Yellow Wallpaper

It is the last day of National Poetry Month, and I'm sad that I've been too busy reading and studying poetry to post any. But other people have a done a great job of that and so I feel happy to delegate that responsibility to others. Today, however, is " Poem in Your Pocket Day ", and since I don't plan on going anywhere I thought the best way to share a poem with those I care about is through the Internet. Here's a poem by John Donne that I've been mulling over in my brain a lot for the past few weeks. It really speaks to me at this time of great confusion and fearfulness: A new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out, The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets and the firmament They seek so many new; they see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All j...

Mr. Fob and I have both studied languages, though more literature than linguistics. However, we still often discuss various nuances of language and find ourselves running to the OED for assistance. Here's a sample of today's dinnertime conversation: FoxyJ: So is N a nasalized sound and M is not? Mr. Fob: No, both M and N are nasalized, but N is velar. FoxyJ: Oh, so S-Boogie says "nilk" because her tongue is already moving back in her mouth in anticipation of the liquid "l" sound, right? Mr. Fob: Yeah, "l" and "k" are both in the back of the mouth. (Sorry I have no idea how to do APA on blogger) Then S-Boogie went on to ask about how to say her teacher's name, which includes a strong Spanish R. So we discussed how to pronounce the "R" sound, but S-Boogie is struggling with it. Then we had a discussion of how mistress evolved into "Mrs". And then I realized that we really are nerds. PS--Little Dude has been listening...

Random childhood memories: We always thought the Eagles were singing "Take Me to the Lemon " (like this one ) and that Crystal Gale was saying "Donuts make my brownies blue" (not this ) We called "goulash" (macaroni with hamburger and spaghetti sauce) " Jabba casserole" because my brother told my mom that it looked as gross as Jabba the Hut. That fluffy jello stuff with cottage cheese and Cool Whip was dubbed "penguin parfait" after I decided it looked like a penguin being eaten by a seal that I saw in a picture in National Geographic . Chicken, rice and broccoli casserole was called "tree and tooth". Some of my favorite foods from when I was a kid: egg salad sandwiches on pita bread with shredded cheese and alfalfa sprouts cabbage rolls with brown rice and cheese chicken marengo chiles rellenos chili manicotti hamburger stew blueberry strata pie striped delight applesauce oatmeal chocolate chip cookies When we all got in t...

The other day in my Don Quixote class we were discussing reading and the relationship between literature and our thoughts and actions. We read a piece from Dante's Inferno about two adulterous lovers, Paolo and Francesca. They were condemned to spend eternity in an embrace, which was torture because they did not have bodies and could not enjoy each other. Anyways, their excuse was that they had been reading the story of Lancelot together and were so overwhelmed by the romance that they begin to kiss, etc. It is very much similar to the whole "don't lay down on the couch with your boyfriend and watch R-rated movies" thing. So as a class we discussed the problems of the media and reading, since Don Quixote read so much that his brains dried up and he thought he was a character in chivalric romances. We also got into the whole "liken the scriptures to yourself thing", at which point Dr. Rosenberg gave me and the guy next to me a dirty look. That was because t...

My mom called last night to ask me to do her a favor. The school she is teaching at now has a large population of children whose parents only speak Spanish, so anything they send home must be in both English and Spanish. Apparently they have a translator/interpreter who works for the school that can do those kinds of things, but they are really busy with the new school year starting. So she wanted me to translate a letter for the parents into Spanish for her. And of course, I said yes. The thing is, I did major in Spanish Translation as an undergraduate, and I think that I have fairly good abilities in the language. But, I also learned several things in my class that really mean that I should say no to any translation requests. In the first place, one of the biggest rules in translation is that you should generally only work going into your native language. Thus, I should only translate things from Spanish into English. I know why this is so, because I have a really hard time being abl...