Linguistics of Scots

I'm sitting in lecture right now, so I'll keep this short, but I just had to blog about this huge revelation that I had to share:

Back story: In Linguistics last semester (one of the most interesting classes I've had at Furman), Dr. Cox touched briefly on dialect/regional differences. I found that my West Virginian "accent" was ever-so-slightly different than many others' accents. Our professor accepted all phonetic spellings, as long as we could back them up, and was not nearly so interested in the "proper" pronunciation as he was in our ability to diagram what we were saying. Some of the differences included my identical pronunciation of the words "cot" and "caught" and my minute difference in the pronunciation of wh- question words like "which" and "why" and their counterparts without h's, "witch" and the letter y.

Now: Our lecture today is on Language in Scotland, and so far, we've covered everything from the origins of Scots and Gaelic to their usage today. Just now, we discussed the difference between Scottish English and the "Queen's English," and just a wee bit more of the world makes sense to me now: Scottish English influence includes pronouncing "caught" like "cot" rather than [cat] (phonetic) and pronouncing the slight h in wh- question words.

I have Scottish ancestors, and I live in West Virginia, where many Scots have settled in the mountains.

THIS CLASS IS SO COOL.

Gearing Up!

After what proved to be a much more arduous assignment than I had anticipated, I am getting into bed a bit later than I had hoped in order to gear up for...*fanfare* MY FIRST REAL WEEK!

Yes, yes, I realize that it is Monday night. But for now, at least, I have Mondays off - let's hope it stays this way for the term.

Anyway, I start training at work tomorrow promptly at 9 a.m., and my day will continue at The Media Company until it is time to attend Dr. O'Rourke's class. Apparently, since we live in a "palace," as he put it, there is some sort of shindig here afterward. We shall see.

The rest of my week will be filled with more internship training and work, Scottish Culture and Society, and Wine Studies. (Brilliant class choices for the term, eh?) I'll keep you updated...

Gender in South Asian Literature and Film

This post's title is the title of the 400-level English course that I am taking this semester. While I should currently be reading for it right now, I felt that it was time for a blog update, and the class has, in three short weeks, raised some questions in my mind and has driven many points home.

I'm taking it to get my India & South Asia requirement for my major, Asian Studies, but I believe that it is also a Women's and Gender Studies course. It should be, at least: many of the texts and films that we read/watch and discuss are either directly or indirectly about feminism, masculinity, the history of oppression, and other such subjects. I am finding that many issues of statehood and gender are related: struggle, nationalism, power, etc.

This class is not only about gender, though: it's about South Asia. In many ways, I have found that simply being human lends itself to many universal traits and desires. Yet, our American culture and theirs are vastly different, too. A key point that has been made time and again in our class is that modernization does not equal Westernization. I think that we would all do well to remember this.

Issues such as defining love, men and women as equals versus complimentary and distinct entities, the Equal Rights Amendment, and other cross-curricular topics have already come up in our writings and discussions. A lot of the other students in the class either say that it is too hard or that the professor is not good, but I have to disagree. Maybe it is because I met the professor last semester and had talked to students who had him, or maybe I'm just excited about the material, but, despite the constant large amount of time that I need to dedicate to my work for this class, I am learning a lot...and enjoying it!

I'm Studying Away...Again!

I've been admitted to Furman's Spring in Edinburgh program for 2011, and I have decided to accept!

I will spend early January through late April living in an apartment in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland while attending two classes at Edinburgh Napier University and participating in an internship - hopefully in the press, but more details are forthcoming.

There are about fifteen of us from Furman who will be traveling to the U.K. together - including two other Kappas! We plant to take three or four group trips, and we will have class taught by Furman's Dr. O'Rourke one night per week. Personally, I hope to travel a lot on the weekends - and also to get to know Edinburgh, of course. I'm a fan of day trips, and I'm a fan of cheap airfare, so we will see what I can make of it! I'm also interested in traveling a bit around Europe after the official program ends - any tips?

I will definitely be posting more about this in the future, as the departure date draws closer. We have meetings every few weeks to take care of paperwork and business things; I'm very excited to begin the course selection process and event planning. Until then - SAN FRANCISCO (check out my other new blog post.) :)

By the way, which travel guide would y'all recommend?

Itinerary for My Field Trip

Dr. Kaup, our professor for “Issues in Chinese Politics: Environmental Challenges,” will be leading all ten of us from Furman (along with Chinese language professor Xu Laoshi) on a ten-day excursion to China’s poorest province, Guizhou. On our trip, we will encounter many different minority customs as well as lots of environmental sites. Our journey culminates with a three-day cruise down the Yangtze - through the Three Gorges Dam! Please see the tentative itinerary below:

Friday, Oct. 16 - depart Suzhou for Guiyang (bus-->plane); ride on bus to Kaili
Saturday, Oct. 17 - visit a Miao minority village; transfer to Xijing and partake in home stays with local Miao families
Sunday, Oct. 18 - visit Qingman, Shiqiao, and Boji Miao villages
Monday, Oct. 19 - visit Kaili folk museum; travel to Qingyan; transfer back to Guiyang
Tuesday, Oct. 20 - bus to Huangguoshu, stopping in Jichang to view an opera performance; hike from Jichang to Tianlong; visit Huangguoshu waterfall (China’s largest); bus back to Guiyang w/a stop in Anshun to visit a batik museum
Wednesday, Oct. 21 - visit Qianlingshan Park and Jia Xiu temple; bus to airport; flight to Chongqing
Thursday, Oct. 22 - visit the panda center in the Chongqing Zoo, the Porcelain Port, and the Three Gorges Dam museum; board Yangtze River cruise ship
Friday, Oct. 23 - cruise; shore excursion to Fengdu, Shibaozhai, or Wanzhou
Saturday, Oct. 24 - cruise through Qutang and Wu Gorges and Three Gorges locks with a shore excursion to Daning River Small Gorges or Shennong Stream in between
Sunday, Oct. 25 - visit Three Gorges dam site before departing at Yichang
Monday, Oct. 26 - visit Sturgeon Museum and Sanyoudong; return to Suzhou

I’m going to finish packing and go to bed so that I can be ready to go tomorrow morning!

Chinese Calligraphy and Painting

In addition to our three regular classes and our internship, we have the option of taking an extracurricular class during our time in China. While I was initially disappointed in the sparse selection (okay, so there was only one offered), now that I have been to two classes, I am so glad that I’m taking it!

Every Tuesday afternoon, we go to a middle-aged man’s house (at least, I would assume that it is his house) to learn traditional Chinese painting and character calligraphy. You know all of that Chinese art that you see on the streets and in the movies, with some ink and a lot of white space? That’s what we’re doing, in a nutshell. Our instructor is apparently quite famous, in Suzhou, at least. He speaks very little English, and his method of teaching consists of painting something for us to copy with the occasional stroke on our own paper. Yesterday, he actually took my hand and moved it along the path in which it needed to travel - that really doesn’t happen too much, so I must have been really screwing it up. Anyway, it took a while to get used to, but now, I like it.

At our first class, we jumped right into painting, recreating scenes of a stone, bamboo, and a mountain. Yesterday, we switched gears to calligraphy and wrote the characters for “big,” “under,” “horse,” “people,” “day,” and “white.” I assume that we will alternate weeks between painting and calligraphy. I prefer the painting, but I do think that his calligraphy looks really cool (just not mine - YET.)

I just want to say that the ink that we use smells SO...GOOD. It’s like incense or something! Oh, that might not make sense if you haven’t taken Chinese with Zhang Laoshi or traditional painting with this guy (I don’t know his name)...you do a little something like this:

1. Take brush out of the water in which it has been resting.
2. Swirl brush in the water on top of the block of black ink.
3. Squeeze out the extra moisture by pressing the brush on the side of a bowl or the ink...plod.
4. If painting, paint. If writing calligraphy, make sure that the brush is held upright with three fingers. Then calligraphate. Calligraph-fy? Mayhaps it is only “write calligraphy.” Thoughts?

So, that’s basically what we do for an hour and a half. It’s harder than it sounds.