cultural or human nature?

One thing I've always wondered about is how much culture influence the way we are. How much of our reactions to life are taught to us, and how much is just the way we inherently are? My favorite example, and one I like to bring up to T-rav every now and then, is the stereotypical American male. Everyone knows that a real man doesn't cry. He doesn't exhibit a whole lot of any type of emotion, except, perhaps, anger or maybe happiness. A real man is strong, powerful, and suppresses his feelings. And he most definitely doesn't cry. On the other hand, a real woman is in touch with her emotions, maybe even too much so.

I firmly believe that this is mostly culturally taught. From infancy, I think American boys are told not to cry, to be tough, to take care of their sister, etc. And girls are taught to rely on men, gush forth their feelings, and cry at the drop of a hat. This is not to completely discount the inherent differences between men and women. But in my opinion, the biggest differences come from how we are raised, not our genes. For example, Latin men are required to be both macho, but also passionate, and, if the moment demands it, very emotional. Does that mean that their genes make them more emotional than American men, or are they raised that way? I would venture to say they've been raised that way.

What do you think?

Another year, Another festival of colors

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here and read about last year. This year's Festival of Colors was much the same, but even bigger. I kind of hate that it has become the "cool" thing to do at BYU. I was celebrating Holi before some of those peeps had even started high school! Rather than thinking this makes me old, I prefer to think of it as dedication! Dedication and cultural awareness. The people who come nowadays have no idea what holi is about, and nor do they seem to care. They just come to get covered in paint. And make a ruckus. So while I feel slightly indignant that the masses have started participating in something that I like to do, it's still pretty great. You should go some time.

I love delta's policy or overbooking every flight, and then bumping people off at the last minute. Thus far, it has gotten us a total of 2.5 free trips in the past 6 months. You heard me. Free. Let me tell you just how dang good it feels to push "purchase" on a trip that you don't actually have to pay for. It's fantastically good. It's even better than when ma and pa pay because there's no associated guilt that you have somehow taken advantage of your parents' generosity. So the next time the delta people ask for volunteers, I recommend you push and shove your way to the front of the line. It's totally worth it.

The dreaded return to real life

Yesterday I was loathe to admit that spring break really was over. I almost didn't get up to go to school, but then, as usual, my responsible self dragged my lazy self out of bed, into the shower, and over to UVU. Curse that responsible side. Sometimes I think it's almost worse to take a break and have to go back to it than not to have a break at all. Anyway. I grudgingly went to school, thinking all the while of how nice it would be to have a full week off like the rest of the universities in the US (except BYU, of course). My students exhibited similar feelings; when I walked into class this afternoon, 4 out of the 6 students in the room had their heads down on their books, and when they finally did rouse themselves enough to acknowledge my presence in the room, I was met with blank faces. I'll let you guess just how well our lesson went today...

I suppose that's enough complaining. Let me tell you about how great my spring break was and maybe you'll understand why I didn't want to come back to real life.

I started out Wednesday by driving down to Vegas to eventually meet up with T-rav, who was doing a bit of side work with a friend. Because he was busy working, I got to spend almost 2 lovely days with cousin Michelle (and Buddy, when he wasn't in class), binging on pizza, hanging out at the pool in the sunny, warm weather, sitting in the sun, reading books, watching movies, and chatting. Then early Friday morning, I collected T-rav and we headed down to Phoenix to visit our friends Callie and Brian, who are always good for an adventure. We planted trees with some refugees (I heart the IRC), ate tasty Mexican food, wandered around Phoenix's downtown (which was much smaller than I imagined), bought freshly picked lemons at the Farmer's Market and then baked with them (divinity!), hiked up Camelback mountain (hill? strange geographical growth?), snuck into the pools of a very posh Marriott Resort Hotel, and stuffed our faces full of tasty food. Did I mention that it was sunny and warm?

And then, after 4.5 days of relaxation and fun, we drove back to Provo to snow, rain, clouds, and 30 degrees. Blech. Though I know I shouldn't complain. Spring will come to Utah within the next few weeks, while some of you will have snow piles in your driveway until the end of May. Ha!

So thanks to the Hills and Richards for being such excellent hosts! We had a great time!

The main reason I love UVU

Tomorrow is the start of Spring Break.

HOOO-RAH!

t-insertions

And now, the long-awaited discussion on t-insertion (or when you stick a t in a word that does not "normally" have a t).

Let me begin by saying that I think a large percentage of you were not entirely truthful in your answers. Or rather, as T-rav will be on the verge of reminding me, perhaps you haven't ever really thought about/examined how you pronounce such specific sounds. Next time I'll have to be sneakier about how I ask my questions if I want really honest answers.

So here's your explanation: many people, when there is a word with an l followed by an s, insert a t in between the two sounds. False, pulse and else are not the only words that may have a t-insertion. I've also heard a t in words such as Danish last names (ex. Nelsen), or the word also, for example.

Here's a summary of my poll results (out of 32):

• 18 do not insert a t (I don't believe many of you- I think more of you do it than you think)
• 14 people insert a t in at least 1 of the words
• If you insert a t in else, you may or may not also insert a t in false
• If you insert a t in false, you almost definitely inserted a t in else
• Only 1 person inserts a t in pulse

There are two main things that interest me about this phenomenon: 1) Else is a more common word for t-insertion and I wonder if it is because of vowel preceding the l. For example, as I mentioned previously, I've heard people t-insert in Nelson or Olsen, but never with Paulsen, which has the same vowel as false. I also wonder if pulse (or Paulsen, for that matter) is less commonly t-inserted because it's a less commonly used word, or if it's because of the vowel. 2) Is this a regional dialect anomaly? Or not? I haven't yet noticed a trend among those around me, but perhaps I'm surrounded by too many Utah/Western English speaking people. Phin, a Utah English speaker, inserts in both false and else; T-rav, a native Idahoan, inserts in else, but not any of the others; my sister, born and raised in NY, schooled in Utah, also inserts in else; ; I, also a New Yorker (upstate, of course!) do not t-insert in any of the options.

In my laziness, I haven't done any real research to see if someone else has the answers to my questions, so if any of you are linguists and can shed some light on this matter, please feel free to do so. Perhaps I'll get around to it in the next couple of weeks..or months.

And like I've said before, please remember that, as with all of my linguistic questions/observations, there is no right or wrong answer. So if you insert a t in between an l and s, don't be ashamed! It's your dialect; be proud of it!

to read or not to read

So right now I should really really be inputting midterm grades onto my computer, or creating a midterm for the class that still has yet to take their exam, or editing all the awful paragraphs that were turned in days and days ago by my writing class...but none of those ideas sound remotely appealing, so instead, I'm going to write frivolous and unimportant things to distract myself.

I have a problem. I'm reading a book that is supposedly a classic, supposedly really great, supposedly a book that everyone should read because it's Important. And plus, it sounded interesting. So I decided to read it.

But I HATE it.

And I really don't want to keep reading it, but I have a hard time putting down a book once I've started it. It's this compulsion to keep reading, even though I'm miserable when I read it, and even more so after I put it down. Is this normal? Do any of you have trouble discarding a book once you've started it?

I wasn't going to name names, but....I'm going to anyway. The hateful book is Madam Bovary (so to answer your question, Marlo, no, I don't like it very much). Has anyone out there read it? Does Emma get any less irritating and obnoxious?

*I haven't forgotten about my lil poll to the right...I promise I'll tell you about it in a day or two. Don't let the suspense get to you.

an ethical dilemma

So there's this show on the travel channel called "Living with the ______________ (insert name of remote tribal people here) with Mark and Olly." Basically, two tough and well traveled British guys saunter in to a small village of native Indian people who have hardly seen white people, ask them if they can become part of their lives, and then live with them for 3 months (I think it's 3 months...it might be longer. Or shorter). Their goal is to become a part of the new culture, not to tamper with it, and I think they do a very good job of being both respectful and understanding of a culture with which they are very unfamiliar. This season, however, while they were in a mountainous village in Peru with a people called the Machiguenga, something happened to make them question their temporary role in that society.

You see, the tribal leader's wife gave birth to a baby that was disfigured or unhealthy in some way. Mark and Olly were told that there was something wrong with the baby, but not exactly what. And unfortunately, in Machiguenga custom, if a baby is born with any kind of malformation, or if it seems too sickly to survive, the mother must kill it.

To no one's surprise, Mark and Olly were having great difficulty accepting this. One of them (I'm never sure who is who) was even contemplating intervening to prevent the baby's death. But on the other hand, they didn't want to interfere with normal Machiguenga custom; they were there to observe, not to change things, right?

What would you have done? Would you have allowed the baby to be killed according to the tribe's custom and beliefs and kept your place as the neutral observer? Or would you have tried to stop the baby's death?

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the baby didn't die. After a few days, he started eating normally, so the mother let him live.