stalling ---- Saturday 20 November

I'm supposed to be writing my paper for developmental psych right now: 5-6 pages on what makes a successful marriage, comparing research published in peer-reviewed psychology journals with tips in popular magazines like Cosmopolitan. All in 5-6 pages. I couldn't even begin to define "successful marriage" in 5-6 pages. I think the very scope of the topic is delaying the start of writing. I've done my research. Just... have... to start... writing....

I'm developing a fondness for bad horror films. Last night a friend and I watched Christine, an entertainingly ineffectual horror flick about a haunted car-- based on a Stephen King novel. It was almost as good (in a bad way) as Prom Night 2, which we watched over Halloween. I can't handle watching horror movies that are actually frightening, but movies whose very attempts to scare end up being merely amusing are rapidly gaining my affection.

I'm still stalling. And now I'm making myself stop.

proverbs back in action ---- still Tuesday

I've corrected the source coding for the Greek and English proverbs (see box to the left). In the next few days I'll try to remember to post some links to helpful pages for you poor blokes who still can't see the Greek.

countdown again ---- Tuesday 16 November

It's that time of the semester-- when suddenly the remaining classes, labs, assignments, etc. begin to be countable on only one hand. Tonight was my next-to-the-last torturous lab in my Stats for Idiots-- whoops, I mean psych majors-- class. (Was that too harsh? I may edit that out at some point in the future when I'm less irked by the utter uselessness of this entire course.) Of course, now this countdown has extra significance, since the end of the semester is all that I'm waiting for before I shake the Norman dust off my feet (again) and move to Houston. If I didn't have classes, I'd already have given my two-weeks' at work and would be ready to leave over Thanksgiving. I'm not usually one to hang on once the decision has been made. Now I have to make a persistent and conscious effort to remember that I am in fact still here and and that I am actually still enrolled in these pre-physical therapy courses that need to be completed. Mentally, however, I'm already gone.

My friend Randy has convinced me (no, it didn't take much arm-twisting; sometimes I am fairly agreeable to suggestions) to activate the site feed for my blog, so here's the link for that: http://sar5ah.blogspot.com/atom.xml. If you have no clue what I might be talking about, don't worry-- I'm not sure I know. But here's Randy's explanation: http://www.randyhoyt.net/posts/2004/05/what.is.syndication/. I'm slowly attempting this myself. Tonight when I downloaded and installed the Wildgrape NewsDesk, however, it was unable to read either Randy's blog feed or mine. So at the moment I can't recommend Wildgrape, though it's almost certainly a problem on my end. Point to take from all of this: don't ask me for help with setting up your news aggregator.

spinning off in a new (yet very familiar) direction ---- 14 November 2004

From 13 August to 14 November----- three months is quite a stretch, especially in my life, in which a span of a mere four days can result in drastic alterations in my school plans, my living arrangements, and my general ideas about my future.

Because yes, I have changed my major again. Or whatever such a deed might be called at this point. No more physical therapy-- and I certainly feel no regrets about that (though it was nice to think I would in the future be surrounded by people who knew how to help with my various aches and pains). If what I love is the study of languages-- any language, all languages, anything to do with languages-- and if [maybe this deserves an eiper (Romanization pending getting that into a Greek font)] I could actually make some sort of a living by engaging that love full-time, why wouldn't I do that?
Note that I did say "the study of languages", not "the study of language". So I'm leaning more in an anthropological rather than a pure linguistic direction, so that I can indulge in all things glorious about many different languages and dialects and cultural and environmental influences and effects on culture and environment and perception and the interplay and transmission of interacting languages and cultures and.... I know, I know-- perhaps at some point I'll have to narrow that down a little bit. But I hope not.

So, with my parents' blessing, as soon as this semester ends I'm moving to Houston to save some money and figure out what the next step might be-- and to immerse myself ever more in whatever about languages I can find. And Houston, whatever its other faults, will provide many opportunities for diverse language exposure. It's all in how motivated I am to find those opportunities.

So that's my current craziness. I need to be writing about sympathetic and parasympathetic innervation of the heart and about antiobiotic abuse (two different assignments)-- because, whatever my excitement about my new direction, the semester is not yet finished, and there are papers to be written and exams to be taken and textbooks to be read and pigs to be dissected. So now I'm going to try to finish some of that.