the only words I understood were "your momma." Now, my mom's over here a lot, and I figured there was a pretty good chance that that the answer to his question was yes, and I was just about to give up and smile and nod when I realized I'm in an English speaking neighborhood, I shouldn't have to do that! Finally, after asking me four times, I understood: Was it my mom who had asked him about his dog the other day?

Whenever I speak to my neighbors (which is pretty rare, and after the incident the other day, bound to be rarer) I find myself feeling as though I should emulate their speech patterns. I feel as though if I speak with proper English, I'm setting myself even further apart from them than I am already, like I'm trying to show through my words that I am somehow better than them. I was having a different conversation with the fellow who lives behind me yesterday, and he wanted to know why I wasn't married, why I didn't have a boyfriend, etc. His question, actually, was, Why you ain't got no man? and I found myself answering (without even thinking about it) I on't need no man! (And you're seeing that correctly, no "d" in "don't").

I love eavesdropping on people, and the people in my neighborhood are out in the street a lot. There's a tendency among my neighbors to shout (er, holla) jovially at one another, and I'm always trying to ascertain what's going on without actually having to stick my head out the door and see. Usually I have no clue. It's as though everyone is speaking a different language.

I spent a month in this house last summer, before heading off to Korea. After I left, my mom discovered that someone had written with their finger, in the dust on my trashcan white girl stay here. We debated whether or not it was a request (as in White girl, please stay here) or a statement of fact (There is a white girl who stays in this house). I choose to believe it was the latter.

Similarly, here's a conversation I had with a girl of about 10 who lives on my block:

Girl: I thought you was older.
Jane: Oh, you probably saw my mom. We look a lot alike.

Girl: Oh. Your momma stay wit you?

Jane: No, she lives a few miles down the road.

Linda, who started this topic off for us this week, mentioned that she got the idea for this topic from reading a recent post on my blog - the one about the crazy naked old dude in my house. Yeah, you should probably go read that, if you haven't already. I've been thinking about that incident, and wondering if there was something I did that gave the crazy old coot the impression that I would like to see him naked. Was there something I agreed to that I misunderstood? Did I smile at something that should have instead earned him a glare? Hard to know. (In case y'all are interested, he showed up a couple of days ago, knocking on my door. I didn't open it or say anything, and he went away.)

Also, because I just used the contraction y'all, I would like point out that English desperately needs a plural you, and I think y'all works just fine. So long as it's not contracted like ya'll, as that's just nonsensical.

A dialectology primer and some questions

My friends, family, and acquaintances all know that there are two things in life that I care -- and TALK -- about most: jewellery and language. I am sure this bores everyone a whole lot, but the topic of language, at the very least, should be of immediate interest to everyone. It is an essential part of being human and at the root of many issues and problems that concern us.

First off, though, I'd just like to clarify a few things about dialects and language in general. (I feel at least a little qualified to do this because I minored in lingusitics at uni and my specific area of research for a special project my final year was dialectology.) Human language is split up into units called "languages." Languages are made up of different varieties. Regional varieties of a given language are called "dialects." There is a kind of human language we call the French language and there are many regional varieties (dialects) of French, for instance, Parisian French (the Standard) and Quebecois, the dialect of French spoken in Quebec.

Even those briefest and simplest of definitions are subject to much debate and give rise to great controversy. How do we define what is a language and what is a dialect? Two ideas, "mutual intelligibility" and political boundaries, come into play.

1) Danish speakers can understand Swedish, for the most part. Denmark and Sweden are separate countries. Danish and Swedish are separate languages.

2) Chinese is a language. Mandarin and Cantonese are two dialects of Chinese, but are not mutually intelligible.

Why are Danish and Swedish considered separate languages? Why are Mandarin and Cantonese dialects of the same language?

A second controversial topic is outlined in the example I gave for dialect. How is the standard determined? Why is Parisian the standard version of French that we learn in school? Why not Quebecois? Or, closer to home, why do we traditionally revere the English of Dan Rather and revile the speech of the natives of Alabama? I'd love to hear what people think about this.

Finally, I want to leave you with an example of language betraying community sensibilities (or lack thereof). Many people bemoan what is seen as today's politically correct culture. In my 25 years there have been some pretty marked changes in how we talk about sensitive topics. We used to say "handicapped" to describe someone confined to a wheelchair. Now we say "disabled," but there is a push to change that to "differently-abled." We used to say "Indian" for someone from the First Nations. Then we said "American Indian." Then we said "Native American." The New York Times says "American Indian" still, as far as I know. In Canada, we say "Native" or "First Nations" or "Aboriginal." In Florida, "eskimo" is acceptable when talking about natives of the far north. In Canada, it is generally taboo. We try to tailor our language and neutralize discriminatory terminology. We make room for acceptance (at least that's the idea) and attempt to revise our thinking through our speech. How far along is cultural sensitivity in other places? How do we compare these things, anyway? Is it offensive that our Scottish relatives go out for Chinese food and describe it as a "wee chinkee"? Are they wrong to say that? How about this...

Back in 1999-2000 I was living in Germany. We had a number of familiar US products available and my host family, in particular, were big fans of McDonald's. Just like in the US, McDonald's is constantly coming up with new deals, new prices, and new products to keep the Germans coming in to their stores. And, yes, they do have something called a Royale (with cheese). While I was there they introduced -- for a limited time only! -- a special sandwich with Asian flair called...

"Chicken McFu"

I kid you not. That struck me as both offensive and incredibly funny. And then I started seeing the billboards. There is a stereotype of Asians speaking Western languages that involves them confusing the sounds "l" and "r." There is a perfectly reasonable phonetic explanation for this problem, which I won't go into now. Suffice it to say that the Germans have noticed this quirk as well. Three of the Chicken McFu billboards read as follows

"LIESIG"
"GLOSS"
"SUPEL"

Each of these words is misspelled. In each, the "l" replaces the correct "r." They should read "riesig" ("huge"), "gross" (big), and "super" ("super").

I was absolutely scandalized seeing these things out on the Autobahn and pasted on the walls of the bus station. Again, what do YOU guys think? Does this reflect poorly on the Germans? Could you see an American firm getting away with this? (Abercrombie and Fitch tried something similar a few years back with a shirt that advertized a Chinese drycleaner: "Two Wongs can make it white".)

ETA: I haven't mentioned lexical variation at all (eg, "coke" vs. "pop" vs. "soda"), but if you are interested in that topic and are a NATIVE speaker of NORTH AMERICAN English, check out this survey: http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/linguistics/faculty/boberg/survey.htm . That's a project my former prof and advisor runs with his sociolinguistics classes and he can always use more data.

a rose, they say, would smell as sweet...

so i might be jumping the gun with my topic for the week, since i don't think everyone blogged last week, but i actually have a topic and a little bit of time and a decent connection all at once, so gun-jumping, here i go!
this week's topic was actually sparked by a comment in jane's blog about dialects, which caused me to become aware that when the guy at mcdonalds said "guy yep yuh", he was actually asking if he could help me (presumably by taking my order). so that led to a bunch of other thoughts about the english language - its uses, its evolution, dialects, etc.
i get to use many versions of english at work; i interact and communicate with young children, both educated and uneducated adults, and people whose first language is not english, and i find myself speaking differently around different people. for instance, my boss is somewhat of a grammarian. we say "shall" and "perhaps" and the like. we once had a debate over how one should express that another was behaving like a curmudgeon - then both went home and did some research. it turns out that when one behaves like a curmudgeon, one is displaying curmudgeonry. who would have guessed? my job also requires that i process in all our new staff members - from teeny-boppers beginning their first job to management staff with postgraduate degrees. i find myself referring to things as "cool" or "sucking" with many of the new hires. then of course, there are the few to whom i have the fun of explaining that when we ask for them to specify a race (for equal employment opportunity tracking purposes) one need not cross out the word "caucasian" and write in "white". you can bet i didn't mention curmudgeonry to the few, the proud, the needing to have paid attention in elementary school.
i do admit that i can be a bit of a language snob, but i digress. the point of the topic is to discuss how our language is so varied - accents, dialects, fun localized phrases, the whole gamut.
we can mention that in texas, when asked what kind of coke one would like, it is perfectly acceptable to reply "mountain dew", or that in ireland "good crack" means "lots of fun".
i know someone who was very offended when approached by a (presumably) homeless person in london and asked "fag?" (the unfortunately dirty person wanted a cigarette) and someone who was mortified when she learned that in the united states, if one asks to borrow a rubber, one will not be handed an eraser.
i highly doubt that i'm the only person to have experienced or been told about misunderstandings of this sort, so please share yours (for those who speak foreign languages, feel free to make comparisons among the way we phrase things, idioms, etc. as well).

My dream job is to work underpaid at a shitty bookstore

Well, everybody knows my absolute dream job is to teach poetry at college and write poetry. So I guess I'll give some more fanciful dream jobs, or maybe some evolutionary history of my dream jobs.

Like Linda, I too wanted (or want) to be a rock star. But I was never really very good at putting together a full band. When I was 8 or 9, me and some friends put together the fullest band I would ever have in my life, The Rockets. We had two guitar (tennis racquet) players, two drummers (ice cream buckets) and me, the lead singer. We gave a neighborhood concert and a lot of people came. I almost didn't sing because I was scared, but then we belted out our hits "You're Gonna Rock All Night" and "Holy Macaroni." Then we never played again. Kids are fickle.

In high school I sort of learned how to play a real instrument. Most of the time I was in a "band" called Visual Purple with one other person, my friend Art. But we could never convince anybody to join our band, because we weren't part of the cool or grunge crowd. So mainly we goofed around and recorded a lot of songs. Some were not absolutely terrible. At one point I did convince a fringe member of the grunge crowd to start a band, and we then convinced a drummer and second guitarist to join up. So there were four of us. But then they kicked me out of the band because I wasn't cool or something. And then they never played again. High school kids are fickle.

In college my friend Dimitri and I started a "band" called The Vendetta Smiths. I thought we were great because for once there were drums under my guitars. But it turns out I was wrong. We were terrible. So I moved away and learned how to become a better songwriter and graduate college. Then I moved back and I think we had some halfway decent songs. We changed our name to The Act Of Radio. Check out our myspace. We still couldn't ever convince anybody else to join up. Then I moved and we never played again. College graduates are fickle.

So anyway, I think I'd still like to be in a band. I'm thinking our name could be Je Voudrais Death or The Draculamen. I also like The Friends Of Science.

Once I wanted to be a filmmaker, too, but that didn't pan out and somehow I started writing poems. That story is long and boring, though. And there's only enough room on this post for one long and boring story.

In conclusion, the end. I would also like to be an actor. Or a fighter pilot.

Jobs I don't have

When I was little (ok, still now) I was really into Indiana Jones and I wanted to be an archeologist. I understood that most archeologists don't need to carry bull whips on their hips at all times to help them get out of life-threatening situations, that most likely no one would try to rip my still beating heart from my chest, and that archeologists don't always 'get the girl' in the end (even if she doesn't turn out to be a Nazi), but it still seemed cool. Researching, digging, discovering, writing... awesome.

I didn't end up taking very many anthropology courses in college, so this sort of faded by the way side. I also didn't take many (any) acting or singing courses so my other dream of starring in a Broadway musical has also fallen off. That's too bad.

Right now, my dream job would be to open a used bookstore, maybe with a cafe where people would feel comfortable talking and meeting each other and collaborating on artistic works or writing together. I could hang out there and chat all day, and feature new books from my friends in a big display. Not to mention my own books. I could set my own hours, paint the walls however I wanted, wear jeans to work, hire people with visable tattoos, whatever. Now... what could I call it?

really dreamin' here...

i want to be a rock star. seriously. i keep writing songs, and i love to sing them, but i don't have a band, and i don't play any instruments worth anything. so it's a dream that could happen if an alterna-band also flies out of Stephanie's butt (not that i'd wish that on you or anything).
i suppose the more realistic dream job i have involves combining the foster kid program with the animal rescue program. foster kids need love and need to learn empathy and responsibility: rescued animals have love to give and need to be taken care of. I have in mind a summer camp type set-up at a sort of ranch. the foster/troubled kids could come out for a couple of weeks and learn how to take care of the critters (with supervision of course). it would give foster parents a needed break, while the foster kids help out at the "shelter" (which would comprise of fairly tolerant/stable/adoptable animals from other shelters and rescue groups). i also have in mind a few special "resident" animals trained to stay with their respective kid (like a seeing eye dog) and be their "best friend" for a while. i'd have to do some serious fundraising, but i'm pretty sure we could get some vet and social services interns to do most of that kind of work (a cool offshoot would be to grant scholarships to the interns who do a great job, and possibly to some of the older kids, but that would require serious donations). people from the outside world could come in and adopt animals, and the kids could help with profiling ("rusty likes his belly rubbed" etc.). some of the foster kids might end up with a pet if their foster parents could handle it, but if not - all the more reason to come back next summer and mentor another foster kid at the program.
yeah, i have it all thought out. i've volunteered at a bunch of animal orgainzations and i'm working for a non-profit group right now, so in another dozen years or so i might know what i'm doing enough to get something off the ground. in the meantime, it's a pretty cool dream.
i also wouldn't mind winning the lottery and retiring early.

Let Me Put It This Way - I Have an Extensive Collection of Nametags and Hairnets

I hope everyone enjoyed the little vacation. I think last week was Jane's week for the topic, but as she was relocating across continents, I think we can forgive her. Frankly, I've been completely unmotivated to write on this blog - I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm soldiering on, and I've decided that this week's topic is dream jobs.

When I was a kid I wanted to be all sorts of things - veterinarian, marine biologist, ballet dancer, lawyer, Rogue from Xmen- everything under the sun. Things haven't changed much. I find myself constantly pondering the possibilities as I try to decide what I want to do when I leave the library. (I also decided at one time that I had Wolverine's mutant ability to heal quickly, but that's another post) Most of the options involve going back to school for any number of topics - law, interior design, library science, cosmetology - even being a mortician (is that mortuary science?) - but nothing seems to stick. (Side note : for awhile there my choices seemed influenced by what I watched on TV - I was really into Miami Ink, and then wanted to go into tattooing. The mortician? Totally Six Feet Under - thankfully I seemed to get over that phase before I started watching Dexter or Weeds) However, everyone has their dream jobs that they would love, but maybe never really considered doing.

My two dream jobs are storm chaser, or to study sharks (on offshoot of that marine biologist thing I guess). No, I did not get the idea to be a storm chaser from the movie Twister. I actually remember watching movies about storm chasers at the science museum when I was a kid. And well, I've had a love affair with Shark Week for as long as I can remember. Both jobs kinda have that element of danger. Unfortunately, both involve science, which I was never good at. Don't get me wrong - I loved my science classes, I just was never really disciplined enough to do my experiments properly. Part of that is laziness, part of it was natural curiosity - to see what would happen if I didn't follow the directions.

If I'm being honest though, my dream job would be getting to jet set around and take pics for a travel magazine or something. What? It could happen - shyeah - and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

For real back to school

Well, I don't really have the blues that school started again, since I basically like graduate school. However, over the summer as some of you may know I was job hunting. Just for a summer job. Teaching college is enough for me during the year. But nobody would hire me, except Kroger for one day. I've told the story a bunch of times, but basically they thought I was black (which I guess I didn't mind, except it was a little awkward. I've had to correct people on my ethnic background a lot in my life, and it's always a little embarrassing), and also they refused to tell me how much I would be getting paid. Every time I asked them they would act like it was some ridiculous, unrealistic question. So I quit.

But then I got hired by Bor- I mean, Shmorders (company blog policy forbids us to use the name of the store in a blog. Seriously.), which would be fine, except it was A WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL STARTED. So I've been working there, but I don't know if I can keep it. On the bright side, I don't really care about the job (unlike every motherfucker who works there, for some reason - we get paid $7.50/hr), so I basically just roll my eyes and act sarcastic to customers a lot. Those of you who know me know that it takes me a long time to quit a job. Like when I tried to quit Publix and the manager cried, so I said I'd keep working there. For some reason I feel honor-bound to this Unnamed Mega Book Store. I mean, they're paying us $7.50/hr, which is garbage.

So maybe I'll quit one day. Who knows? The job sucks and I wish I had it three months ago. But too late.

back to school blues

my new teacher is nice. She said write what we did this Summer. We went to Sea World. There were dolfins and sharks and manatnees. it was fun. Then we went to the beach. I burned all over like a lobster. My new house is bigger and the cats excape all the time. we moved into my new house. i like it a lot. i went to work lots of times. it's not as fun as the beach. splash! That's what the waves say. We ate at In & Out cheeseburgers. I wanted ice cream but we were out. My boss at work said thank goodness summer camp is over now we can relax.

Ha ha - like I go to school.

Really I moved and helped my husband start up his new business. I worked at my paid job at the YMCA hiring and then terminating all the summer camp staff, and I worked at my volunteer job cleaning up poop at the wildlife rehabilitation center (and playing with critters). The summer flew by, and I'm sad that it's gone because I didn't go on vacation yet.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

An essay by Stephanie Tyson (the 5 yr old part of me)

I was in a play. It was called a Midsummer Night's Dream. It was written a long time ago by some guy called Billy Shakespeare. He must have talked real funny because the lines we had to say were really weird. I was queen of the fairies and got to wear a pretty dress. (But no wings - boo). I got to make a lot of new friends. They are all pretty strange, but that's ok because I am too. Not a lot of people came to see our show, but we still had fun. Oh - I almost forgot - I got to paint the set and the sign outside. People said I did a real good job, and I got a gold star.

The rest of my summer was pretty boring. I had to work in a library everyday.
The end.