a lil update

So winter/Spring semester finished at both BYU and UVSC (I think it's stupid that UVSC calls their 2nd semester "spring" semester. There is nothing spring-y about January-March in Orem, Utah!). I went to ESL graduation last week and watched the snow fall, and then read outside in the blazing sun the next day. It's ridiculous. And did it snow on me again as I rode the vespa home today?

Yes. Yes, it did.

Today was the first day of Summer semester at UVSC. I'm teaching Writing 3 during the first block, and then Reading 3 and Listening/Speaking 4 during the 2nd block. I have a huge class (at least that's what the other teachers tell me I supposed to think) of 23 students, about 70% Asian and 30% other. I realized today that I automatically love my minority students more than the others. For example, I have a student from Tanzania and I've been scheming ways to make her tell me all about her life. My Nepali and Haitian students are already my favorites from last semester. I like the Koreans, Japanese, Mexicans, Venezuelans, etc., but can you really beat having a Swahili speaker in your class?!

I applied for the most fantastic looking job in Italy today. It's in a small-ish town called Senigallia, which is directly east of Florence, right on the coast. The salary is very good and we'd be on the beach, and it's "full time," which for Italians means 30 hours a week, leaving me plenty of time to travel, eat, sit on the beach...or maybe do some private tutoring to earn more money. The only catch is that they prefer to hire someone with valid EU working papers. And the only way to get valid EU working papers is to either be from the EU, or have an employer get the visa for you.

Pray that the rotten EU falls apart in the next few days so that the English school in Italy will be able to hire me.

Or that they'll just hire me anyway.

spring is here

It's about time.

bathroom neighbors

I just did the one thing I hate most in public restrooms. I walked into an almost completely empty bathroom, passed 10 empty stalls, and chose the one stall that was next to the only other occupant in the bathroom (in my defense, the girl was in the handicapped stall and I couldn't tell if there was anyone in there). This being one of my biggest pet peeves, I was instantly remorseful and contemplated sending my neighbor my apologies for invading her privacy (I decided against it, as it may have made the whole situation quite awkward). I'm a firm believer that unless the bathroom is busy, there should be at least 2 stalls in between you and the next person. But now I have a little less loathing for those who have done the same to me. But only a little.

Xseqër k'a (good morning)

Almost 4 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long), T-rav and I spent 2 months living in Guatemala doing humanitarian work. For the most part, I focused on teaching English and T-rav taught small business and square foot gardening classes, though we both worked on other projects as well. We also volunteered at a local orphanage and helped build a road in a tiny village in the mountains. It was easily one of the best times in our lives. We met fantastic people, saw amazing things and realized that we both love working in the non-profit realm.

This sounds like I'm preparing to make some kind of "we're moving back to Guatemala, never to return" type of announcement. Don't worry- I'm not (though I kind of wish I were). I've just been thinking that perhaps you might be wondering where my blogger name ixoj comes from.

Most of the people in the highlands of Guatemala (where we lived) are of Mayan descent and speak one of many Mayan languages (which, let me tell you, made it interesting when I was attempting to teach English (with the help of my Spanish) to people who didn't even speak Spanish yet). The Latino/Ladino people live mostly on the coast or in the big cities, where they



speak Spanish. Most of the villages we went to speak some form of Kaqchikel, which is closely related to K'iche and Tz'utujil. I love it because it is an ergative-absolutive language (English is a nominative-accusative language), it has a glottalized stops and affricates (b, t, k, q, tz, ch), and they conjugate every verb, and it sounds very guttural, and it's really cool! You can hear a sample of it above.

Anyway. The word ixoj is the Kaqchikel word for woman. It is pronounced "ee-shohk," where the k sound at the end is more of an airy sound rather than a hard k. Our Mayan driver used to teach us words in Kaqchikel to holler at the Mayan peeps as we drove around the villages. Imagine: 8 normal sized white people (= huge compared to the Mayans) crammed into a tiny Suzuki Sidekick, shouting things like "Good morning, man" or "thank you" or "come with me" or "I'm woman" in a language that white people aren't supposed to know. It was pretty great.

Alhamdulillah الحمد لله

الحمد لله. Alhamdulillah! I made it! Today marked the last day of BYU classes for Winter 2008, which means that I am free from teaching Ling 550!! Don't get me wrong- I loved the class. I learned more than I ever did when I was enrolled, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I found it to be extremely nerve-wracking to teach a graduate level class with too many intelligent, outspoken, intimidating students. UVSC will be done in 2 days, and then I just have to administer and grade finals. Praise be to God.

you said WHO is a member of the mo-tab?

You know you've all seen him during conference- the camera always seems to linger upon his beautifully shiny head a disproportionately high number of times- yes, I mean the token black man of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. You know who I mean. And you know you've always wondered what his story was. But who would have guessed that Alex Boye is actually an early 90s British hip-hop-boy-band hearthrob?

It's true. And if you're as intrigued as I was, you should read this article on ksl.com or his bio here.

why i love ballet flats

In my opinion, one of the best things that has happened to women's shoes over the past couple of years is the craze for the flat shoes known as ballet flats. And just because ryry happens to hate them, I'm going to explain in great detail why I (and so many other girls in the world) love them.

1. They're super comfortable. Heels have never been, and never will be pleasant to wear. Sure, heels might look great, but they can be hard to walk in and painful after a few hours (or even less). And if you're not accustomed to wearing heels, you look ridiculous trying to walk without falling, tripping, or swaying awkwardly. Plus, you can wear ballet flats for hours and never get sore feet.
   
2. There are so many different options. They come in every imaginable color and design,; some are striped, some have polka dots, some are one color with some kind of decorative flower, strap, bow, etc.
   
3. They're extremely versatile. Ballet flats can be worn with skirts or jeans or capris or really anything. You can find dressy ones or casual ones or somewhere in between.
   
4. And finally, they're just plain cute.
   

Whether or not the male half of the population appreciates these points or not, it's the simple truth. And unfortunately for those who don't like ballet flats, I don't imagine that they're going to disappear from women's wardrobes for several years (at least). I, for one, will be perfectly content if they never go out of fashion.

Fear

Every few months or so, it seems that I am faced with a new obstacle. Most of the time these obstacles are fairly short lived, and after a few weeks of stress, anxiety, and frustration, they usually pass. Last June, it was defending my thesis- 45 terrifying minutes, only to pass with flying colors. In August, it was finding and interviewing for a job- luckily one fell in my lap and I got to skip the whole interviewing process. And for the past few months, it has been teaching Ling 550 at BYU. This obstacle has been one that fills me with overwhelming fear at least twice a week when I arrive to lecture, as well as sometimes in between days when I'm preparing for class the next day. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching. I love the subject I'm teaching. But for some reason, the idea of standing in front of 8 BYU seniors and graduate students, lecturing them about language change, conversation, variations of English, etc., when I myself have just barely finished school, is extrordinarily terrifying. Some days I sit in my office and dream up reasons to cancel class (would it really be so bad to break my arm? couldn't I get in a car crash? maybe a distant relative is deathly ill). And then I realize that I'm being ridiculous and I force myself to march down to the belly of the JFSB to face the prospect of a stoning, beheading, or worse: questions I can't answer. Or even worse than that: questions I can't answer, but a student in the class can.

What it really all comes down to is the fact that I'm dreadfully insecure about my abilities, but more specifically, my intelligence. It doesn't matter that apparently the Linguistics Department thought me to be competent enough to teach this class. It doesn't matter that I have a master's degree or that I might know a little tiny bit about sociolinguistics. All I know is that I don't want my students to think I'm stupid. I don't care if they hate my guts, but if they think I'm not intelligent enough to teach this class, I'll probably hole up in my room and watch the Lord of the Rings and eat kettle corn for the next 3 weeks. And the day is rapidly approaching when I shall know their opinion of me- with the end of the semester comes the time to"rate your instructor." Not only will the results of this survey determine my level of self-esteem for the next few weeks (hopefully my ESL students will give me glowing reviews to help boost me back up), but it will also, in part, determine whether BYU will ever want to hire me again, the type of recommendation I receive from the Department Chair, and my hopes of ever attaining a doctorate degree.

So join with me as I await the horrors that could befall me.