What was that? Did you hear whispering?

Oh no, they've found me!

My ne particles have their machetes pointed at me, while der Deutschkurs is sticking a camera in my face, asking "Wie spät ist es?"

I'll tell you what time it is...it's time to get our butts out of Dodge. Wait, did I just use a metaphor? An idiom? Was that metonymy or irony?

We're all doomed.

VOTE MUTHAEFFERS! :)

I'm voting for Barack because...he effing rocks. He's smart, he's well-spoken, he's got the image and the substance. 

But that's me. Regardless of who you support, I want to encourage you to get out there and vote. This is a democracy, and it only works if we do. So do your patriotic duty, exercise your rights, and vote! 

I'm an American, and I approve this message. 

 Quick update on me:
School is going quite well. I'm not as busy as I had expected, but I'm sure crunch time will be hitting soon. I love working with languages, and am glad to say that I am now enrolled in German 101, and my work involves reading Latin, so I get to keep my skills sharp (except for Spanish, which sadly has fallen by the wayside....SIDEBAR: There are few minorities in Eugene, with the exception of Asians, and sadly I don't know any Asian languages yet...but my point is, I don't get to use my Spanish or my AAVE as much as I would like....). My classes are going well and I am learning a lot.

I'm really enjoying Oregon. The people are all very nice, although they don't know how to drive properly of course, and the area is just gorgeous. I love my new apartment, and the kitties are adjusting quite well. Hubby is working hard at his new job, and everything seems to be coming up Aces for the time being. 

So that's the low down. While I won't make a promise to update this sucker daily, I will try to check back in more often, as it's always amusing talking to myself. Peace and chicken grease homies...(I miss you, AAVE).

 http://leilasfictioncafe.wordpress.com/fantasy/enkendos-bride/

One thing I did love about the school day...the corner office. I must take pics and post them...I am in grad student heaven. Everyone else is crammed into tiny windowless closets, three a piece, and I have this lovely, spacious suite. My professor is leaving the country soon and I get to use her awesome office. I really got lucky this year. Next year, I'll be packed in with the rest of the sardines I'm sure, so I must enjoy the space while it lasts.

Go Ducks!

I recently moved to Eugene, Oregon to attend the graduate school at the University of Oregon. My aim is a PhD in Linguistics, with an emphasis in Historical Linguistics. I chose Eugene primarily for their package offer, and the chance to work on a project that I am interested in:

"An Electronic Database and Typology of Medieval Slavic Eastern Orthodox Calendars of Saints" which you can check out at http://logos.uoregon.edu/research/grant_supported.shtml.

The campus is lovely, with lots of towering trees and green spaces, and it is very pedestrian and bike friendly. Everyone I have met so far have been friendly and helpful, and I think my time here will be both stimulating and advancing. I am off to more orientation again today, and hope to meet some fellow grad students and make new friends. 

I highly recommend this book, not because I've read it, but because I've read other works by these authors and I am positive that the read will be both entertaining and engrossing. But you don't have to take my word for it. Pick the book up yourself! It's reasonably priced and available now!

Buy it now at http://www.createspace.com/3350744.

And check out the website of the people who put it all together for more of their story: http://kvpalumproject.wordpress.com/.

 1. This is exceedingly relevant, as it was just revealed, but what other city in the world has a statue of the Fonz in bronze? http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/fonzpix.html

2. Not only is Milwaukee home to Miller Brewing Co, but countless other beers got their start in Milwaukee...Blatz, Pabst, Schlitz...and tons of microbreweries.

3. Brats. Need I say more?

4. The people of Milwaukee are unlike those I've met anywhere in the world. Milwaukee is the most diverse city in the state, and although you can find people from every race, creed and background, they all have in common their welcoming spirit and openness. In no other city have I met so many people willing to tell you their life stories in the first few minutes after you meet them.

5. Friday Fish Fry. God Bless the Catholics! And Lutherans, although you won't get me near that Ludafisk.

6. The summer festival season is the greatest in the entire US. Every weekend there is a festival, ranging from huge celebrations like Summerfest and State Fair, to cultural events like Mexican Fiesta, Irish Fest, Festa Italiana, Bastille Days, Polish Fest, Indian Summer, Arab World, Germanfest, Greek Fest, and the list goes on. Another great way to spend the weekend is at the multitude of church festivals which overrun parking lots during the summer.

7. The city park systems are awesome. The parkways provide scenic drives, and the parks themselves are full of interesting hiking trails and lovely examples of nature and indigenous species. The state parks are great as well, and camping in them is both fun and affordable.

8. The bowling alleys, the bar halls, the corner pubs, the backyard barbeques. A bar on every corner. The hotdog man who sits outside the liquor store. Cheese. Fireworks.

9. The abundance of rummage sales are amazing. Even during the winter! And the multitude of spelling errors on the rummage sale signs are endlessly amusing.

10. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This school actually cares about its students and their performance. It really feels like a community that cares. The professors are great, the facilities are improving, and the possibilities are endless!

 While my list is in no way comprehensive, it does give a glimpse of the wonder that is Milwaukee, WI. Brew City will be missed by this immigrant. As will the wonderful state of Wisconsin. But most of all I will miss that fantastic Wisconsin accent. I will carry it with me, with pride, to remind myself of the land of beers and steers, cheese and cheeseheads, and friends.

I am always surprised at the people one meets when hosting a yard sale. The lookey-loos are my favorites. We began calling the cars who rolled slowly down the alley past our driveway "drive-bys," but instead of firing bullets, they used their eyeballs to investigate every nook and cranny of the sale without ever leaving their cars. I'm not sure if the ones who drove by without stopping were more damaging to my self esteem than the ones who actually got out, looked around, and left without buying anything, but both combined to make me wonder what type of person I was to hold onto so much junk for such a long time. It is certainly a strange experience, to have people pawing through items that you used to cherish, and then to have these people decide that 25 cents is too much to pay for something you've loved intensely, or at least used to love.

It was both a melancholy and cathartic experience. I felt sad to be letting go of things that were important to some aspect of my life, but now I consider it akin to a rite of passage. Out with the old to prepare for the new. It was almost cleansing to the spirit, a great purge of things that were weighing me down (I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a cosmic colonic, but I think that term is almost apt) so that I am now free to begin the next chapter of existence. While the experience was bitter sweet, it was also totally physcially and mentally exhausting. Thank Jeebus that I had friends and family to help!

Perhaps my worst little helper was my 5 yr old niece. She caught on quick that the sale was a profit game, and she took it upon herself to establish her own "bank." We had a container we were using to collect all the money and make change, and we were carefully keeping a tally of who's items were sold (my family brought their extra stuff to sell as well, and the profits were to be divided at the end of each day). My niece decided that this method wasn't working for her, and in order to maximize her personal profits, she would have to subvert the system. So, in true captalistic spirit, she decided that her own purse would become "the new bank" and she began walking around the sale, her purse held open, telling people that they should put money into her purse and take whatever they wanted, or don't take anything, it's all the same to her, as long as the money ended up in her purse. While she couldn't quite grasp that the sale of items were what generated the profits, she did realize that if she wanted to get paid, she had better work! I guess there's a lesson in that for all of us.

The caller stated that the trip to camp was both a blessing and a curse, because after his daughter's return, she promptly stole a check for $600 from her mom's purse and started investing. By the time Merrill Lynch called him, his daughter's investments had netted over $11,000. While he had to punish her for her theivery, his wife allowed her to keep investing, and she's now up to $32,000. In two weeks.

This call prompted me to stroll down memory lane and wander across my recollections of my own time at Summer Camp. It was a Christian camp, requiring attendance at worship sessions 3 times a day. Besides the time spent in the chapel, the camp counselors didn't really care what we children did all day. There were few organized activities, and mostly I remember my cot mattress smelling like urine and the food tasting like my cot mattress. Then the string of accidents began. A twisted ankle, a bad scrape-up and finally a fall that resulted in a broken arm caused my sister and I to start calling the place "Camp Death," and making endless phone calls to my mom requesting that we be brought home. After numerous calls and worried musings that we would be the next victim of cursed Camp Death, my mom relented and we returned after only 2 and 1/2 days. Crisis averted.

Camp Death was a far cry from the Money Camp. The only thing I learned was a healthy fear of ever having to return to summer camp, and so far, this fear has failed to net me one thin dime. Long story short (too late), I'm still looking for a way to turn $600 into $32,000 in two weeks. Maybe I should open my own camp, patterned more on Total Recall than my own camp experience. For half the price of actually sending your kid to camp, you can get a package of premium memories! It will seem as if they've been there....one nearly-empty can of bugspray...some burn spray for the sunburn...mosquito-bite stickers laced with itching powder for that authentic deep-woods feel...letters home stating what a great time they're having swimming/canoeing/hiking...."smoke in a can" to spray all over their t-shirts and shorts for that campfire smell...and a myriad bunch of string-and-popcicle-stick craft creations. At least you won't have to worry about your child falling off the rusty equipment and breaking his arm. Order now! Operators are standing by!

Welcome to my Webjam page. I'm new to these new-fangled internet personal sites, so forgive me if there are some kinks here and there. I suppose this is where I post my manifesto for world domination, or at least introduce myself, so let me begin...

I am a student who is setting off in pursuit of my PhD and am about to move cross-country, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Eugene, Oregon to begin the next leg of my journey. My field of study is Linguistics, with an emphasis on Historical Linguistics, mainly languages in the Indo-European family. I've always had a love of words, and while this love leads to my hobby of writing fiction, it transcends creative writing and becomes an earnest desire to discover the world beneath the word - what are its origins, its connotations and denotations, what journey had it taken? Finding linguistics was like diving under an umbrella in the rain - it was the only place for me not to get drowned by the storm of my own ennui.

The purpose of my page is to invite others into my world. I plan to start a journal of my day-to-day life, my discoveries, my questions about the world, and anything that generally pops into my already over-cluttered head. I will also post pics and videos, and even some fiction and other writings. I hope to make friends and fans, and to keep in contact with the world when I'm about to become lost in a labyrinth of books and learnings.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back again real soon. Thanks for reading.

--"Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal." --Oscar Wilde