In a word

As you know, I love words, linguistics, languages, puns, word games, etc. I used the word Trist today, and then realized I should look it up because I wasn't clear on its meaning. I was not disappointed! This is such an interesting word that inherently captures many complexities. I shall use it more liberally:

Trist

Trist\, n.

1. Trust.
2. A post, or station, in hunting.
3. A secret meeting, or the place of such meeting; a tryst.

Trist

Trist\, a.

1. Sad; sorrowful; gloomy.

Highlight

The highlight of my day was snagging a free leftover carrot cupcake. Delicious.

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On another note, today I was wondering when are we going to have a president that speaks another language? Heck, why doesn't the Secretary of State speak another language? And I quote: "The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President's chief foreign affairs adviser."

Foreign affairs. Doesn't speak another language. What does that say about how political figures are chosen - merit or connection?

Confidence in words

Like so many days lately, I waiver from (1) being proud of myself and excited for all the opportunities and change coming in the next few months for me to (2) being insecure, without self-confidence, and completely strung-out with anxiety over the fact that no realm of my life is settled. It changes hourly, if not more often. Today was mainly a day of the latter. And here I sit, on Friday evening, writing yet another cover letter. I wanted to sum-up the letter with some descriptive adjectives about myself. I wrote "self-starter", but (again, the lack of confidence) decided I should look it up on thesaurus.com just in case that wasn't the word I meant. The result:

Main Entry:	eager beaver
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	industrious person
Synonyms:	active person, aholic, ambitious person, ball of fire, beaver, busy bee, busy bee, busy person, doer, dynamo, fireball, go-getter, hot shot, live wire, live wire, no slouch, pistol, self-starter , sharpy, spark plug, workhorse

Main Entry:	go-getter
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	eager beaver
Synonyms:	active person, ambitious person, ball of fire, beaver, busy bee, busy person, doer, dynamo, fireball, hot shot, hustler, live wire, no slouch, pistol, self-starter , sharpy, spark plug, workhorse

You know what, darn it, that is me.

Recap

Wednesday:

Had a good workout at the gym.
Got internet fixed.
Wrapping up a few projects at work.
Made delicious dinner with brown rice, goat cheese, cumin and pinto beans.
Walked to Trader Joe's - hurrah! Love that place. So many tempting treats!

Of note --

I saw someone (long beard, unshowered) shoplifting from Trader Joe's. He was taking one thing at a time and collecting it all in a pile outside near his backpack. After he unloaded whatever it was he took by stuffing into his shirt, he would go back into the store for something else. I decided if I noticed, the Trader Joe's people probably did, too. And, if they didn't notice, I was banking on the fact that he probably needed that food more than Trader Joe's needed it. I felt badly that he had to do that, though.

I was writing in English about a Mexican guy who had his B.A., M.A. and Doctorate in "Ciencias Penales" meaning, legal punishment system like criminal penalties. Unfortunately for me, that doesn't translate so well to say he was an expert in penal sciences. Penal, as in...you get what I'm saying.

I took a long way home walking from work yesterday. I was hoping to get a snack from a Chinese bakery in Chinatown, but I couldn't find any bakeries! Advice?

Riddle me this

Recent Musings:

1. The importance of a little line heading southwest.
The other day I was running with a friend. She knew the way and I didn't so she was directing me, interspersing our regular conversation with the directions. She said:

We are turning right, not here, but after the gray house...

So, I'm searching for the gray house, step off the curb and all of a sudden our legs are atangle and my friend is turning right. What she really meant to say was:

We are turning right. Not here, but after the gray house...

And people think commas aren't important!

2. Born into the wrong language.
So, do people who have lisps have lisps in whatever language they may speak? If I have a lisp in Spanish (Lith the thing of thpain), will I necessarily have a lisp in Russian? Ah ha! It couldn't possibly transfer to Swahili which is, as I understand it, a click language. What if that is the ultimate accident - being born into the wrong language? And, anyway, how much of the lisp thing is cognitive? Biological? Physiological? Curious. Very curious.

3. Non-sensical crossings of senses.
Why do certain things seem to go together? The brain is so strange.

North = Up. South = Down.
Blue = Sad. Yellow = Happy. Pink = love. Green = Earthy.
Dark = Sleep. Light = Awake.
Major Key = Happy. Minor Key = Sad.
[I had more, but now they escape me.]

Really lucky people have synesthesia. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

a word or two with you

When I was young, I was always told to look up words when I'm reading. I don't remember that I paid heed to the suggestion, but now I do. I love words, their etymology, and learning some symbolic connection between sound, evolution, meaning and sight of a word. Here are some good words to mull over that I've come across lately. Okay, the last one I just put on there because I love it and want everyone else to love it, too:

kaffeklatsch - kaf·fee·klatsch (kŏf'ē-klăch', -kläch', kô'fē-)

n.

1. A casual social gathering for coffee and conversation.

megalomania - meg·a·lo·ma·ni·a (mĕg'ə-lō-mā'nē-ə, -mān'yə)

n.

1. A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.
2. An obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions.

diphthong - dif-thawng

n.
A complex speech sound or glide that begins with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable, as (oi) in boil or (ī) in fine.



philosophy - φιλοσοφία [Greek] "phil - o- sophia"

n.
1. love of wisdom

2. the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.

3. a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs.

4. investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

5. the critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.

6. the discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.

7. a system of values by which one lives.

Wait, I'm in law school?

1L year is over. That's first year law school, in nerd-talk legalese. I still can't quite believe I'm even in law school. I've been thinking a lot about it and trying to understand how I fit in (or don't, for that matter). Law school grades are 1 exam, all or nothing, at the end of the semester. I've always struggled with exams, standardized tests, and the traditional evaluation methods in our education system. My struggles and frustrations have only gotten worse as I get older; and, the law school system does not seem to agree with me. As I've wondered before, it makes me ask this question over and over: is something wrong with my brain? This is an analogy my understanding of how my brain processes information in law school. Maybe it's why I struggle to prove I have learned, maybe not. Comments welcome!

For a Cognitive Science class, I once wrote a research paper on pidgin languages, studying an overlapping area of linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. I was interested in seeing if and what part of language is innate human instinct. The traditional view was that 2 languages mashed together to form a third language. ("Mashed" may or may not be the technical term.) But, this isn't true. What happens is that the native population and the immigrant population (e.g. native Haitians and French) simplify their languages so much that essentially they communicate non-verbally and with a shared vocabulary of maybe as little as 400 words. This isn't a "language," but, really, it's getting by with a totality of expressions. The first generation of children born AFTER the immigrants arrive are the ones who "sui generis" create a new language, apart from either the natives' or immigrants' languages. The parents don't teach it to the children, because they don't speak it. The older generation doesn't understand it, because it's communication between the children. So, I learned that the innate part of language are the things that make the children understand each other (syntax, grammatical structures, etc.) The "nature" part of language that is learned or experiential are the sounds and the semantics. Haitian creole sounds a bit like French not because they take words from French, but because the children heard those sounds and plugged them into/used them in the language structure they innately had in their brains. Now, what's really interesting, I think, is that if you look at the grammatical/verbal mistakes that children who speak modern languages that have been socially-evolved over hundreds of years, e.g. English, French, etc., then those mistakes match the grammatical structure of the pidgin languages that children create. What is "wrong" today in language is what is innately "right." So, to me, that means that the hardwired, innate language has changed so much from its natural original state, that now we shun the intuitive and "true" or "universal" part of language.
....
How does this connect to how I feel about law school? Well, what is "wrong" today in law/social functioning is innately "right" in my brain. Where most people just accept the current laws and socially-evolved functioning, I do not. I cannot help but see the world as the originally intuitive way. I don't make assumptions and I can't easily accept or understand the socially-evolved rules by which society lives. So, everything I learn at school is a shock to me. The laws we learn are not intuitive to me. I have to struggle to see what is obvious to other people.

That was admittedly long, and probably confusing, but that's the best I can do to make sense of how I feel right now about law school, grades and that thing inside me I like to call my mushy brain.