Dromedary

I have been moving since 9 AM this morning: setee, armoire, tables, bookshelves, desk, lamps, all carted into the garage so they'll be easier to put in the truck in the evening. Now evening is here and still no truck. Ergo, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

That is all.

* * *

On the other hand, my car is packed and ready, save for the chunk of our veggie and herb gardens that will go on the floor spaces. Yesterday, when I made a final visit to Ralston Reservoir, I also picked a variety of sage so I can smudge our new place. My car is going to smell delicious. When I got in to cram my yoga mat and hand weights into a nook or two my car already smelled like a savory stew. So nice.

Mother nature also decided to gift me with a large goose feather. Before every positive move I've made in my life I always find a shed primary feather from a bird. This made me feel so blessed. Shelby and I I ran the quarter mile back to the car, leaping like a deer over knee-high sage and rabbit brush.

I am sure that if any of the farming and ranch folk saw me they'd think the hippies were invading.

Just before we left Shelby walked down to the western chanel, where we walked when the reservoir was still thick blue ice. This time she kept walking and calmly strolled into the soft green water. She swam in a few matter-of-fact circles before getting out and showering me with her shake. I laughed and probably startled the cottontails and marmots. I will miss that place so much.

But now to look forward! I'll be offline for a few days, as tomorrow is moving day with a minimum 9-hour drive.

(Oy vey!)

Places I'll Miss

There are places I will miss when I move to Laramie. This place has, after almost eight years, started to feel like home to me.

The Montana fossil beds.

Our old house with the slanty floors and creaking barns.

The bench at sunset. (Polecat Bench)

Red Lodge, Montana.

Ralston Reservoir.

Prejudice

I don't hold much against people when it comes to philosophies. When it comes to politics and religion I believe that diversity is a grand thing; it shows that there is no one right way to do things and serves as a check-and-balance against a single majority. Pluralism is always better. There have been powerful people throughout history who thought that there should be only one way of doing things and this either resulted in people beginning restless revolutions or mass genocide.

As long as people are not repressed, coerced, or imprisoned and all is consensual I believe in "Live and let live."

When it comes to spirituality I believe, as my Hebrew teacher did, that "God comes to us in ways that we can understand." If someone chooses to be Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Russian Orthodox, Mormon, agnostic, atheist, or any of the hundreds of faiths on the planet I do not care. What is important is that they find their God or their Goddess or Pantheon and feel that their belief fulfills whatever spiritual need they have. I will not let this affect my philosophy that all humans are equal until we decide not to be by violating the health and well-being of others.

I have friends who are Christian, am in love with an agnostic, have friends who are Mormon, Jewish, Pagan, Wiccan, and relapsed Protestant. I respect all of their beliefs even if I do not agree with them eye to eye on spiritual matters. I find beauty in each religion: the vitality of family bonds in Mormonism, the infusion of spiritual belief into everyday actions by Judaism, the connection to nature that the Pagans have. One of the most calming, sanctifying funerals I went to was Catholic, with its Our Fathers and communion. My own spirituality is a hybrid of Christian-Wiccan-agnostic.

Strangely, when I interact with people who are a part of minority religions, who cry for equality and understanding, I find that they in turn can be just as prejudiced against the "mainstream" faiths. For example, once I exchanged a month's worth of emails with a man who was Wiccan. When he complimented me on my carved pumpkin at Samhain (Halloween) and said he admired how a fellow Wiccan could have such a sense of humor about her spirituality, I replied that I do not consider myself Wiccan, but more of the hybrid I described above. Immediately all emails stopped and I didn't hear from him again.

Another time I befriended a woman who was an Eclectic Pagan. Again, she assumed that because I knew of her faith and ideals that I was a fellow Eclectic. When I corrected her and explained my kind of spirituality I lost all contact. Apparently, my tolerance of Christianity was the dealbreaker for her on our friendship. She thought I would try to convert her, even though I told her I found that anyone trying to convert a stranger or a friend to their way of worship is distasteful to me. I believe all spirituality should come from free will.

I don't understand the reverse prejudice coming from those who ask for equality themselves. They in turn are just as ugly as the people who judge them by the way the understand God.

Moooving

Jeff went down to Laramie on Monday; I will follow on Friday with the majority of our furniture and container garden. Oh the joys. Hooray. Hooray.

But enough gripe!

For the past two days Jeff prepared the trailer for our impending arrival. Aside from learning that all of the windows are sealed shut and will need repair, the place seems like it will be a good home. He is treating it with great pride; after all, it is his first "real" home of his own. He is now a property owner.

Growing up, I knew my grandmother's house as The Trailer, a long brown behemoth in Bellflower, California. I loved the place that seemed almost shiplike, compact and with a place for everything and everything in its place. My grandmother even landscaped the yard, inheriting a great rubber tree from the previous owners. My memories of her trailer stayed with me as I grew up, and I've always held a fondness for small spaces because of the summers I spent there. Both Jeff and I agree: we will be happy if we take the trailer with us when it comes time to move away.

Tomorrow I disassemble the furniture and arrange the boxes from Most Important to Least Important. I've learned that most of my possessions consist of books and pottery that my friends and I have made.

To the Fanboys

My only rebuttal for those fanboys and fangirls who do nothing but gripe about the new Star Trek film:

"Canon is only important to certain people because they have to cling to their knowledge of the minutiae. Open your mind!" - Leonard Nimoy

There. The Man Himself said it to all of us. L.L.A.P.

Star Struck

I've seen the new Star Trek movie. Twice. It is just that good.

On Thursday night Beth, Jeff, and I went to see the movie in our local cinema; this made me a little nervous, as I've encountered a lot of theatre-talkers there. (It's the only cinema in town, two screen, privately owned.) Luckily, with the advent of digital Internet and wider access to the outside world, the cinema goers seem to have learned respect for their fellow audience in the past few years; I heard no overt talking and saw no cell phones. Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that the owners encourage anyone to hiss at an offender to quiet them down. Apparently benign vigilanteism works.

There were several groups from different demographics in the audience. The oldest there was an elderly woman in her 80s with her daughters. The youngest was a boy who looked to be about 5. I was quite impressed with the number of teenagers there, some boys but mostly girls; on the second night, when Jeff and I went alone there were several groups of teenage girls and their guy friends. I overheard one 17-year-old girl say she'd seen it three times since it came out the Thursday before.

Trek lives!

It's encouraging to hear younger people liking this new Trek. As Leonard Nimoy observed, Star Trek died several times over its 43-year history, only to resurrect itself in the younger generations. I was jazzed. One of my earliest memories is watching The Day of the Dove, one of the original Trek episodes, when I was almost three.

When The Next Generation came around I found the characters sweet but dull. It wasn't until around the third season that I watched it with regularity. Though TNG eventually held a fond place in my heart, like most Trekkers, I acknowledged that there was something special about the original series that could not be topped. There was a certain vitality that TNG never had, a certain innocence that Deep Space 9 could never touch, and an intrepidness that eclipsed even that of the Voyager crew. Enterprise had heart but no soul, much to the chagrin of many fans and Jolene Blalock, the fangirl actress who played T'Pol. When that series ended the Star Trek universe lay in state for nearly four years.

Now this film comes about, breathing vitality back into the fandom. With no guilt and no need to cotton to established canon, we really can boldly go with this new crew to places where no fan has gone before.

Review up ahead. If you don't want spoilers for the new Star Trek movie don't read past the new Uhura!

Zoë Saldana as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, courtesy of Shockya.com

To save time and readers' eyes I'm just going to review a few key points that I as a Star Trek fangirl was particularly moved by. I am not a worshiper of canon and thought that this young cast was a perfect choice for a reintroduction into the universe I loved as a little girl.

Director J.J. Abrams – I am glad that the director was not an overt fan of Star Trek to begin with. This allowed him to free the universe from the shackles of canon and fan expectation. Yet, in spite of his re imagining, he included enough inside references not vital to the plot that still made me as a Trek fan feel welcome into his version of the show and characters. I also hear from a Lost fan that there are little clues to Abram's other works to make them feel welcome as well.

The new Enterprise – She is built. Sleek, silver, like a hot rod in space, she feels like a living ship, rather than a matte model cruising through the quadrant. Her bridge is like the glossy, dewy face of a young woman. Combined with the throb of her warp core and the little buzzes and beeps recycled from the original 1966 ship she breathes and has a heartbeat. The Enterprise is finally a character in her own right.

Lens flares and sun spots– What a contribution to atmosphere!

Best line – "No, not really. Not this time." Spock to Kirk on whether they agree that showing Nero mercy is the right thing to do.

Leonard Nimoy – Seeing Mr. Nimoy as Spock for the last time caused such a pure, sweet feeling of joy in me that I was brought to tears. At his repeating of the famous line: "I always have and always shall be your friend" caused me to go into a full weep. Mr. Nimoy brought such heart to the story, even a little bit of tongue-in-cheek humor at the complexities of the sci-fi plot, that I felt no one in the theatre could be unmoved by his performance. And judging by the amount of sighs in the room, everyone was indeed moved.

Kirk – It might be betrayal for saying this, but I think Chris Pine brought just the right amount of swagger, sexuality, slapstick, and intelligence to the character of James T. Kirk. I think that in all honesty, I wish Kirk Prime were a little more like him. Kudos to Pine for introducing the Shatner-esque sprawl to the new captain's chair, however. You have my respect as Kirk's new incarnation sir.

Spock – Zachary Quinto, your star is on the rise and you deserve it. He brought the edge of raw emotion to Spock while still being smoothly logical for most of the film. I especially loved the way he bit off his line of "Live long and prosper," to the Vulcan High Command, allowing just enough glint of temper in his eyes. Quinto shows a little more emotion leaning toward Spock's sad, tender, and temperamental nature, rather than to the side of humor and snark that the original Spock was also known for. Considering the nature of the plot, this emotive side of the impassive Spock is in just the right key.

McCoy – This is the character I felt emotionally closest to in this go-round. Karl Urban is a staunch fan of The Original Series and it shows. When he is introduced, growling about space flight and divorce in the Starfleet shuttle I felt immediately at home for the first time in the movie. I've always leaned toward McCoy as Trek's father figure, and though Urban has only a few years on me, I still felt that same paternal warmth coming from McCoy. Favorite line: "I don't know, but I like him!" McCoy to Kirk about the "pointy-eared bastard" Spock.

Uhura – Finally this character is given her due as a vital part of the Enterprise crew instead of just being a glorified administrative assistant! She is a linguist in her own right, bold, sensual, and intelligent. I also liked how athletic she seemed; she sprints down the hallways with strength and determination. She shows compassion and tenderness with her own character intact. I can easily see her as the original woman, who once helped hijack a Federation ship to save the life of a friend. Many kudos to Zoë Saldana for finally giving me a Trek woman with whom I felt immediate kinship.

Spock and Uhura – Also, finally. This love story makes the utmost sense to anyone who viewed the original series, especially the first few episodes, and later episodes when Spock tells Uhura he can think of no one else who can complete delicate work on computer connection boards. Even back when Star Trek was firmly placed in the man's world of the 1960s, Spock treated Uhura with more humanity than anyone else, as well as Kirk and McCoy. Quinto and Saldana have chemistry where several other established Trek couples lack. Seeing her hands caressing the back of his neck in the turbo lift and his hands on her hip in the transporter room gave me a sweet thrill.

Scotty, Chekov, Sulu – Excellent work gentlemen! Chekov has talent, unique abilities and is a darling to boot! Scotty is hilarious and maintains his genius. Sulu is a masculine, athletic fighter and saves Kirk's life. I hope for sequels so these characters can take more forefront story lines.

Physics – Even though I love the Star Trek universe, sometimes I find it hard to suspend disbelief, knowing what I know about space travel theory and basic physics. While this movie strained my belief yet again I also felt adequately seduced by the film to forgive the errors. Abrams also put in small moments that redeemed the far-fetched scientific plot. Once, when the hull of the USS Kelvin is compromised, a Starfleet officer is sucked out into space. As we follow the doomed woman out of the ship we hear her screams and the rush of escaping air. Once she is out in the vastness of space everything goes immediately silent. Bravo, Mr. Abrams. Another time is when Scotty looks at his future warp-transporter equation. "I never figured it was space that moves!" he exclaims, and indeed, if warp were an achievable science this is exactly how it would work. On the other hand, as Morbo from Futurama would say: "Black holes do not work that way!"

ETA 7:15 PM, Scotty

My sister, sweetheart, and I are planning on seeing the new Star Trek movie tonight at the local cinema. As always, I feel the same keyed-up energy that I feel before I depart on an airplane flight. Somewhere back in my early childhood, my psyche confused the anticipation of seeing a movie and air travel departure into one feeling. They've evoked the same reaction ever since. It's part of the reason why I don't go to the movies often.

I also don't go often because it's hard for me to sit through an entire movie unless I am really, really, really interested in the plot. For instance, the last movie I saw in the theatre was the third Pirates of the Caribbean flick, two summers ago. Even that had me squirming at about the two-thirds mark.

Most other movies I wait to come out on disc before I view them, and often do so alone, as I'll pause them to get up and fidget before sitting back down again to view the rest. My ADHD doesn't express in the classroom anymore, but cinemas drive me batty. At least with live theatre it's interactive and they allow for intermissions.

No soda for me, but I'll get some "fidget food" before I go in, preferably tiny candy that requires a lot of hand coordination to eat.

Anaïs Philosophy

"And you can be Henry Miller and I'll be Anaïs Nin,
except this time will be even better
we'll stay together in the end..."

–Jewel

Anaïs Nin, courtesy of Wikipedia

One of my favorite authors is Anaïs* Nin, the famed diarist and writer of erotica. While her erotica is beautiful –rare, because it is eroticism with a genuine woman's point of view, rather than a woman writing erotica with a traditional male voice—I prefer her diaries and letters. Every now and then through the years I pick up one of the volumes of her diary, both edited and unexpurgated, open it to a random page, and let her guide me through the streets of pre-WWII Paris.

As a hybrid pragmatist and dreamer I have to take Nin's writing with a grain of salt. She was known for her surrealism, her symbolism, her exploring of the creative aspect of neuroses. She identified strongly with her zodiac sign Pisces, which is the sign of the subconsciousness, water, and dreaming. I am a Virgo, her exact opposite on the celestial wheel, and indeed there were times when I was angry with Nin for her dreaming and fantasies. Yet, as she lived longer in Paris she began to understand that the world cannot be run by idealism and good intentions alone:

"Gonzalo, I hate injustice. I am in sympathy with your Marxism because it is idealistic. I can die for any faith which is idealistic. But now the Russian Revolution is split, corrupt, divided. The organization of the world is a task for realists. The poet and the workman will always be the victims of power and self-interest. No world will ever be run by an idealistic team because by the time it begins to function it ceases to be unselfish. When the Caltholic Church became a force, a power, an organization, it ceased to be a religion. The realist, the man of power and greed, always conquers over the humanist. Greed wins out. The world will always be ruled by the materialist." –October, 1936

Nin eloquently puts to words my own point of view. The world will never be run by good people with good intentions, true equality and open humanity. However, though the world will be ruled by pragmatists and people with a material bent and need for gain, there must also always be others who do operate from humanity's point of view. There must be those who still try, against the set odds, to make the world more artistic, compassionate, humanitarian, who try to bring to the world the things that take us beyond mere function and the need to eat, sleep, work for a living.

This is why it alarms me when I hear of schools cutting the arts for the sake of keeping sports. Though sports are valuable they are only part of the equation that takes us beyond the survival aspect of being human.

Arts are the expression, the emotion, the communication of a society. Sports are more basic, reflecting on the struggle-survival, the need to travel in packs for success of the whole. They are both needed, equally valuable. The reason why schools cut arts is because they are not nearly as lucrative as atheletics, with its banners and pennants and tickets to weekly games. Once again, this part of society, this small segment representing the whole, reflects Nin's belief that the materialist and the pragmatist will conquer, while the artists and the dreamers must struggle for balance.

*pronounced Anna-eese

Thou Vile Cabbage!

Speaking of insults, I love the old-style insults that called attention to some one's character, rather than body parts or excrement. Some of the best insults comes from Shakespeare, who was just as creative in making war as he was at making love, apparently. When I say the word "bastard" I mean it in that old-fashioned sense, like Edmund in King Lear:

"As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake?
...Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"

To see an excellent clip of a chilling Edmund the Bastard literally biting off his lines, look here.

As for general insults, there is also a great Shakespearean Insult Generator available too. Some of my favorites are:

• "You are as rheumatic as two dry toasts." –Henry IV
• "Thou burly-boned sheep-biting baggage!"
• "O illiterate loiterer! "
• "Thou pribbling full-gorged popinjay!"
• "Thou rank rude-growing clack-dish!"

Stolen Iris

The iris plant I wanted to take with me to Laramie was stolen!

My mother is converting the garden she inherited from the previous owner into lawn and told two men last night that they could take whatever they wanted from the garden, as she would be roto-tilling it under anyway. What they took was a good third of the garden, including the giant clump of iris rhizomes that I was planning to divide and take with me to Laramie. I am furious.

What's more is that they left the roots of adjacent plants gaping open, exposed to the air. I know my mother will be getting rid of most of the plants, but some of them I hoped to divide so many people could have them, including some of my friends who expressed interest in some of the plants that were taken, once finals week was over. Now the plants are gone, including the iris plants. What these two men did not undertand is that the rhizomes need to be divided properly in order for them to flourish.

It is just so wasteful; the rhizomes they took could have started at least four dozen plants. Now when my friends come I get to tell them that I lied about the irises.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. My mother offered free plants to these men, and of course these gluttons went home, attached a trailer to their truck, and came back to take a third of the plants. They aren't good gardeners or gentlemen either; if they were, they'd have known that the iris needed to be divided and offered some back to the giver.

This earned them one of the rare curses that will be found in my blog: piggish bastards!

Naming My Names

As a writer I am fascinated by both words and names. In the course of my schooling I discovered that some words sound like what they are supposed to describe, even beyond the humble onomatopoeia. For instance, "staccato" sounds exactly what it is supposed to describe, which is rapid, punctuated sound or movement. "Languid" sounds slow and lazy and relaxed, which is its exact definition.

I also am fascinated by names. Flannery O' Connor, in her short story Good Country People, ironically names the ugly daughter Joy and then Hulga, coming so far as to say that the girl picked out her second name because she herself felt so ugly.

Willie Lowman is the low, pathetic character in Death of a Salesman. (Arthur Miller said he didn't name his character "Lowman" on purpose. My teacher B.B. and I both think Mr. Miller was fibbing.)

Elizabeth Bennett, from Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, is given one of her many nicknames seemingly based on how those around her felt about her personally, varying from Liz, to Lizzie to Eliza and back again to Elizabeth.

John Updike named his lazy, motherly lead Alexandra in The Witches of Eastwick, choosing irony instead to name her after an ambitious, ruthless conqueror. However, the character Sukie is a playful, would-be sex kitten, and Jane is a simmering stick-in-the-mud. Quite clever.

In my own writings I tend to favor names tied to folktales and myths, or old Biblical names. I've recently began exploring nature names for a series of shorts I am creating. Some of my favorites are:

• Sawyer
• Lillith
• Beau
• Lucy
• River
• Leah
• Joseph
• James
• Dominic

Naming characters is second, I think, to naming children. In a way the characters are children, who evolve on their own, who can be twisted, distorted, strong, and faithful as I shape them. Sometimes, like children, they even shape themselves and become temporary muses. Some of these above have already debuted in published stories, and a few are on their way.

Grease is the Word

Last night I saw my sister Beth as Frenchy in the musical Grease! She was excellent and hammy, which is what the part calls for. The girl who played Rizzo and the boy who played Kenickie were also tops, and the girl who played Marty had just the right amount of snark. The girl cast as Sandy was the perfect ingenue, and I gather that it's not too far from her own character.

My sister has an arpeggio voice; even sitting several rows back my mother and I could pick out her voice from the final chorus.

This proved to be fortunate, as the sound system at the auditorium is in desperate need to a revamping. It was heartbreaking, because the cast were putting such heart into their performances, and much of the musical was augmented with static or cuts. However, the ones with the stronger voices (Rizzo, Kenickie, Frenchy, Doody) were better able to be heard over the interference. The audience were understanding, and though the sound was low much of the time they still gave a great ovation.

Kudos for the community players and director!

The Graduate

I am technically done with my work at Northwest College. I had my Capstone presentation on Tuesday and now have only to go to class today to see the presentations of the remaining five students. My active work is done. I am happy that after five years it's over but sad to be going; my college professors have become a sort of extended family over the years.

On the other hand, the University of Wyoming in Laramie is something to look forward to! Jeff and I will be moving down in about a week into our vintage trailer with the avocado green stove.

* * *

Now the celebratory mood begins!

On Tuesday night Jeff surprised me with a clean house, the dining table brought to the center of the room, and a candle burning brightly in the dim. He made me a spaghetti dinner on the sly, with an artistic vegetable plate, blood orange Italian soda, Cabernet wine, and huckleberry frozen yogurt for dessert. I grinned and hugged him for a good five minutes, thrilled that he'd do something like this. Quite a graduation present!

Next week I have a bit of tutoring left, and this week I wrap up my private sessions; I am glad, because this was a good run. Last semester the students tended to slack, but this one they have been quite dedicated.

Still, it will be a relief to go, as the difficulty of tutoring ESL students is far more of a strain than tutoring native speakers; I have to be a translator, cultural ambassador, and a dictionary all in one. I have to remind the students several times a session that I am not a trained teacher, only a tutor who knows a bit more about English than most other students because of the degree I am pursuing.

Because of my tutoring I have come to the conclusion that many students are sent abroad before they are linguistically ready to deal with a new language. I took three years of French before I visited the country, and though I was one of the best speakers in the group I also knew I was also woefully unprepared to live there longer than a summer. Many of these students here have taken English less than three years, so I can only imagine how difficult their classes are.

I also have come to the conclusion that not enough cultural training is issued by language teachers. Some of the international students are shocked when I know certain things about their individual counrties, and I don't quite know how to take that. I wonder if they think that Americans are largely ignorant of other countries –from their words of reaction I think that is so— and I wonder if that is because they have been taught this idea by their own country people or if they come to this conclusion after living in America for a semester. At any rate, they are both uncomfortable possibilities to deal with.

Many international students are largely unaware of the diversity of cultures within America. I often remind them how large America really is, when I say that I haven't been to New York (neither have they,) or don't like souped up muscle cars and techno music. I have a feeling that international cities, such as L.A. and N.Y. are held up as the bastions of American culture, and if Americans don't fit into those comfortable slots they are mystified.

This is not to say that all international students are like this. Many are well-informed and open-minded people, and these are refreshing to work with. I also wonder if cultural and linguistic ignorance isn't also factored by age; the students who seem to be more enlightened also tend to be a little bit older than the average student.

Last Monday

...Of all the bloody mornings for the college website to go down...

Yeah. The last week of school and formal classes and the Northwest website goes kaput. I'll bet it's a circus in Computer Services right now.

Anglish English

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

Part of the challenge in tutoring ESL (English as a Second Language), is that many international students are coached in only one kind of accent. They are often told "Americans say it this way" while they learn inflection and accent. However, this does the student a disservice; as America is a nation of immigrants and native peoples we have many different dialects and regional accents.

I have been asked my several Wyomingites if I am from another country. When I tell them that I am from northern California and they become quite confused. Amusingly enough, my sister and I have both experiences with southern Californians asking if we are from Ireland. Apparently the nor Cal accent has many more dental and clipped consonants than in other parts of the country.

Many of the international students hear my nor Cal accent and become confused when I pronounce a word without the broader heartland accent that their Wyoming teachers have. I have to remind them that the sheer size of the United States contributes to several different accent regions, and in highly mixed populations, such as urban New York, they might find dozens of different accents within a hundred mile radius. I've described the southern drawl, the nasal accent of Queens, and the rough, bass accents of the Bronx and Brooklyn.

My own accent is compounded with a little bit of the Canadian and British accents; as a child I often watched the Public Broadcasting System in the days before America had its own version of the BBC. I picked up on their ways of saying "programme," "advertisement," and "schedule" rather than the usual American pronunciations.

I wonder why teachers of second languages often neglect to teach accent and dialects. These students often seem unprepared for encounters with actual languages.

When I was taking high school French from Madame Soper I was lucky; she taught about the regional accents of France and its outlying territories while simultaneously requiring us to speak with the Parisian accent. One Spanish teacher I knew of only required her class to learn the vocabulary; the accents of her students came out flat and obviously generic American.

Uno Mas

One more week of school left! I am taking the Capstone class, which requires a student to synthesize all of the information she's learned over the course of earning her degree. This means a fair amount of independent study and a presentation at the end of the semester. After Tuesday I will be done!

Of course, tutoring will remain, but for the large part I will be done at the college. I am not walking in the graduation procession; at 28 I feel I am too old for such "decorum est." Plus, it's a good $150 to participate in the ceremony, money which could be better spent on rent and groceries. Jeff says he'll plan on walking at his Bachelor graduation, but I myself will take off camping for a weekend instead.

Tomorrow begins my Last Week Ever at Northwest. I am jazzed to be going and also a little sad to be leaving the people whom I feel are like family. Fortunately, I just found out that someone whom I care about very much may be going down to UW next year. I hope to meet up with her there.

Next week comes the sorting, the packing, and the discarding. It will be good to pare down even further on possessions with old history.

Twitter Me Timbers –or– I'll Be a Steampunkin' Baby Bump!

Being an English major, I've fallen into the habit of speaking with good grammar as much as I try to write with such. However, when I am relaxed and happy I speak with double negatives, shoddy grammar, and drop my endings, such as in "gettin'." It's become teasing fodder for Jeff, but I think it's only fair, as I try to guide him into saying words like "host," and "boat" to hear his wonderful Wisconsin accent.

(That said, the "mouse in the house" easily comes out of him this week. Lovely!)

As an English tutor for several international students, I find myself being a sort of cultural and language ambassador. Most hard for me to explain are the slang words; I don't use them that much myself, as a) I am older by 10 years over most of the students and b) meanings of slang words change so fast that they're hard to keep up with. I'm better at the vernacular sayings, such as "see you later, gator/pigeon/sugarplum," "how goes it?" and "'chupto?"

Lately there have been words and slang entering the American English language that I cannot stand, and I grit my teeth whenever I hear them. Fortunately, gritting teeth can often be mistaken for grins, so I don't cause too much public dissent.

Below is a small list of the ones that annoy me the most:

• baby bump – I used to think this was cute, but as time goes on I find myself realizing the irritating nature of the phrase used to describe the maternal swelling associated with pregnancy. "Baby bump" makes me think of some horrible disease that afflicts only infants: "Did you hear about Karen's new son Evan? He's got the baby bump!" I think that reverting to "pregnancy belly" or "baby belly" is fine. In general, bumps are not seen as harbingers of great joy.
• steampunk – For the love of all that is holy, can someone finally tell me what this actually means? I get the steam, but where does the punk come in to the equation? Many steampunkers don't seem to listen to the music and just like the brass-and-gears look. As one phile of the aesthetic put it, "I like the look of steampunk but hate the name, and I don't like much of the music. Why don't we call the style [itself] neo-Victorian or Victorian fantasy?" Amen, brother.
• twitter – Okay, I get the fact that it's a gadget. I get the fact that is truncates everyone's lives down into less than 200 words. I get that it's another electronic device that allows for communication. I just don't like "twitter" as a verb. Not that I don't expect people to put down their technology and go back to the ways of the telegraph and smoke signals, but the next young pup to ask me: "Do you twitter?" is either going to get an eyefull of mud or a ten-minute lecture describing how I am not of avian descent.

Bird Buds

The winter weather broke yesterday, mid-morning. Today people are cautiously going about in t-shirts, and I saw one brave soul in clam-diggers and a tank top. Of course, she was folded in on herself and shivering, so I was glad I was a wuss and wore my Guinness hoodie.

Yesterday Jeff, Dally and I took advantage of the maybe spring weather and went to the Ralston Reservoir to watch birds. My mother had treated us to a bird watching class in April, so we celebrated May Day with our newfound birding prowess.

The Reservoir was a great choice. We ran down the bank brushy with willows and cottonwoods to emerge onto a plate of grassland. The grass is so tall it almost feels like swimming through the leaves, and indeed Dally had to bound through it like a land dolphin. The Reservoir is shaped like a great shrimp, with a skinny tail pointing west, flowing into a great round head also pointing west. At the eastern end of the hairpin back is a cattail swamp, fueled with water from the famous Garland Canal.

Jeff made the first find beyond the usual robins and starlings: a yellow-headed blackbird.

In total, we saw:

• yellow-headed blackbird
• yellow-rumped warbler (Jeff's favorite)
• American coot
• ruddy duck
• canvasback
• northern shoveler
• sandhill crane
• American white pelican
• whooping crane? (rare)

There were also the uaual myriad of mallards, Canadian geese, robins, and grackles. The white crane perplexes me the most; whooping cranes are very rare birds but this was also one of the classic mirgating areas before their populations suffered from human development. The visual I made matched up the information found in the Sibley Field Guide to Birds, but with their numbers estimated at 145 individual birds, maybe I saw something else? Perhaps an albino sandhill? No egrets should be here in Wyoming, so I am rather confused.

We also saw several marmots cruising about the canal like water bears. It was strange to see the water flowing rich and green where Jeff and I walked on thick blue ice in January.

Mousie Housie

I saw it. I saw the mouse. It's a cute little thing, a light, creamy brown with rounded ears. She looks a lot like Dally.

It's hard, because now I've seen it's face, but we'll need to trap it tonight or tomorrow. Then we'll put it out for the kesterels to enjoy. It's the ciiiiircle of liiiiife.