The most ultimate time of the year

I seem to have taken an internet vacation this last week. I suppose that's what vacation is for, even though I wasn't on vacation FROM anything, since I haven't been back to school yet. It wasn't a genuine internet vacation either, I've just been spending more time on Facebook than I have on Blogger. Facebook looks like it could potentially waste a lot of time, but it has been pretty entertaining at the same time. It's a good thing I'm so excited to go back to school and do homework, or I might waste a whole semester again. I hope they assign me lots of reading. I read more when I have to. Sometimes even when I have a good book of my choice I stop reading in the middle just because I find something else to read and distract myself. When it's homework, I can usually discipline myself enough to stick it out and finish the reading, which is usually interesting enough to keep my attention as well as the next book. I have started four books in the last six weeks and have finished only one. It's hard to get sick of a book that you don't read past page ninety.
It's also hard to sit down and read when I have my two nephews and my two brothers here. It's so much fun to have a family again. Reading will always be a lower priority than my family. My nephews are so cute, it will be a sad day when they leave for Utah, and onward to Minnesota again.

Major Overhaul

This afternoon I started reading my book by Otto Jespersen, and I decided that there's no way I could not study linguistics and still be entirely happy. So I pretty much decided in a period of about twenty minutes that I am not going to major in Spanish Teaching after all, but I will major in Linguistics instead, like I had originally planned. I still may end up teaching Spanish, who knows, but I think that it will be more enjoyable and more intrinsically motivational to study Linguistics than it would be to focus all my time on Spanish. I don't know exactly what I want to do with a degree in linguistics, but I don't have to know that right now. I might teach English as a second language, I might teach Spanish, I might go work for the CIA or be a sports column writer in Florida, I don't know. And right this minute, I don't care either. What I would really like to do more than anything is study and research and conduct so many surveys and studies that my name comes up on Google when you type in "Linguistics." Call me crazy, but I'd rather be a professor of Linguistics than a middle school Spanish teacher. And if I go to graduate school, which I hope to be able to do, it won't really matter what my Bachelor's degree is in anyway. So I'm going to study what I want to study most, and leave the rest unsettled for now. So I just scrapped my whole plan for the next four years, and I'm starting over, again, and I think it will be much better for me in the end. In twenty minutes I decided something that may have a huge impact on the rest of my life, and at the very least will have an impact on my happiness while at BYU. I am so excited to start school again, I can't even explain how much I've missed studying there. In the past week, I've made so many major life decisions that if I continue at this rate, I will probably be living in Ukraine by the end of January working in a hospital or something. Well, maybe not, but that's the best way I can relate how I feel. I feel so inadequate with words sometimes. I was wondering today how many words I actually know, and would I be able to communicate my thoughts more clearly with a larger vocabulary, or do I just need to work on organizing my thoughts better using the words I have already learned. What am I missing here? Why can't we all just be telepathic? That would be so nice, but I guess then there wouldn't be a linguistics program at any university, and that would dash all of my hopes and dreams too. I just can't win.

Oh dear...

My brother Michael had a spot on his blog saying what kind of animal he was. Here's mine.

You Are A: Monkey!

Monkeys are intelligent and agile, well-adapted for jungle life as they swing happily from tree to tree. As a monkey, you are a social animal who prefers a warm climate, eats a wide range of food and is quick to learn new things. A monkey's tiny primate features are irresistable, as is his gregarious personality!

You were almost a: Puppy or a Frog
You are least like a: Groundhog or a LambDiscover What Cute Animal You Are!

So... It looks like I'm a monkey. Fitting, I suppose. I guess that means that I like stealing small fruits and I become emotionally attached to whatever people I'm not busy throwing poop at. This doesn't mean much to me, because most people that take this quiz end up being monkeys, and are least like groundhogs, which is exactly what it told me I was. Hmm... maybe I'm just exactly like everyone else. That was a good exchange though, I'd say, being called a monkey for only two minutes of my afternoon that it cost me to take the quiz.

14 degrees out today... daggum it

Today is the day. After 21 years of waiting, I have finally been summoned to jury duty. In less than one hour, I am required to call to see if they need me today. I'm on pins and needles, just hoping that at 10:30 I will be at the courthouse being interviewed by attorneys. The most I have ever done in a courthouse is translate, and I took a tour of the Boise Courthouse once in Cub Scouts but I've never been a part of the legal system before. This is my duty as an American citizen, just like voting, and if I don't ever get to do it, I will feel cheated. How many of the 7 billion people on the earth even have the opportunity to be jurors? I find out in 54 minutes if I'm one of them. My alarm went off at 7 AM this morning, but I was already awake, happily thinking about jury duty. It's going to be great.
Yesterday I went Christmas caroling for the first time in three years, and also checked out books from the library for the first time in over two years. I feel like I just got out of prison and I can do anything I want to. In my high school Latin class, I used to mix up the word for book with the word for freedom, so it kind of makes sense now. I really miss being a missionary, but I also really miss reading about history and linguistic philosophy, something I could never do on my mission. I'm in that awkward stage of life where I have no clue what's going on, and I can't decide if I'm happy or sad or elated or devastated; I can't decide if I'm more happy to be with my family or if I miss the South more, and, after a month of deliberation I don't really know whether I'm happy to be back or not. I have no real plans for the near future, just a long range blurred vision of a couple of vague goals that may or may not ever happen. But I'm content this morning, I'm ignoring life, and I've decided that today is going to rock, no matter what happens. We'll see about tomorrow, and the day after when I get that far.

10:05 Update. "They settled, you are excused for today. Please call back this evening after 5. Thank you."