Working Hard or Hardly Working?

For those of us involved in the education system, the school year grows increasingly and unrelentingly busy right about now. Spring sports are drawing to a close, TAKS testing is about to begin again, AP testing after that, and end of year exams after that. Basically, our schedule is *messed* up and our education for the year dwindles into termination.

For these various reasons, along with mounds of last minute homework dumped on us by teachers, I have been away from Microsoft Word, but here I am to get a sentence or two in before I pull out my Precal.

I feel compelled to waste some time tonight, to add on to the time wasted tomorrow during my morning spent at the school. I may regret this later. The juniors are taking no TAKS, but are still required to attend the first half of school, during which we will perform rigorous learning activities such as learning how to play Mao or Monopoly or being inducted into The Game.

By the way, you just lost.

But for the most part, I’m ready to get over this hump and relax for the summer. The end of the year strains me to breaking point every spring, and I can’t wait for it to be over already. Would you like some stress with that stress? It seems like I have too much to do; I sat down to write a list the other day of all the things I had to do and it wouldn’t come out in coherent thoughts.

So this is a minor form of therapy as I sit on my bed with pizza rolls, trying not to think about Prom Drama or NHS hours or AP Exams or the History Project or catching the Swine Flu…

For now, I’ll just have to take it one day at a time. I sure as heck can’t swallow all my stress in one bite. Now, pizza rolls are another story entirely.

The Development of Spoken Languages: A Theoretical Approach to Metacognition on Parallel Degrees

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a fond obsession with anything related to language (especially ones I understand). I love to enrich my English, stretch my Spanish, and link my Latin lexicons. I just can't get enough of fun words, unique sentences, mind-boggling clauses, and useless synonyms and using them to befuddle and amaze my friends and anyone driving with me anywhere. I'm also venomously sarcastic: a deadly combination. The only time, in fact, that this obsession comes in handy is on the SAT or other English-related exams. Sometimes I find myself bouncing diction-loaded sentences off of my English teacher, her response even more eloquent than my original one. My classmates usually look on, horrified.

A classmate from the 3rd grade.

While it's no crazy feat, I remember having a 10th grade reading level in the 3rd grade. I got to check out the cool, heavy books with obscure titles. I remember checking out Plato's Republic (I have NO idea why my elementary school had that book) and reading a few pages of it before admitting that I had been defeated. At least it was by Plato, not Dr. Seuss (COUGH).

I also remember writing a story about a kid with a removable arm that was like a boomerang for my 4th grade TAKS test and making like a perfect score. I was a zany dork for words. It was the blooming of an obsession. Do you ever remember the kid in your class who would correct the teacher's usage of "burnt" and "burned" then giving a full thesis on the division of British English and American English, then asking why the heck "burned" was written on the chalkboard anyways? It was me.

To prevent this blog post from becoming some manic-depression Grammar Nazis Anonymous rehabilitation group, I'll move on. The point of this post is to make you stop and think about language. I already have you stopping, so now I got to get you thinking. Shakespeare once said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

How I envision Shakespeare.

That one statement is enough to really get the brain fluids juicin' up the old cortex. Do we associate the "ose" in "rose" as a soft sound to correspond with the flower's petals, or is it the other way around? Does a rock sound hard because of the "ock" or because of our mental imaging of a rock? What if we called a rock a rose and a rose a rock? Would beauty be defined by the curves and crescendos of the noun's title or does the noun march to its own tune?

Language is a beautiful, mysterious thing. All ideas must be expressed through language. Language came before a lot of our greatest ideas. So who's to say that language hasn't altercated or affected our perception of the world and our capacity to learn? Why do scientists use Latin instead of English? The answer is simple: Latin was built upon the foundation of philosophy and intelligence. English and Spanish and French and the romantic languages were diverted from this root to create more function designs for the everyday working man. Did we harm our capacity to learn by breaking away from Latin?

Next time you're in a situation and just thinking about anything, break what you're thinking about down into symbols, not words. See the rose, smell the pollen, feel the dew. Don't think "rose." It'll open your mind, try it.

But that's also why language is so beautiful. Every rose has it's thorn, and this is no exception. Language theorists not only appreciate the beauty of words, but they push past it and transcend by looking past them. Listen past the consonants and vowels, the hard and soft sounds, the lingual clicks of your tongue ricocheting from tooth to tooth. This is where I see the beauty of language.

People ask me why I'm such an English dork, and what I really wished they asked me was, "When you think of a rose, what do you envision?" Some would answer red or beauty or love or flower, but those are still just on the physical and emotional level. You must even push past that fake tier, "what the rose feels like" and enter a new zone. This zone, sadly, is not the Twilight one. In fact, it's not even a place. It's a level of thinking. When I think of a rose, I envision a soft existence, something desired but hard to obtain. I think of how the "r" makes me feel, and how the "ose" ties it up into a perfect bundle. If someone asked me about a, "baobab," my first reaction would be to classify that symbol in my language and break it down. "Bao" sounds exotic, not of English, perhaps a rushed translation of a click or hiss in some indigenious world. "Bab" dances before me. "Bab" is concrete. "Bab" applies to something that exists and is there and is not going anywhere. This is certain to me, not because I know the language, but because I know the feeling that this sound evokes in me.

For those of you still wondering, a baobab is a type of tree that holds massive amounts of water. It's a beautiful tree in itself, and indigenious to Madagascar.

Even this blogosphere that I inhabit from time to time is just a mixture of pop culture and LEDs on my screen. But I feel entranced by it. I am in a generation of instant fact-seekers. We are a generation that can explore Asia in one click of a mouse button, then rumble along in a cyber safari in Africa the next. Our language is evolving with this pace. New texting lingo like LOL pop up everyday, along with a slew of smiley faces.

It makes me wonder, will we one day evolve (or devolve?) into a language that incorporates the worn keys on a keyboard and the emotions evoked by ASCII text?

Think about it.

Me, Myself, and Etch-a-Sketch

So, for those of you who know me pretty well, and those of you who don’t, and even complete strangers, I’ve been asked to enlighten you on my penchant for the art of etch-a-sketch. I have been asked, in short, to explain myself. (Not so much with actual requests, but more with wide open mouths and “HOW’D YOU DO THATTTT!”)

I know; I know… it’s completely nerdy and fascinating. Most people will discard this ‘magic screen’ after a few minutes of working on a box or a building. But for whatever reason, fate has deemed me ‘not most people’, and after purchasing a travel size etch-a-sketch on a recent vacation, I discovered that I am quite surprisingly drawn (pun intended) to this little screen with two knobs. I enjoy the simplicity yet complexity of such a classic toy that seems to confound even my most intelligent friends…

Well, I don’t know how to explain myself exactly. No, I didn’t start etch-a-sketch when I was six. In fact, at six, I was as confused and bewildered by those innocent little knobs as everyone else. I started etch-a-sketch about two weeks ago. No, I’m not in art class. Haven’t taken one since fifth grade. (I don’t like the idea of someone grading me on something that’s personally interpretive, opinionated expression) No, I’m not crazy. Yes, that took me a long time. No, I’m not a prodigy. Yes, I have patience. No, I’ve never entered an etch-a-sketch contest (:B) No, I can’t say I won’t in the future…Yes, I’m amazing *cough*…. And YES, I WILL KILL U IF U SHAKE IT.

I’m still waiting for someone to ask me, “How many etch-a-sketches do you have?” or “Could you sketch me?” or “Can I have that?”

Four. Probably not (I’m bad with faces). If you have five bucks.

The etch-a-sketch is a challenge to me. But really it’s a struggle between my hands and my brain. Of course, you can imagine the curser going perfectly where you want it to create an image. In my head, everything goes according to plan! But it seems once the nerve firing reaches my fingers, the message gets mixed up, and it doesn’t always come out right. But that’s the challenge- to get my hands in synch with my brain.

It usually takes an average of one to two hours to do small sketches. Really, it’s not that complicated. On an etch-a-sketch, there are straight lines and curvy lines. Straight lines are self explanatory, and curvy lines are created by moving both knobs. Of course, the problem is moving them together to create the desired line. Everything’s connected, so you have to plan your next move, always a step ahead. Going over lines several times is a common thing; they become like little roadways to your next area.

And of course, if you mess up, there’s not much you can do except employ the universal etch-a-sketch joke- shake it. This is obviously where the frustrating component of etch-a-sketching drives many potential prolific etch-a-sketchers from the screen.

What can I say; I love it! I’ve tried painting, drawing, playing an instrument(s), basketball, volleyball… Who would’ve known that a little retro toy would finally be the medium I needed to find a niche in this creative world.
It’s small, cheap; you can get one with Cars on it or Disney Princesses… sparkly ones, ugly ones (if you don’t believe me look at the first one I got, turquoise with bright purple knobs), pastel ones, broken ones… but my personal favorite is the original, classic red.

Last week I went to Target, which happens to be my favorite department store, by the way, and put my reputation to the test. I was armed with a gift card and a hunger for etch-a-sketch. I travelled to the toy section, spotted the magna-doodle boards…

There, in a shining red glory all its own, stood a solitary etch-a-sketch. “Hope it works,” I muttered, glancing around. No one was in the vicinity, so I picked it up. I was about to leave when I spotted mini ones on the shelf. Pretty pastels looked, I swear- imploringly at me. Have you ever visited the pet store or pound, not intending to purchase anything, but taking home a cute kitten or ferret?... This was very similar.

A family with young children rounded the corner, and with haste I tried to look bored and on an errand. Have to pick up a gift for a cousin, I thought, about to vacate. But those travel etch-a-sketches looked so convenient, and prettier than the one I had already. Oh, alright.

“I didn’t know they made these anymore,” laughed the cashier, a girl about my age. I just smiled as she rang up my three new friends.