Third Day of Classes and Random Thoughts

1-7-10

First, I keep writing '09 on my papers even though I very well know that it's 2010 (and that's twenty-ten). Hopefully I get into the habit of putting the correct year on my assignments so as to save time.

Second, I just got back from my second Fitness for Life class, where we had the adventure of putting on the heart rate monitors. After we'd accomplished that, Dr. Mayer sent us running up the stairs to the upper church parking lot. Right now my heart rate is a little high because my body is still fighting off whatever I got last Sabbath (my average was 168, which is a little high). I bought comfy exercise pants from the campus shop--they're warmish and comfy, and so I think they're worth what I paid. I still felt a little foolish and slow like I usually do in physical education classes (and I haven't had one of those since sophomore year of high school). I think it was a lot easier to become more fit while I was on Ebeye (for me, at least). I walked, swam, scubaed, snorkeled, and paced around my classroom--and I ate decently sized portions of mostly healthy food. I'm trying to do that here, but it's not as easy (especially the snorkeling and scubaing; I miss those).

Third, I don't care if the language I speak is the prestige dialect. It still sounds right to me, and I will probably never change my mind about the fact that I think the unword "dis" is not the word "this," or things along those lines. Mr. Negron was fishing for the answer that proper speaking and proper grammar are considered class-status markers (in English, anyway), but I wasn't going to offer the "correct" answer because I want to hear other reasons. The chapter in Linguistics talked about how there are intuitive rules that children learn about languages, and proper sentence structure and proper pronunciations and what not are part of that (at least in my understanding of the chapter; I could be wrong). What really annoys me, though, are public (or private) signs that misuse apostrophes (like an "employee's only." What's an only, and who's the employee who owns it?)

Fourth, it's snowing here in Collegedale, and people are freaking out. Not everyone, mind, but the ones who usually don't see snow (*coughsouthernerscough*) are. Right now it's just a dusting. I understand that Hamilton County only has like two plows and not a lot of road salt, but seriously, people are clearing Wal-Mart's shelves of essential food items like cereal, bread, and milk. For a possible three inches of snow. It's really weird to watch, for this Hoosier from the northern part of Indiana.

Fifth, I need to do some homework and take a nap. I may go to convocation tonight. I may not. We will see.

More later.