999.95 Words

I've been reading The Adobe Illustrator CS Wow! Book, and wow! It's really good. There are dozens of features that I'd never even seen, even though I've been using the program for a couple of years now. In short, expect some Illustrator art to start popping up here pretty soon. :)

Well, May is almost to an end. Two more weeks till spring term is over (didn't it just begin?!?). It's going by too fast.

Oh, I almost forgot: I've started studying German. Now I can say things like "Ich muß mir die Haare waschen" ("I have to wash my hair") and "Sage und schreibe" ("Believe it or not"). :) No, really, I'm learning the verb conjugations and the noun declensions and all that fun stuff. Mmm...

Sleeping out

I'm pleased to report that I've successfully conquered the sleeping-in syndrome which was threatening to eat away at my life. It's nice to have extra time (and self-discipline).

Today I went with my roommates to see Episode III (Star Wars). Certainly a dark movie (though the evil portrayed in Lord of the Rings was without a doubt bleaker and more awful and hopeless in a way). I used to be quite an avid Star Wars fan as a kid, but toward the end of high school I grew out of it. Anyway, what I really wanted to mention was that every single preview involved violence to a large degree. With the advent of special effects technology, it seems like all the movies insist upon utilizing it to the highest degree possible, blowing up everything in sight. 'Tis a pity. There is something that drives me to be morbidly fascinated with huge things blowing up, but there's something else that is repulsed by it and the desensitization which no doubt follows. I couldn't help but wonder if this increase in violence in the media is a premonition of what the end of the world will be like (and whether it will be a cause of it).

On a lighter note, I read Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language" today. It's hilarious and now I'm dying to learn German. :)

Money matters

Finished reading The Richest Man in Babylon yesterday. Excellent book. I'll admit that I would have preferred the financial information straight-up rather than in Babylonian parables, but you take what you get. It's inspired me with a vision of what I can become, financially. I don't particularly care to become filthy rich -- all I want is financial security for my future family and the knowledge that I'm wisely using the money which comes to me. Money troubles are hell, I've found. Before my mission money didn't really bother me (I had a really good programming job and didn't really have any expenses), but ever since I moved out, I've been thrust into the "real world" where money does matter. Rent, food, and everything else have cast new light onto how I view my life. Before, I always thought, "I don't need to worry about it -- it'll all be okay." And so I spent frivolously without a thought for the morrow. If there was money in my bank account, then it was okay to spend it (at least until it ran out). I made sure I had enough to pay rent but that was about it. And so the past few months have gone by.

Now, however, I've seen the light. I'm realizing how important it is to save for the future -- after all, someday it's not going to be just me, but I'm going to have a family to take care of, too. How selfish is it to focus just on my immediate gratifications now and forget about my future wife and kids a few years down the road? That is not how I want to live. The peace that comes from knowing that I'm secure financially is worth the sacrifice.

You know, until recently I always thought that this sort of thing (finances, etc.) was "worldly" and that because it wasn't explicitly spiritual I shouldn't really focus on it. Boy, was I wrong! Yes, it's temporal, but it has quite an impact on one's spiritual life. There is a reason that President Hinckley has repeatedly counseled the Saints to avoid debt and to live within their means.

One last thing: since my mission, I've found that many things that used to be painfully boring to me have become incredibly important, and virtually all of them have to do with raising a family (cooking, finances, etc.). I guess this is part of growing up. :)

Unnatural selection

So, I cut myself only four times today with the razor. :) The devotional/forum today was on Darwin and the tree of life and was extremely interesting. A few years ago I bought a copy of The Origin of Species for 50 cents at the local thrift store, so I'm going to begin reading it. As Prof. Whiting was talking about entomology and his research, I really wanted to become a scientist, but I realized that that's not my future. Some things will just have to remain hobbies... Speaking of what is to be my future, this morning for my ELANG reading the topic was pragmatics and discourse analysis. Wow was it fun! I've realized in the past few weeks that humans and human behavior interest me more than almost anything. Language itself is interesting, of course, but the most fun part for me is how humans use it.

Last week we got a notice that our electricity would be shut off by today unless we switched it to our name. So last night we called up and set up a new account in my name, paying the $75 deposit via debit card. They promised that our power wouldn't be shut off today. This morning I left for school thinking all would be well, but at 9:30 I got a call from my roommate: "Did you take care of the power bill? The power's out." After several phone calls to the city utilities people throughout the day, and two visits from the power people (all while I was at work), I figured it would be fixed. Got home at 3:30 and no, it wasn't fixed. But I did find that the power meter for the upstairs apartment was working (the wheel was spinning). Called the utilities people up and found that they apparently mixed up our two addresses (873 for upstairs and 875 for us), so they'd thought it was working the whole time. :) But we did get it back on, and no, I don't think everything in the refrigerator melted (thank heavens!).

Space case

My electric razor's battery has run out, so yesterday I bought some disposable razors and shaving gel. This morning was my first attempt at manual shaving. Suffice it to say that I cut myself eight times. But practice makes perfect, right? Right? :)

So, after class I went to work, figuring that I'd work from 3 to 5 (which is what I usually do, or so I thought). Ended up staying till 5:30 to fix some of the records which weren't being imported correctly. Then my sister called and asked where I was. "At work," I replied. "So are you not coming to class today then?" Uh-oh. Turns out that I'd totally spaced it and had forgotten that I had drawing class at 4:00. It's a three-hour class, though, so I was able to go for the last hour or so. I'm sad that I missed the first part, because we're doing perspective (which is tremendously fun). It's kind of scary that I completely forgot about class, though -- maybe I'll blame it on old age... ;)

Musing on the muse...

I watched The Incredibles this afternoon, then watched most of the extras on the second DVD about the making of it. I can't tell you how bad I want to make a movie right now. :) The creative muses are calling very persuasively. I wonder what these "urges" are and where they come from and why. They do come, and sometimes they're really, really, really strong. Part of the extras was a series of lighting/color sketches of the various sets in the movie. They were only splotches and shapes of color, but the effect was amazing. With art, certain parts of it (the interplay between light and shadow, the emotional effect of color, perspective, and so on) are spellbinding for me. I really don't know how to explain it, but it's real. I've decided that I'm tired of letting life slip by with creative expressions muted and bound, off to the side. No more. From now on, art and music and writing will get the attention they deserve (within proper bounds, of course).

So, in other parts of the world -- er, my life, I mean -- I ate lunch with a mechanical engineering major the other day and had a fascinating conversation about materials. I was so excited that I went straight to the library and got a refresher book on calculus. Then my ELANG class yesterday we finished our discussion on transformational grammar (Chomsky) and moved on to natural language processing. It's so interesting! I had to restrain myself from bouncing around the classroom for joy. Okay, I'm weird. :) If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm interested in practically everything. The number of topics that bore me diminishes daily. It's a great way to live, since there's so much to life. Why be bored when you can be having fun?

This past week we've been working really hard on the Immigrant Ancestors Project website, and the new search is finally up. We're in the process of importing all the data right now (we have over 8,000 names thus far). Last night at about 9:00 we were working away at it when one of the names caught my eye, and I found to my surprise that it was Manuela San Emeterio, who emigrated from Spain in 1848 and went to Cuba. "San Emeterio" was the surname given to all the abandoned childrens raised in the orphanage there, and so my great-great grandfather's name was Zoilo San Emeterio. We can't trace his line any further than that because his parents are unknown (and it's extremely unlikely that they'll ever be found). In searching through the Santander records earlier this year, I found a handful of San Emeterios who showed up a few decades before Zoilo but they disappeared abruptly with no trace left behind. Now it looks like they too emigrated to Cuba (Zoilo's son Antonio moved there, where he married and had my grandfather).

Ye Old Arte Shoppe

I've been thinking a lot about creativity lately. See, every time I read a good book or article, I feel this drive to write. When I listen to music, I feel compelled to compose and to write songs. When I see artwork, I'm driven to draw or design. Thankfully these urges don't all come at once (usually), but rather they wax and wane in an irregular cycle.

The reason I bring this up is because even though the creative muses beckon, lately (meaning the past nine months) I've hardly done anything. Written one song. Composed a few pieces. Drawn a few pictures. Designed a few logos for work. Haven't written any poems or stories. What's up? Before my mission, I was producing quite a bit of creative works, but the wells seem to have dried up. But it's not that the ideas or the drive isn't there; it's just the part where I take the ideas and make them reality. I guess I've been too caught up in everything else. Whenever I think about this, some part of me says, "Hold on there, don't forget that part of Living (capital L) is finding expression for these things. Sure, work and school are important, but you also need to work on your talents." And yet time marches on and all that's left behind in its wake is homework and some work projects. Time for some introspection and self-analysis, methinks...

Bookworms Anonymous

Lately I've found it really hard to read books. Not the actual reading, that is, but just making the time to do it. And yet I once was a voracious reader, finishing a book or two a week (if not faster than that). What happened? I read articles like Reading for Truth and the old drive to read returns, but then life plows on and the books are left unread, unopened by the wayside. It is not good. My conscience claims that I don't have much time, but that's hogwash. If it has a high enough priority, it'll make its own time. I believe with all my heart that reading is necessary to living a well-balanced life and that it's superior to movies in many ways (go listen to Gessel's talk and you'll see what I mean). I think that if I start chronicling my reading escapades here, then I'll have to start reading again because I certainly can't write about nothing. :)

The neverending post

Seems like I'm slowly losing my ability to wake up early. Back in the day, when I was in high school, I'd get up at 4:50 every morning to study Latin. Then I woke up at 6:30 in the mission field. This past school year I usually woke up at 7:00, except on the days when I had an 8:00 class (6:00). And now that my first class starts at noon, I wake up at 8:00, and it's disturbing. I'm not a sleeping-in kind of person, and when I wake up later than 7:00 I feel like half the day is already gone. I'm sure it's just a self-control thing and all I have to do is kick myself hard enough (metaphorically, of course :)) and I'll be back to waking up early again.

Yesterday there were a bunch of kids in the Wilk, probably on some school outing or something. I really miss kids. I have two younger sisters and six younger brothers, and all the brothers are under 16 (youngest is five), but now that I've moved out I only see them every few weeks. And there aren't many kids on campus -- but when there are, it's feels so great to see them.

Also yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with some of my coworkers about accents. I'll admit that I'm somewhat given to attempting a British accent from time to time (okay, okay, it's more than just time to time :)), and in my linguistics class we were talking about phonology and phonetics and all that. I got to thinking: if I were to study the rules for British English, then it would be a lot easier to imitate, as I'd have a basis for understanding the British accents I hear. So I went to Google and found this really cool site: English Accents and Dialects, at Collect Britain from the British Library. Eventually I want to study other accents, too (like Southern, Boston, German-English, etc.). Maybe there's more of an actor in me than I thought... :)

Oh, I promised a link to the transcript of Dallin H. Oaks's and Van C. Gessel's talks. So far there aren't any for either, but here are links to the audio archives: Dallin H. Oaks and Van C. Gessel (scroll down to the May 3, 2005 one).

Looks like this'll be a long post. :) I was listening to Kenneth Cope's song "White Dress" and realized that I haven't been doing much family history lately. I used to go up to the Salt Lake Family History Library every Saturday, but now I go to the TRC and my weekdays haven't been free. Fall semester I was totally captivated and spent much of my free time researching the Robert Shanks family, but winter semester it started dying out and now I'm back down to nothing. But it shouldn't be that way -- I do want to find out who my ancestors were. I think I need to give myself a set time each week to do it; otherwise it probably won't happen. (You know, I thought spring term would be much easier and not as busy as fall/winter semesters. Nope, totally wrong.)

Accounting 200

After chatting with my cousin-in-law and my uncle at a family gathering tonight, I found myself quite interested in taking an accounting class. It's kind of shocking because I've never ever been interested in it before, but now it's begging me to take it. I doubt it'll change my mind about going into book editing/publishing, though. :) Accounting is in my blood, actually -- my grandparents are accountants and so is my dad (and an uncle or two). So I signed up for Accounting 200 for this fall semester (it's the Intro to Accounting class). I have wanted to take math again really bad ever since AP Calculus in high school... Anyway, I think I'm kind of impetuous and almost certainly crazy. :)

Bye-bye blog

Since I don't have time to update three blogs, I've deleted SEALang and Land of Smiles and will instead focus on just this one. Maybe someday when I'm rich and retired and overflowing with free time, but not now... :)

Song of the heart

Found an interesting thread on under-rated hymns at Times and Seasons. I love the hymns. For the last couple of years I've often thought of arranging some of them, and before long it'll actually happen. :) Another thing I want to start doing is put up the chords for the hymns -- now that I'm learning how to play the guitar, it'd be nice to know what the chords are, but I haven't yet found anything online.

A while ago I started collecting foreign-language hymnbooks (Spanish, Italian, French, and Thai so far). It's interesting to see which hymns got selected for translation, which other hymns were included that aren't in the English hymnbook (like "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"), and which hymns have extra verses (like "Called to Serve" in Spanish). The translation process is fascinating, too.

Facelift

Time for a new look. I've only changed a little bit so far (logo and color scheme), but eventually I want to move away from the standardized Blogger look. (It is good-looking, but too much of one thing is still too much.)

Went grocery shopping. Speaking of too much of one thing, this past week I've been eating hash browns and eggs for breakfast and dinner almost every day. It's good because it's not processed food and I've learned how to make hash browns. Now I just need to explore some more food horizons so my whole diet doesn't consist of potatoes and eggs. :) At least I'm not eating just sandwiches now, though... (I should amend that I do usually eat lunch on campus, and I eat fruit for breakfast too.)

Kitabu cha who?

Yesterday I checked out a Swahili Book of Mormon from the library (I'm going to start working on my Moroni 10:3-5 page again). Tried a fun little exercise that I did a few times back on my mission (with Chinese grammatically and with Tamil as far as the script): examine known passages/features of the text and try to find out as much about the language as you can. I only did it for a few minutes but here's what I've found. (Note that I haven't yet checked to make sure these conclusions are correct. Also, if you're not familiar with the Book of Mormon, it's been translated into several different languages -- over 100 now -- and so it can act as a kind of Rosetta Stone for amateur linguists. :) You could do the same thing with the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights page, which has over 300 different translations.)

First, the names of the books (which are usually of the form "Book of ...") are Kitabu cha ... Second, "First Book of Nephi" is Kitabu cha Kwanza cha Nefi and "Second Book of Nephi" is "Kitabu cha Pili cha Nefi", so kwanza is "first" and pili is "second" (so far I haven't checked to see how the ordinal numbers differ from the cardinals, if at all). Cha is used both as a possessive (cha Nefi) and as some kind of connective between kwanza/pili and kitabu. Third, "Third Nephi" is Nefi wa Tatu, interestingly. So there's some kind of difference between "First Book" and "Third Nephi" -- maybe wa functions as "the" sometimes does in English: "Nephi the Third." "Words of Mormon" is translated as Maneno ya Mormoni, so apparently the possessive can also be ya. I can't help but wonder why there's a difference between cha Nefi and ya Mormoni. Fourth, it seems like the only final consonants used are nasals and liquids (/m/, /n/, and /r/ are the ones I've noticed so far). Other than that, all syllables tend to end in vowels (of which there seem to be just the traditional a, e, i, o, u).

Well, all of that is probably awfully boring for most of you. But for budding philologists like me it's like an afternoon in a candy store. :) I've been reading about language acquisition in children in my English Language class (intro to linguistics), and it's incredibly fascinating. I'd never really thought a whole lot about it, but it reminds me a lot of my younger brothers and also provides some neat insights into second language acquisition.

Other than that, I've been reading The Richest Man in Babylon, by George Clason. It's good so far and the principles in it (mainly that you should save at least 10% of your earnings separately, and that your perceived "needs" (a.k.a. wants) will grow to fill your budget unless you protest to the contrary) are sound. I don't really care about being wealthy, but it would be nice to be financially secure and to know that I'm using money wisely and not foolishly.

Strummin' my heart with my fingers

It's been a bit of a busy week, thus no posts lately. School is a lot of fun this term. In fact, I can tell that I'm progressing with both my guitar playing and my drawing, which is tremendously exciting. It takes a lot of hard practice, of course, but it's worth it. As far as culinary adventures, last night I cooked up some chicken thighs. After 45 minutes in the oven, the bread crumbs were almost black but the chicken was still pink inside and it bled when I cut to the center of it, so I put it in the microwave and it turned out okay. Good thing I was the only one eating it. :) (I'll admit that it's kind of disheartening when most of my cooking experiments end up as level 4 disasters, but I still have an undying and probably unrealistic hope that someday I'll blossom into a good cook. Someday, someday...)

I've decided to embark on a new project: to develop a small set of materials to help teach people how to read Thai (mostly focusing on those who already speak it, particularly missionaries), and a companion set to teach how to type Thai. I've experimented a bit with some ways of teaching the latter and it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to come up with a graded series of exercises, repetitive enough to help one remember where the keys are but not so much that it's boring. I'm not really sure what the best way is to teach reading, though, but I'm going to look into it and see what's available. The linguist in me is coming alive after several months of lying dormant (must be midnight or something). :)

Pop goes the weasel

Van C. Gessel spoke at the devotional today, on forging links between other cultures (including our own in the past) and ourselves. It was a really good talk. He first spoke out very strongly against the contemporary pop culture that is running rampant in our society, particularly movies and music. He related how he read through the lyrics of the top 20 songs on the radio -- all but one were sensual, vulgar, violent, or in some other way spiritually harmful. He also reiterated the prophets' ban on R-rated movies and entertainment that is suggestive, immoral, or pornographic in any way (that's also in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet). I've noticed here that many of the youth in my age group seem to think that if a movie is PG-13, it's automatically okay to watch, regardless of how much profanity or sex or violence is in it. Indeed, I've met only a very few who care to monitor what movie and TV programs they watch beyond avoiding R-rated movies; most are anxious to watch all the movies that are playing and listen to whatever music is most popular. They dismiss this part of the commandment as being not for them, or they say that the filth doesn't affect them. And then of course they also label anyone who does want to follow the Lord in this matter as "self-righteous." Argh. Some of my friends are addicted (really addicted) to the TV show 24, to the point that it has become their god. I've seen just enough of it to know that it's not clean by any stretch of the imagination, and it certainly doesn't fit as being uplifting or edifying or pure or virtuous or lovely. Quite the opposite, but in spite of that the suspense hooks people and lures them in. Can a thick plot justify immoral, profane, and violent behavior, no matter how interesting it is?

Anyway, continuing on with the talk, Dr. Gessel said that we need to preserve and learn to love the cultures of olden days (the literature, the music, the dances, etc.), in order to understand our ancestors. He talked a lot about reading, which I loved because I'm a book person. But I'm not doing very good justice to his talk (it was very well done), so I'll just end here and post a link as soon as the transcript is available.

Don't subsidize freeloaders

Got back a few hours ago from the monthly CES fireside. Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke and it was a good talk. The subject: dating (well, at least of the second half, which is what I want to talk about). So, I've been home from my mission over eight months now and haven't really been going on many dates at all (two or three last semester, for example). Elder Oaks really made it clear that we guys are supposed to be going on dates frequently, not just hanging out. I guess I've been kicking against the pricks, but now an apostle of the Lord has commanded us to date, so I shall date. As I was writing about it in my journal, I started wondering about who I would ask out. I'll be honest: for these past eight months, there haven't been many girls I've been interested in (and I'm not talking about looks -- it's not as important as girls think it is). But then I remembered something from my mission: when we were riding our bikes around to find investigators but didn't really want to open our mouths, the streets were empty and there was no one to find. When we really committed ourselves to opening our mouths and finding those people the Lord had prepared for us, however, suddenly the streets were crawling with people. It seems weird but it happened so many times. It all depends on your attitude. And I realized that since I haven't really been too keen on asking girls out these past few months, my eyes were closed (so to speak) and so I wasn't able to find any girls I was interested in. But now that I'll be "opening my mouth," I have a feeling that the horizon is going to open up and I'll find a whole new world out there. Updates will follow. ;) (I'll post a link to the talk as soon as they get a transcript up.)