Suboptimist
I’m not quite a pessimist. I’m more of a suboptimist.

I am always amazed to see how many people who are self-described liberals and “tolerant” people are members of the Facebook group “I judge you when you use poor grammar”, or any other incarnation of thereof. Language is often described as the last human characteristic that is an acceptable basis of discrimination and prejudice. In reality, the variety of English (or any language) a person speaks is largely beyond his or her control. The people whom the enlightened and educated members of these groups are judging are those who speak a dialect of English other than their own. In other words, any variety of English that is not the variety spoken by the urban, intellectual, middle-class and higher ruling elite. Additionally, their choice to discriminate on a linguistic basis runs deeper, revealing prejudice against the poor non-white. Very progressive.

Okay, I’ll get off my high horse for a while. I’ve long been in the market for a smartphone. I’ve been researching for about a year and a half, and I think I may have come to a decision. Let me give you the rundown.

· Samsung Blackjack. This was one of the first phones I considered. After trying it out at a shop, I found it too cumbersome to use. Also, it uses Windows Mobile, which I’ve never been a huge fan of.

· Blackberry (Pearl or Curve). These seemed like a perfect choice for a while, with a plethora of options and plans. Unfortunately, the Pearl has become the new trendy phone. The Curve is well, bland.

· Palm Treo. I am sick of the Palm OS. Enough said.

· Apple iPhone. I’ll admit, I was a skeptic at first, but after trying out my brother’s iPhone, I became convinced that this is the phone for me. I am debating whether to adopt somebody else’s used iPhone or to wait until summer to get a 3G capable model. Whatever I choose, I imagine it will happen before I start school again in the fall.

I intended to stay at the Marriot Library until 01:00.

I decided to take a break from work at 22:00, so I ventured to the Middle East collection.

I picked up a grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew.

I got really depressed.

I walked away. Pouting.

Good Lord, I’m pitiful.

I have a lot of things I could write about, but I feel I have lost my ability to do so. I am in a rut, as it were. I don’t know, I don’t feel like doing much of anything lately.

I do have a few things to mention. In continuation of my recent work in the field of sensitivity, I have come to find myself pondering my relationship with the students I tutor in Classical Arabic. This goes beyond the question of whether they are a students or clients, venturing into how I should go about treating them if they are, indeed, my students.

Most of my students, coming from Arabic 2, don’t have a very good teacher to begin with, making my job nearly impossible. I can’t be a supplemental instructor, nor do I want to be. Ideally, students would come to me for an hour or two to work through questions they still have about things they have already learned. The reality is that I find myself attempting to teach what the real teacher doesn’t. I am not a trained teacher, so I can’t do this very well.

This relates to my recent thoughts on sensitivity thus: is putting my fist through the wall and storming out in anger to show my disapproval of my most boneheaded client/students a sensitive method of teaching?

Oh, notice the layout change. Yes, it’s a WP theme. I intend to experiment with new themes to see how you like them, and when we settle on one, I will modify it, assuming the license allows me to. The header image is mine, but the rest is canned.  I also want to put my Node links first, but I can’t do that.  The categories want to go in alphabetical order.

Note: given that I usually write about language and society, this post is a travesty.

I was thinking about writing something very serious today, but I decided I was tired of being serious and I opted instead to talk about World of Warcraft. First, I have two complaints against Blizzard Enterntainment: first, the patch loader sucks, and second, the screenshots given for promotionals are only possible if you have a higher-end machine with a superb connection. That being said, I love the game.

Now, for some timeless quotes taken from the chat and environment console:

· “You need to put some blood back in your alcohol system.”

· “Hiram Abiff smiles shyly at flesh-eating worm.”

· “Who’s Hellen Keller? lol.”

· “You have slain Rabbit!”

This little exchange occurred between the hours of 0300 and 0400 MDT:

Nature: Wwhat is love?!
Danilo: Bbaby don’t hurt me.
Havoc: Don’t hurt me.
Nature: No more.
Nature: WHAT IS LOVE?!

It should be noted that all the above quotes were taken from the Looking for Group channel, which Blizzard turned into a world chat.

Now, some images:

More gnomes…

I told you he looks like Jesus…

This cat was an early-morning impulse buy.

He also swims.

Up yours..

Interesting weather we have been having.

One quick note: Blizzard found it necessary to have all screenshots taken in TGA format. Nobody can use this, so we need to find a converter. Interestingly, if you go to Sourceforge and search for ‘TGA converter,’ the first hit is a program designed specifically for World of Warcraft screens. Also, I have more screens in their original size on my Flickr page. The link is hard to miss.

…I usually get at least four.

I am trying to think if there is anything worth writing about. I am failing, I am afraid, because I all I can come up with is this report on what I have been doing:

As always, I am continuing my language work. I have made progress in my Arabic, have gotten a great start in Syriac, worked through the initial orthographic difficulties of Biblical Hebrew, and picked up a book on Coptic for a little variety. This may seem difficult, but in reality it is rather simple. The only language from the above list that I have to speak is Arabic; the others are literary mediums. Besides, I am not bound by academic deadlines relating to any of them.

This evening, I watched Inspector Morse: Masonic Mysteries. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The plot is thus: a murder takes place at the inspector’s rehearsal of the Magic Flute. It appears that somebody is trying to frame Inspector Morse, and that somebody seems to be the Masons. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you that it wasn’t the Masons — we don’t really do anything cool like framing British detectives. When I learned who the real villain was — Ian McDiarmid — I yelled, “I knew the Sith were involved!” The movie became all the more enjoyable.

Partially motivated by Debbie’s recent venture, I reinitiated my research into early Mormonism. My primary interest used to be the connections between the early Church and Freemasonry. Right now my focus is on polygamy. I, being a more liberal Mormon (though slightly less active), have always considered plural marriage to be a dark point in the Church’s history it needs to confront. I have strong doubts it was ever an inspired practice; at best, it was Joseph Smith’s attempt to reinstate ancient customs, at worst, it was a ploy. Though I hope it was the former, of course, I need to admit that I am utterly agnostic on this issue. What I learn will likely have no bearing on my feelings, which is what makes me a perfect candidate to research the subject. Readers on every side may feel free to flame me now.

*EDIT* I am going to create a permanent section devoted to my current research about whatever as soon as I create the documents page.

I’m not exaggerating whenever I say I am a truly useless individual. I am also rather useless as a linguist, as far as I can tell. Case in point: I like dead languages and I mean to work with them. I highly doubt I will ever benefit society with knowledge of the inner workings of Classical Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, and the like, but at least I will be enjoying myself. I remember from this past semester a discussion concerning the status of Hebrew before it was revived and reworked into the language spoken in modern Israel. The disagreement was over whether or not Hebrew could then have been classified as a dead language. The simple answer is: yes, it was a dead language. It befits us to establish what is meant when we say ‘dead language.’ A dead language is a language that no longer claims any native speakers. A language’s status as a literary medium is unimportant; going back to spoken language being innate while literacy must be learned.

For example, pretend the English-speaking world decided to stop speaking English and switch to Finnish while keeping English for written communication. After two generations or so, all the native English speakers would be gone and English would be a dead language, though it would remain written. After about 400 B.C., Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language in favor of Aramaic, though it still enjoyed literary status, while Sumerian died out near the beginning of the first millennium B.C., though writers continued to use it in their epics. Similarly, Ge’ez, Classical Arabic, and Latin are still used for literary and liturgical purposes, but there are no native speakers, thus they are dead languages. I’ve been meaning to post this for some time.

Changing the subject, I want everyone to know that I have some feminist tendencies. When feminists start to nitpick, however, I try to disassociate myself from them. Here is an example of what I mean by nitpicking.

In other news, I will be in Baja fixing an orphanage from Thursday to Sunday. I will report.