Hello again after a long hiatus. It's been a pretty good day - the pool got switched to long course (50 meters instead of 25 yards) for the summer season, so that changed things up a bit for class today, and then I finally got my Language and Dialect paper back (the one I did on word order in Germanic languages, specifically Dutch) and got an A. I also had a couple of good contributions to make when we were discussing the class project we're working on - it's a dialect survey that next year's class will administer to Southerners (mostly Floridians, to see 'how far south 'The South' goes down the peninsula), and we have to create questions to provoke responses including things like 'y'all' and 'might could' - things we think are sort of 'typical South'. Each person has to come up with 20 original questions, and as you can imagine, they're often pretty hard to make up. The teacher said, "Just listen to the speech of others around you, and things will jump out." Well, she was right, because I found one of mine while talking with my sister this weekend. I don't remember what she was talking about, but she tried to use the past tense of 'swell' ('swelled', obviously) but ended up saying 'swole'. I've heard this from many Southerners (with other verbs, too), and the teacher got excited about it, so I'm going to use it as one of my questions. Lethal as her exams are, I really do like that class. Anyway, then I had a free hour to sit in the sun, and then went to Language and Culture, where we all had a lively semantics debate with that professor over what constitutes 'murder' - apparently we agree that it has to be intentional, unjustified, and done by a human actor, but class ended right as we were starting to get into the specifics of whether or not the victim has to be human. "Can you murder a dog?" (resounding "Yes!", hands flying up) "What about a cockroach? (general head-shaking, "No.") "A-ha!..." ...Anyway, I think he might get into abortion on Wednesday - he said he had to give some thought to how to approach it - so I'll keep you posted. A kid went off in there the other day when we were talking about religion, arguing with the professor and stomping out, so I think he wants to prevent any future such happenings.

Other news:

I'm back to using full names on this site rather than letters. If anyone has any objections, go ahead and voice them, but I think it's more interesting to read about people than initials. Plus, I know multiple Cs, As, Js, and Ms, so this will make it easier to keep track.

We got our linguistics shirts! Purple with silver Gothic lettering (rough translation: 'We all get caught up together in the tiny details and become useless.' Is there a better motto for linguistics?) Carolyn and I are wearing ours tomorrow.

I made an appointment for my Personal Fitness Profile - next week on Thursday. I'm curious to see what's changed since last semester, if anything has. In December, I did really well on the shoulder flexibility ("Uh, are you a swimmer or something?"), strength measurements, and on the bike, but the muscular endurance tests (sit-ups and push-ups) stank. My body fat percentage was on the low end of the 'normal healthy' range, so hopefully this time it'll be in the 'normal athletic' range. And I wish I could get over this 'white-coat syndrome', because I know my normal resting heart rate is about 56 bpm and my normal blood pressure is around 110/60 - both of which are in the Excellent range - but they're both usually elevated when someone else takes them.

Our girls' team came in first at the swim meet on Thursday, which is awesome, considering there were a LOT of good people swimming - all the sororities and fraternities dragged out their high school swimmers to compete for them, and the water polo and synchronized swimming teams competed, plus Abby made three or four teams out of her swim classes. So we did really well. Apparently we get T-shirts, but I haven't heard anything about those yet.

Anybody know where I can get some blank plastic luggage tags?

I have to figure out what to do about an apartment for next spring. Renate and I were talking about living together, but when she remembered I was going to be gone for the fall, she started talking about possibly living with a friend of hers from massage school (if she doesn't stay in this complex). And even if I wanted to stay in this complex, it might not be possible; since they have new ownership and are being bought out as condos, they're not planning to sign any more semester leases. Since I've been living here for an entire year, they told me they might make an exception, but because it's all become so complicated, I'm considering trying another place. Anyone have any ideas?

Amber and Sabrina want to do the Key West swim with me!!! I'm so excited! I was excited anyway, but now I'm really excited that I won't be doing it alone. Yay!

There's a movie on Lifetime tonight at nine called Odd Girl Out which I am definitely watching - I'll push everyone at practice tonight so we can get done by 20:30. I've read that book, and they use parts of it as examples during counselor training at camp - how boys fight with fists but girls fight socially, with backstabbing and rumors - but not only that, I remember it happening to me. Seventh grade was the worst year of my life. I had the usual growing-up issues which middle school is famous for, but I also had a possibly-cancerous foot to deal with, plus a little band of four girls who used to be my friends, who turned on me and made it their life's work to make me miserable. Elizabeth (my former best friend, petite with the longest hair you've ever seen), Melissa (a redhead who belonged to some religious group who believed in women having long hair and wearing only dresses), Leebie (the transfer student, a Jewish butterball with black curls who desperately wanted to fit in SOMEWHERE), and Jennifer (painfully skinny, with constant nosebleeds and lots of freckles. She didn't improve as she got older - she got suspended for drinking in high school.) At one point, most of the grade was taking sides in the 'war' between us. I remember curse words being written on my locker, multiple nasty notes shoved in there every day, and, once, a hard kick to my bandaged foot a few days after the first operation. They even had a yellow 'secret notebook' where they wrote awful things about me; I once caught a glimpse of a list titled "10 Reasons Why We DON'T LIKE JESSICA!" (I was Jessica back then.) I believe it started in earnest when I missed Elizabeth's birthday party in favor of a family trip to Disney World (the trip Mom had promised me while I was lying in the hospital - "When this is all over, we'll - I don't know - go to Disney World!"). For some reason, that struck a sour note with Liz, and she amped up the snottiness because of it. Ah, well, anyway, that's all said and done, sticks and stones and so forth, but I'm watching that movie tonight and I think Carolyn wants to come over and watch, too. She was home-schooled, so she doesn't know what she missed.

Okay - off to Publix for baby tomatoes, orange peppers, dip, turkey, DanActive, bagels, lots of milk, Lean Pockets, and, of course, the requisite dark chocolate.

P.S. Mom - Renate loves the pants - she says thanks for rescuing them. :)