Any comments on the new layout? I think it's pretty neat, but I am of course biased. But still and all, given my limited HTML coding skills, I'm impressed with what I came up with.

I'm reviewing the notes for my Psych for Educators exam, which will be occuring tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I doubt I'll do particularly well, but I'm hopeful that I'll get about a 70, which seems not only reasonable but attainable. Or something. I'll be happy when it's done, since that means that only Shakespeare will be left for me to worry about. Well, Shakespeare and that pesky play for 'creative writing'.

In my reviewing for Psych, I came across the studies on language again, which was (for me) probably the most interesting thing we studied in this class. One of the studies cited in the book was about slaves in Suriname that ran away from their masters' plantations and formed their own communities. The slaves all spoke different languages, so in order to communicate with one another they developed a 'pidgeon' language that had a lot of non-verbal communications. The children born into these new communities didn't learn to speak the pidgeon language--they took what they heard and developed rules of grammar and syntax for it, creating a new language of their own. (The text referred to it as Creole). I find the idea that grammar and syntax are innate parts of us as animals to be fascinating.

It got me thinking, though, about my own languages. English is my first language, and French is my second. If I speak enough French at any given time, I begin to automatically think in that language, and often have difficulty remembering to change back to english. I occasionally dream in French, as well. Even more than these actual-language differences, I find that I have developed different dialects for different people. This has become most obvious in the last year, as I've moved away from home. My family has a language all its own, which I hadn't realized until living with five strangers. Things like calling fast food 'frab' (my mom's word; it's barf spelled backwards) or saying 'don't cloud the issue with facts' or 'don't let fear and common sense stand in your way'; referring to bellybutton lint as 'belly button cotton' and gravestones as 'cows'; and countless other jokes and expressions that we've developed in the last 20 years.

It's become more interesting this year, as I've developed a new language (a dialect?) with Mathman, Benjamin and Kori. We communicate through monosyllabics like 'buh', 'snuh', and 'zuh'. We use phrases like 'pooched', 'mathmobile', and 'math-phone'. The word 'really' is often replaced with 'stupid' or 'stupor', as in "Our TV is stupid big'. An insult is a 'boo-urn'. We spout meaningless evasive statements like 'This interview is over' to avoid answering questions. I've been living here so long now that my roommate-dialogue conflicts with my -family-dialogue...and my manner of speech will depend on to whom I've been speaking recently.

I guess what I'm getting at is the sense of community I feel I have in this house. Kori is moving out on Saturday, and everything changes from here on in.

Speaking of Kori, she and I went to visit Professor H. today, to view the kittens of his neighbours (2.5 weeks old--darling, darling things). His house is so neat...small and quaint. He showed me a framed map from World War One of France (one actually used in the war, not a reproduction--he did his doctoral thesis on Sigfried Sassoon, I believe, a WWI poet). He has a cat named 'Flannery', who was quite friendly. He also has about a million books. I had book envy. It was a lot of fun. The kittens were neat too--so tiny, so soft and fuzzy and sweet. I want one, but Monty told me that I could only get one if it came with a good recipe. Bastard. :)

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