Sometimes I am uncomfortable with my major

I was walking back to my apartment today, past the dorms that are being torn down. The project fascinates me, and I stopped to take some pictures. The sun was out--that beautiful, evening sun--and as I took my pictures the workers were packing up and going home. Some Latinos were duct taping a salvaged desk or bookshelf on top of a car--with the sound of the tape ripping off the roll.

They were chattering in Spanish. That's my major, I thought. I am studying your language. I do it in a university classroom, where una güera simpática who speaks with the zeta teaches us how to stage seventeenth-century plays. I study their language, I thought. And it has nothing to do with them.

Rito de inicación

Last week I was inducted into Sigma Delta Pi, the honors society for my major.

Inducted. Seriously inducted.

They told us the oath had been toned down some in the last few years. Apparently it used to include a pledge to all that is good and beautiful that is and comes from Spain. Something like that. As it currently stands, this is what I promised (no going back now). Strait from the rite, translated from Spanish.

To the members of the Hispanic society Sigma Delta Pi: I offer you my loyalty and cooperation in your Hispanophile activities and I assure you that I participate in this act with all sincerity and good will.

They told us lots more things about things that are brave and good, then they turned out the lights and we stood in a circle and lit the candles we were each given—with these words:

Come—so have gone many before you. Take this warmth and this light that symbolize hard work and wisdom. This light that you have received is the flame that we entrust to you—may it always burn this bright. This flame in your hands symbolizes the ideal of our society. It is the flame of all that is beautiful and noble…it is the spiritual light that lights each of us. Let us live, then, in the light, and scatter the shadows….

Tongue

I was at the grocery store at 7:30 this Saturday morning. I was walking around, and found these awful looking things in the meat department.

This is tongue. Cow tongues, lined up next to pigs feet and tripe.

Much of my life relates to the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary that I heard over and over and over again as I was growing up. This morning Ramona came to mind again—the time her and her sister had to make dinner, and had to use tongue because it was inexpensive. The characters narrated how awful a thing tongue was, and always in my mind, tongue was gray and about the size of an adult’s hand. If you can’t tell by my cell phone picture, tongue is slimy and looks like a mid-sized animal curled up in the package. Like a cross between a goldfish and a housecat.

Speaking of tongues, I am taking a class about the phonetics of Spanish. A good part of studying consists of looking at diagrams of how the mouth shapes sounds. (And trying to imitate them—slowly and thoroughly) I am gaining a new appreciation for the versatility of the tongue.

Today was my first day of observation for my education class. We were a group of five, and went to a junior high nearby and watched two Spanish classes. After, I had a bunch of questions for one of the teachers, and I asked them as the rest of the group kind of hung back waiting for me. I’m a geek about languages even among other people studying to be language teachers.

Tonight there was an evening church activity. I went with some people from my apartment complex. Two of them are in this picture. I met one of them a couple of days ago, and he told me his name. Dan. Then I saw him again yesterday, and said, “it’s Dan, right?” It turns out it wasn’t really Dan. It was a whole different person. So anyway, this is a picture of the two of them, plus Dan’s twin brother.