And so it happens. The new school year comes, and every day I have material for a new post, I want to blog 'til my fingers ache. Fortunately for the internet, I don't. However. This, I have to write. Because you know, it's making me happy. I bought a jacket the other day from a large chain-store that shall remain unnamed. Within two days of buying said jacket (with pockets! in the right places!), the thread holding the buttons onto the front of it started to unravel, resulting in my almost-losing three of them. I decided to fix this issue. And, since the button-holes didn't look too great (read: sturdy) either, I decided to sew 'em up. The only problem was, I really didn't know how... aaand wasn't sure I even had a needle.
Fortunately for me, my roommate DID have one, and the internet can tell you ANYTHING- including, without much trouble at all, how to hand-sew a button-hole.
So what have I been doing for the past two days, do you think, instead of studying for a test*, or finishing my homework, or starting new homework, or doing laundry, or reading for class, etc? Yes. I have been sewing on buttons and re-sewing button-holes into this new jacket. It makes me feel nice and craft-y, like I actually did something with my money - after all, someone else would've just returned it, and then- what do big chain stores do with faulty clothes? throw them away? donate them to the homeless? hmm... if it's that last one, maybe I should've swapped it after all... piffle, I should've asked the attendant. Sigh. Anyway- Paradoxical, no? =) ...I just hope the rest of it isn't as flimsily sewn as the buttons were. :S
over 'n out.
E.O.
*which turned out to be the easiest test of its kind that I've ever taken, fortunately.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
I'm here.
I'm here. Here to listen to your troubles, dear. Didn't think I'd be the one you'd pick to say, hey, I can't take this shit, please listen to me for a bit. Didn't think you'd see such strength in me, didn't think I'd have the eyes to see that something's troubling you, causing you to doubt yourself. But if I can, I'll help.
I'll do for you what I wish someone would do for me, ask you how you are- no really, I mean it, it's more than just a greeting, I can see that something's keeping you from smiling, so- I'll ask what's up with you, and try to help you reason through, let you know there's someone here who cares about just you.
And these new eyes I have? This new-found strength that lets me reach out? No, no, it's not my own, it's not from me. This ability I seem to have, now, comes from knowing that God loves me, somehow, and has my back, and what's more, has commanded me to love him back. So I will. I do. And that is how I am able to be here for you, and hope that you see in this love that seems to come from me that He, he loves you too.
Thank you Skip.
over 'n out.
E.O.
I'll do for you what I wish someone would do for me, ask you how you are- no really, I mean it, it's more than just a greeting, I can see that something's keeping you from smiling, so- I'll ask what's up with you, and try to help you reason through, let you know there's someone here who cares about just you.
And these new eyes I have? This new-found strength that lets me reach out? No, no, it's not my own, it's not from me. This ability I seem to have, now, comes from knowing that God loves me, somehow, and has my back, and what's more, has commanded me to love him back. So I will. I do. And that is how I am able to be here for you, and hope that you see in this love that seems to come from me that He, he loves you too.
Thank you Skip.
over 'n out.
E.O.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
If I'd had a dream
Today I had a tutee who reminded me of Imogen Heap, but Chinese. It was something about the structure of her face and the way she pronounced her vowels (she had spent time in Britain- I'm not totally crazy, y'all).
So then I started to imagine, well, what if I DID tutor Imogen Heap? - And then promptly realized that that could only ever happen in a dream. So. If I had had a dream about tutoring Imogen Heap, here's what it would've looked like:
Last night I dreamt that I was helping Imogen Heap edit her paper for English class. It was hard for her, because she only ever writes in song, and she couldn't seem to get anything down in prose. She kept trying to explain to me that she needed to condense her ideas all the way into one word, and she couldn't understand why I wanted her to change "which" to "who" ... She was up a tree, she said, and needed to get down, but couldn't find the branch she came up by. Eventually, we agreed that if I told her where the button on the tree-trunk was that would make the branch she wanted come out, she would use the right word in her essay. Then she was back on the ground with me, singing something about her heart, and I sent her on her way, saying that I couldn't help her WRITE the thing, I was only there to help EDIT, and she ought to get her ideas out onto paper first, before she came asking me things. Then she suddenly had a typewriter that was typing words into the air and I was trying to catch them, like bubbles, and put them into an organized sequence... but they kept popping as soon as I had more than one.
etc. etc.
Yes. I just wrote a fictional dream. Um... ? How to explain... I don't know. Sometimes you just have to write silly things, for the heck of it.
over 'n out.
E.O.
So then I started to imagine, well, what if I DID tutor Imogen Heap? - And then promptly realized that that could only ever happen in a dream. So. If I had had a dream about tutoring Imogen Heap, here's what it would've looked like:
Last night I dreamt that I was helping Imogen Heap edit her paper for English class. It was hard for her, because she only ever writes in song, and she couldn't seem to get anything down in prose. She kept trying to explain to me that she needed to condense her ideas all the way into one word, and she couldn't understand why I wanted her to change "which" to "who" ... She was up a tree, she said, and needed to get down, but couldn't find the branch she came up by. Eventually, we agreed that if I told her where the button on the tree-trunk was that would make the branch she wanted come out, she would use the right word in her essay. Then she was back on the ground with me, singing something about her heart, and I sent her on her way, saying that I couldn't help her WRITE the thing, I was only there to help EDIT, and she ought to get her ideas out onto paper first, before she came asking me things. Then she suddenly had a typewriter that was typing words into the air and I was trying to catch them, like bubbles, and put them into an organized sequence... but they kept popping as soon as I had more than one.
etc. etc.
Yes. I just wrote a fictional dream. Um... ? How to explain... I don't know. Sometimes you just have to write silly things, for the heck of it.
over 'n out.
E.O.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Have I mentioned
that I love being an ESL tutor? No? Maybe I mentioned that I LOVE being an ESL tutor? That either. Well. Now you know.
Here is an excerpt from a letter to a friend about just HOW COOL it is:
I've started doing ESL tutoring, which is a blast. It requires a lot of mental and social energy because I have to analyze a paper and a person at the same time. It's like… you have to read the surface meaning of the paper, with all its grammar mistakes and awkward wordings, but also what the person was trying to say when they wrote it; you also have to think about it as just a paper, so, is it well-organized, does it have an intro and a thesis statement, do the ideas flow with one another and so forth. At the same time though, you have to read the author of the paper: are they comfortable, are they understanding you, are you being overbearing, do they know the answer and they just can't see it yet, or do they really have no clue? All while trying to get them to fix their work for themselves, without needing me to spell it out for them. ‘Cause oftentimes it’s an easy fix, but you don’t want to just say “you need to make this word plural,” you want them to see it. Because the goal is for the person to be able to self-correct and thus, write better in the first place. It's really fascinating, deciphering the paper and analyzing it as a thing full of two languages, and then talking about the nuances of English meanings and usages with the authors. I can tell from talking to them that they understand so much more than they can convey in their English words, that there’s a whole world lurking behind their broken sentences. It’s like peering through a keyhole. Sometimes I wish the meetings could last more than an hour, but I know that I'd be terribly exhausted if they did.
End of excerpt.
ALSO! Today I met with a girl who wanted help planning her paper- which is not technically what ESL is supposed to help with, they have the writing center for that (deals more with content and with Native English Speakers) BUT as it turned out, she was totally a TCK and as fascinated by languages as I was. So we spent an hour talking about categorical perception, IPA, how people learn languages, what languages we want to learn, etc. :D I cannot even TELL you how big the smile on my face was when I left.
anyways. So yeah.
I LOVE BEING AN ESL TUTOR. Just in case that wasn't clear.
Here is an excerpt from a letter to a friend about just HOW COOL it is:
I've started doing ESL tutoring, which is a blast. It requires a lot of mental and social energy because I have to analyze a paper and a person at the same time. It's like… you have to read the surface meaning of the paper, with all its grammar mistakes and awkward wordings, but also what the person was trying to say when they wrote it; you also have to think about it as just a paper, so, is it well-organized, does it have an intro and a thesis statement, do the ideas flow with one another and so forth. At the same time though, you have to read the author of the paper: are they comfortable, are they understanding you, are you being overbearing, do they know the answer and they just can't see it yet, or do they really have no clue? All while trying to get them to fix their work for themselves, without needing me to spell it out for them. ‘Cause oftentimes it’s an easy fix, but you don’t want to just say “you need to make this word plural,” you want them to see it. Because the goal is for the person to be able to self-correct and thus, write better in the first place. It's really fascinating, deciphering the paper and analyzing it as a thing full of two languages, and then talking about the nuances of English meanings and usages with the authors. I can tell from talking to them that they understand so much more than they can convey in their English words, that there’s a whole world lurking behind their broken sentences. It’s like peering through a keyhole. Sometimes I wish the meetings could last more than an hour, but I know that I'd be terribly exhausted if they did.
End of excerpt.
ALSO! Today I met with a girl who wanted help planning her paper- which is not technically what ESL is supposed to help with, they have the writing center for that (deals more with content and with Native English Speakers) BUT as it turned out, she was totally a TCK and as fascinated by languages as I was. So we spent an hour talking about categorical perception, IPA, how people learn languages, what languages we want to learn, etc. :D I cannot even TELL you how big the smile on my face was when I left.
anyways. So yeah.
I LOVE BEING AN ESL TUTOR. Just in case that wasn't clear.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Coming to Terms: 1
Girl, why are you crying?
How do you want God to interact with the world?
Is that right/fair?
Do you believe in faith?
Does one lose the ability to think abstractly as one advances in years? Or does one gain it? I have always loved the concrete. I like for things to be spelled out and clear cut. Prevarication gets on my nerves; so do empty polite phrases or intensely idea-focused conversations. When an example crops up, I perk up and listen. When I have trouble thinking about something, I try to put it into some kind of real-life situation. Practicality and straight-forward bluntness would be my middle-names, if they weren't too long. I don't generally like poetry because it is too condensed, and I can't tell what it says right off the bat, I have to look at it from a cajillion different angles and imagine what it might mean. But I'm starting to fear that these tendencies may be working to my disadvantage- or at least making my mental life more strenuous than those of others.
Abstract ideas are just so fuzzy to me. They don't make sense unless they're put into a situation; otherwise they confuse me and I don't know how to think anymore.
That's just not who I thought I was, you know? So often I've been hailed as smart. So often people have praised my contributions to discussion, my need to keep us honest and grounded; they say it makes them think harder & deeper.
But really all that's going on is I'm so practical I can't follow the discussion otherwise. Turns out this sage is ought but a fool with a big vocabulary. (side question: so is it praise or pity? do they realize?)
How then can I approach this question: do I think there is value in faith?
It's too elusive for me to pin it down and hash it out with myself...
but I will. This isn't over yet.
How do you want God to interact with the world?
Is that right/fair?
Do you believe in faith?
Does one lose the ability to think abstractly as one advances in years? Or does one gain it? I have always loved the concrete. I like for things to be spelled out and clear cut. Prevarication gets on my nerves; so do empty polite phrases or intensely idea-focused conversations. When an example crops up, I perk up and listen. When I have trouble thinking about something, I try to put it into some kind of real-life situation. Practicality and straight-forward bluntness would be my middle-names, if they weren't too long. I don't generally like poetry because it is too condensed, and I can't tell what it says right off the bat, I have to look at it from a cajillion different angles and imagine what it might mean. But I'm starting to fear that these tendencies may be working to my disadvantage- or at least making my mental life more strenuous than those of others.
Abstract ideas are just so fuzzy to me. They don't make sense unless they're put into a situation; otherwise they confuse me and I don't know how to think anymore.
That's just not who I thought I was, you know? So often I've been hailed as smart. So often people have praised my contributions to discussion, my need to keep us honest and grounded; they say it makes them think harder & deeper.
But really all that's going on is I'm so practical I can't follow the discussion otherwise. Turns out this sage is ought but a fool with a big vocabulary. (side question: so is it praise or pity? do they realize?)
How then can I approach this question: do I think there is value in faith?
It's too elusive for me to pin it down and hash it out with myself...
but I will. This isn't over yet.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Okay, a real post
So here's the deal, y'all. Summer's over. There's a lot going on in my life now, and things aren't as simple as they were in the summer, 'cause there's lots of things to keep track of. I had to buy a planner. A PLANNER! Me! The girl who just keeps it all in her head and makes a list or two a day, just to make sure it's all still there. But no more. Or maybe just allinoneplace, lol.
What am I doing, you ask? Well. For starters, I'm in classes. Of course. I have been for the past many years of my life (read: I only have two more years of this, then comes the REAL WORLD. How do I feel about this? I have not yet decided, but I'm guessing it's somewhere between scared and curious). Classes are filling my head with thoughts of translation, translatability, borrowing, being able to read and write, and what-do-words-really-mean. I love words.
That's another thing. I am discovering that I love a lot of things in life. I love sunlight in my room of a morning. I love waking up and putzing around my flat and biking to campus. I love ESL tutoring (oh, I'll tell you about that in a minute) and I love all of my small groups (another hing I'll tell you about in just a minute, maybe) etc. I guess what I'm discovering is the ability to say that I love things, the ability to tell people, when they ask me how I'm doing, that it's been a wonderful day, or that I love my classes, and my jobs, and my life. This pervasive - can I call it joy? - is almost bewildering. God is good.
Life feels substantially different to me this beginning. It's partially the old love of change and fall, and schoolstart, but it's also... well, more than that. For one thing, I am somehow in a place where I can be strong for other people now. I'm in leadership positions too, which is new and strange. You know what else is very different this year? The amount of time I'm spending in the Bible. Yes, it's true. I suppose now would be a good time to mention all those small groups I was talking about. I'm participating in two and helping lead one. The two I'm a participant in are vastly different from one another, which is good. All of them, however, require some intense study of Bible passages.
All this newness and happiness are giving me space to be able to ask myself some tough questions. What those are, I will preserve for another night, because I just sat staring at the screen for the past 5 minutes straight. Lol. Clearly, it's time for sleep. Tomorrow is another full (FULL) day.
I will leave you with this thought:
I'm hoping that I become a conglomeration of all the people I admire, plus a little something extra; every text is a translation of and draws on the ones that have come before it.
over 'n out.
E.O.
What am I doing, you ask? Well. For starters, I'm in classes. Of course. I have been for the past many years of my life (read: I only have two more years of this, then comes the REAL WORLD. How do I feel about this? I have not yet decided, but I'm guessing it's somewhere between scared and curious). Classes are filling my head with thoughts of translation, translatability, borrowing, being able to read and write, and what-do-words-really-mean. I love words.
That's another thing. I am discovering that I love a lot of things in life. I love sunlight in my room of a morning. I love waking up and putzing around my flat and biking to campus. I love ESL tutoring (oh, I'll tell you about that in a minute) and I love all of my small groups (another hing I'll tell you about in just a minute, maybe) etc. I guess what I'm discovering is the ability to say that I love things, the ability to tell people, when they ask me how I'm doing, that it's been a wonderful day, or that I love my classes, and my jobs, and my life. This pervasive - can I call it joy? - is almost bewildering. God is good.
Life feels substantially different to me this beginning. It's partially the old love of change and fall, and schoolstart, but it's also... well, more than that. For one thing, I am somehow in a place where I can be strong for other people now. I'm in leadership positions too, which is new and strange. You know what else is very different this year? The amount of time I'm spending in the Bible. Yes, it's true. I suppose now would be a good time to mention all those small groups I was talking about. I'm participating in two and helping lead one. The two I'm a participant in are vastly different from one another, which is good. All of them, however, require some intense study of Bible passages.
All this newness and happiness are giving me space to be able to ask myself some tough questions. What those are, I will preserve for another night, because I just sat staring at the screen for the past 5 minutes straight. Lol. Clearly, it's time for sleep. Tomorrow is another full (FULL) day.
I will leave you with this thought:
I'm hoping that I become a conglomeration of all the people I admire, plus a little something extra; every text is a translation of and draws on the ones that have come before it.
over 'n out.
E.O.
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