Can this blogger be the first – with the exception of my professor, the Most Adorable Medievalist ever - to suggest an immediate linguistic reversion to Middle or Old English? Think how awesome this would be! For one, we would get to use thorns, eths, ashes (diagraphs roughly analogous to th, th, and ae, in that order), which already makes Old English about ten times cooler than the contemporary variety. But, I hear you say, if I wanted to do that, I'd just move to Scandinavia! Fair enough. I wish I could do that myself.
There are, however, still more possibilities: just think of the verbs! Middle English had this absolutely amazing tendency towards strong verbs - that is, verbs with irregular past participles. Instead of help, helped, had helped, we'd have help, halp, had holpen. Awesome, no?
And just think of the adjectival possibilities! And the nouns! Forget saying: "I knew that I wasn't really crazy," with Middle English, you can freely tell your friends "I wot that I nere passing wood." AND THEN THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER.
Also, nonstandard spelling means I no longer have to be concerned that one of my writing students turned in a comment card last week that said: "your doing good as a teacher." Sigh.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
On Marriage
I am not gay. But some of my best friends are.*
I was lucky enough to be born into what now strikes me as an unbelievably liberal family. My parents are both firm believers in the idea that you create your own family and so even though I am biologically related to an entire town in the flat Midwest, most of my "uncles" and "aunts" were actually my parents' friends from grad school. As a child, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D and Aunt C and Uncle F and Uncle J and Uncle R were all scientists. More importantly, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D lived together, and so did Uncle J and Uncle R. It wasn't until I was older, and slightly more indoctrinated into our contemporary** pop culture that it even struck me that one of these things was not like the other.
Of course, by then, I had my own problems. I was fourteen, and in love for the first time with my best male friend. We got on great, had painfully emotional, pseudointellectual conversations, and tried desperately to convince ourselves that our conversations were terribly grown up. We dated for a while, and discovered that sometimes good friends make terrible significant others. We broke up and I spent a good few months wishing him back. Then, he came out. The conversation took place (as so many of them did) over MSN messenger. "I'm gay," he told me. Those two words, then silence. I said the only thing that came to mind, the only thing that seemed even remotely right. "I know."
In a way, I did. At least, I'd suspected, even while we were dating. My parents certainly did. With those words, though, I was trying to say more than just, "I am cognizant of your homosexuality." I wanted to tell him, "I'm okay with this. You're my family. You will never change for me. I still love you." Lucky for me, he's always been good at understanding what I'm not saying.
It's six years later. We still live only fifteen minutes apart. We go food shopping together. He wants me to move into his house next year, once one of his roommates graduates. We talk online, still. We plan our perfect dates. We plan our perfect weddings. He wants kids. He's become much more serious, these past few months, much more adult. He's still my biggest cheerleader when things go wrong, and when they go right.
When I get married, whenever*** that is, he'll be standing next to me. My best man, my man of honor. Maybe he'll cry. I hope so. I am grateful that we live in a state where hopefully, maybe, I'll one day be able to do the same for him.
Everyone should have that right.
This post was written in response to the "Write to Marry" initiative. If you are registered to vote in California, vote 'no' on Proposition 8!
*Ha ha, see what I did there, rhetorics of privilege & exclusion?
** Read: homophobic and misogynistic
*** ...if...
I was lucky enough to be born into what now strikes me as an unbelievably liberal family. My parents are both firm believers in the idea that you create your own family and so even though I am biologically related to an entire town in the flat Midwest, most of my "uncles" and "aunts" were actually my parents' friends from grad school. As a child, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D and Aunt C and Uncle F and Uncle J and Uncle R were all scientists. More importantly, I didn't think it was odd that Uncle B and Uncle D lived together, and so did Uncle J and Uncle R. It wasn't until I was older, and slightly more indoctrinated into our contemporary** pop culture that it even struck me that one of these things was not like the other.
Of course, by then, I had my own problems. I was fourteen, and in love for the first time with my best male friend. We got on great, had painfully emotional, pseudointellectual conversations, and tried desperately to convince ourselves that our conversations were terribly grown up. We dated for a while, and discovered that sometimes good friends make terrible significant others. We broke up and I spent a good few months wishing him back. Then, he came out. The conversation took place (as so many of them did) over MSN messenger. "I'm gay," he told me. Those two words, then silence. I said the only thing that came to mind, the only thing that seemed even remotely right. "I know."
In a way, I did. At least, I'd suspected, even while we were dating. My parents certainly did. With those words, though, I was trying to say more than just, "I am cognizant of your homosexuality." I wanted to tell him, "I'm okay with this. You're my family. You will never change for me. I still love you." Lucky for me, he's always been good at understanding what I'm not saying.
It's six years later. We still live only fifteen minutes apart. We go food shopping together. He wants me to move into his house next year, once one of his roommates graduates. We talk online, still. We plan our perfect dates. We plan our perfect weddings. He wants kids. He's become much more serious, these past few months, much more adult. He's still my biggest cheerleader when things go wrong, and when they go right.
When I get married, whenever*** that is, he'll be standing next to me. My best man, my man of honor. Maybe he'll cry. I hope so. I am grateful that we live in a state where hopefully, maybe, I'll one day be able to do the same for him.
Everyone should have that right.
This post was written in response to the "Write to Marry" initiative. If you are registered to vote in California, vote 'no' on Proposition 8!
*Ha ha, see what I did there, rhetorics of privilege & exclusion?
** Read: homophobic and misogynistic
*** ...if...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
It's ironic...
... that one of the best scientific, engineering, and technical universities can't work it so I get consistently good wireless in my room, which oh-by-the-way is all of thirty-five feet from a router.
... that my first instinct after taking a test I may or may not have failed is to say "that's it! I'm never going to that class again!"
... that for the amount of time I seem to spend in Hayden Library, I've never actually borrowed a book from there.
... that as much as I like writing, I am straight-up balls at maintaining a blog.
... that my first instinct after taking a test I may or may not have failed is to say "that's it! I'm never going to that class again!"
... that for the amount of time I seem to spend in Hayden Library, I've never actually borrowed a book from there.
... that as much as I like writing, I am straight-up balls at maintaining a blog.
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