the big day tomorrow.

Thesis defense day is almost here:

"A Sketch Grammar of Satawalese, the language of Satawal Island, Yap State, Micronesia."

So much to talk about, but I must hone it down to a comfortable 45 minutes.

I can do it.

I can't believe that by this time tomorrow, I'll be DONE!

YouTube is just exploding with great Hang drum talent.

check out Andi:




Here, Andi holds the drum against is lap while standing to play:

This guy is phenomenal!

Fore more, go to YouTube and search "andisteil"

I can't quite smell the ink drying on the signature page of my thesis just yet...

but I've set a defense date.

My committee deems me ready.

April 30, 1PM, Room 575 Moore Hall, University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

Whee!

I love the number 13.

I've never suffered from triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13. In fact, I relish seeing it, and am offended when 14 follows 12, as in many apartment buildings.

Who are they fooling ANYway?

You know when people are in an elevator, watching the numbers advance, that they'll read 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and SECRETLY insert 13 in the counting in their heads - c'mon, though most Americans find it challenging to do math of most kinds, the majority CAN count to 20.

Okay, I'm a librarian.

I've been one for 20 years.

I've never shelved books.

Ever.

Until last week.

Our two-story library is undergoing a renovation, requiring us to live on one floor while the other floor is under construction. We just re-opened the second floor and the circulating collection, and unpacked the books we stored for 4 months in cardboard boxes. It's great to see the books back on the shelves again.

I volunteered to shelve some of the extra books that were in circulation before we closed the collection down prior to the move from upstairs to down.

There's something wonderfully calming about replacing books back on the shelves. You see, the Library of Congress Classification System arranges books by subject - each call number forms a topic sitting on a shelf.
To take a wide range of books on creme brulee (we teach cooking), Albert Wendt (we teach literature), and introduction to logical reasoning (we teach philosophy), and place them on the shelves...well, it sounds weird, but it was a lot of fun. LC call numbers will do a number on your head, as working with them for long periods of time enables you to forget about the outside world, forget about your aching feet, and to forget about how friggin' cold the building is now that the air-conditioning is finally balanced correctly (the reason we closed was to replace the a/c).

One can find joy in the simplest of things. The reordering of chaos is one of these pleasures. The work has to be done for the benefit of others, right? Work is more fun if you can make a game of it.

And I did - I put aside at least 10 books I want to read! (I'm gonna have to put them on the floor next to my nightstand, where I have at least seven books I'm in various stages of reading.

What can I say?

I'm a librarian.

Go read a book and support your local library!

Here's my friend Victoria in her finest Oastara bonnet...




(I usually just put peeps in the microwave and zap 'em - they grow monsterously, and then explode and/deflate when the power cuts off.)

Aaaah, the endless creativity of my friends...

 I was in my friend Deborah's office the other day. We're both linguists.

One of my interests in lesser-known languages is the impression these languages left on outside observers, especially the sound systems. As many of you know, human languages have a surprising collection of what I endearingly call "weird (but wonderful) sounds." I call them that because I myself like to challenge myself to try to imitate these sounds. Some sounds require you to really get a hold of your vocal tract, tongue, lips and everything else to make the sounds. I also call them "weird" sounds, because they're very attractive to my ear. They are sounds very different from those in American English. The sounds of American English are very uninspired, and flat. The only "challenging" sounds in American English I have observed with speakers of other languages is the interdental "th" sound (voiceless "think" and voiced "the") Some pronounce the sounds with a 't,' and 'd,' others with a 'z'- " I tink, derefore I am"  or "I zink, zerefore I am." 

Usually, Western observations of 'native' languages are condescending and negative. But once in a while, a surprisingly positive account comes across my desk. Below are two contrasting observations from missionaries on Tlingit (Deborah turned me on to these, by the way - both are from a New Yorker article about 10-15 years ago). The first one is a delight. I love reading the metaphorical descriptions of language sounds.

The second observation is all too familiar.

From a Russian Orthodox missionary describing the Tlingit language:

“Their speech is flowery and rich in imagery, and they are generally good orators...The language itself is rich with words but even richer in grammatical forms. Nouns and adjectives have articles, as in Greek; persons, tenses and moods of nouns and adjectives are modified by means of prefixes...Listening carefully to the speech of  a Tlingit, you might hear the croaking of a frog, the bubbling of  water, the cackling of a hen, the crackle of breaking dry wood, or some guttural and rather pleasant, melodious sounds.”

And here is the Presbyterian's view: “The sooner...the natives drop their stinted and dwarfed language for the liberal English, the better, No encouragement to hold on to their language should be given by missionaries and teachers learning it with the view of addressing  them in it. The best way of elevating them is to make them climb up to us.”