the bed
Kate often makes fun of my phraseology when I refer to my bed. I say things like "I hear the bed calling my name" or "It's time to go get in the bed." Apparently adding the definite article before "bed" is strange. I'd really never thought about this until the last 6 months or so.
Reading Bill Bryson's
The Mother Tongue, I've come across a couple references and explanations of this idiosyncracy in my idiolect:
From a section on gender: "Not only have we discarded problems of gender with definite and indefinite articles, we have often discarded the articles themselves. We say in English, 'It's time to go to bed,' where in most other European languages they must say, 'It's
the time to go to
the bed.'"
And later from a chapter on dialect, "North Carolinians also give themselves away when they say, 'She's still in the bed.'"
summer
It's off to a glorious start!! Aside from not being at the lake with the fam, Memorial Day Weekend has so far been all that it should be: a birthday fiesta complete with a pinata on the front porch, a bike ride to the Decatur Arts festival, dinner al fresco with Kate at a tasty Lebanese restaurant, lots of time reading on the porch, and twilight bocce ball to boot. A BBQ yet awaits.
There are no ginormous road trip plans this year as Kate is moving out of Atlanta in a few short weeks and then to Prague in August. Given the busy-ness of the last 4 summers, I am looking forward to a summer in Atlanta.
I have 5 verbs for my summer: rest, read, pray, run, and sun. Run should be expanded probably to "exercise," but I like the short verbs better.
There are other things to be done as well: clean out a bunch of my stuff, find a new roommate :( , revamp the IB curriculum, attend my bro's wedding, get some work done on my car, decide if I want to go to grad school, etc. We'll see how it all plays out.
at last
I rarely blog about my job, but...
This school year is over. I cannot believe it. Literally. It feels like the middle of March in many ways (except for how hot and muggy it is). I also am quite surprised that I survived and actually have some desire to keep teaching.
It's been a rough year. I was pondering as I drove to work on Thursday and trying to decide whether this year or my first year teaching had been the hardest. I realized, after some contemplation, that this year has been.
Why? Well, my first year started off HORRIBLY and was horrible for the first few months, but on the whole, the year got
better as it went along. This year, the converse has been true- the year grew progressively more and more difficult.
But, now, save for our two post-planning days, the year is over. And I do still love my students and love teaching and will return to the classroom on August 11 for year number seven.
summer reading
Here's the start of my summer reading list:
- The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
- The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
- The Alchemist, Paul Coelho
- Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
- The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way, Bill Bryson
- The Prince of Frogtown, Rick Bragg
I also want to brush up on my Greek and maybe learn Spanish...
Labels: books
10 things 4 times
I found this on
Brian's and
Katie's blogs. They were hard lists to come up with, but I feel compelled to post and have little I want to post about. So, here goes...
10 Things I Liked in High School and Sorta Hate Now...
1. Christian music
2. legalism
3. fast food (except for Chick-fil-A, of course)
4. talking on the phone
5. suburbia
6. driving a long distance to school
7. homogeneity
8. yearbook
9. cut offs
10. sugary cereals
10 Things I Hated in High School and Like Now...
1. piercings
2. ethnic food
3. folk music
4. theology
5. Diet Coke
6. running
7. music that maybe I'm the only one that likes
8. difference
9. big cities
10. history
10 Things I Liked in High School and Still Like Now...
1. girl talk about boys
2. flying (See
Kate's post)
3. roller coasters
4. reading
5. chapstick
6. learning
7. being outdoors
8. traveling
9. hiking
10. math
10 Things I Didn't Like in High School and Still Don't Like Now
1. TV
2. tomatoes
3. dressing up
4. going out
5. poverty
6. peer pressure
7. professional sports
8. heights
9. make up
10. waiting
1 Comments:
Oh Courtney... I say "the bed" too! I didn't realize that it was a NC thing. I used to work for a lady who always complained that our part-time college student always looked (and evidently smelled) like he didn't put a lot of effort into getting ready in the morning. He "smelled like the bed." Weird, right? But she's totally Gadsden County, not North Carolina.
Post a Comment
<< Home