Life in the Margins

The following is a list of notes made in the margins of my notebooks for the fall semester, of my thoughts & ideas and quotes from professors, other students and my textbooks. Enjoy!

From my Linguistics notebook:

• Silent letters… w in wren, h in ghost, a in aardvark, t in castle = make a silent “what?”
• I dislike enforcing stereotypes. Want to give individuals the chance to choose and to prove his/herself.
• pg 117 “Remember: if it walks like a word, and quacks like a word...”
• pg 124 English “takes a cup of lexical sugar” from all sorts of languages.
• Esta vez, el tiempo es mi amigo. (This time, time is my friend.)
• Idea: make a literal video of Facebook 
• “Chuffed to bits” in the UK means “pleased” in the US :-)
• Can native speakers makes mistakes, according to linguists? Or is everything they say right?

From my notebook for Introduction to Public Relations:

• Make a list of friends who have cars.
• Reminded of the movie Post-Grad
• I like the idea of internal communication specialist (an advisor for comm. within a business).
• Puzzle piece for my life: Interviewing people for stories
• Idea: “I Am a Business” metaphor. I have a mission statement, I do my own PR, etc…
• Does behavior always reflect values?
• I don’t like that PR often has to prove its worth.
• Memo to self: Read the newspaper!
• I like the Evaluation stage in PR: Identify then implement change to improve real problems, especially those of unawareness, unfairness or inability.
• Someone really just said “formulatic”?
• What’s the difference between ethics and morals?
• What’s ombudsman? iterative? cogently?
• I like the bridge function of PR professionals. As for pitching ideas, however…
• I don’t want to “sell” the company as an employee, outside of my work. It would feel like work were my life then.

From Intercultural Communication: 

• In a story the professor told, apparently a 15 year old girl said, “I like this dress so much I could throw up.” Haha!
• Change your daily route once in awhile: you may run across different people :-)
• Multicultural people have an ethnorelative identity, not just one place of belonging: Is that the key to my WI/CO/IA feelings, and even US/Spain?
• Seth, a guy in class, asking the professor about listening to his wife about minor issues. “When you listen, do you actually care?” Professor, mildly chastising: “Seth! You have to care!”
• Professor, later that same day: “If you don’t care, you’re outta there.”
• A student describes another Communication studies class and the professor: “The class is very… vanilla. And she is like a … mochaccino with chocolate chips and sprinkles.”
• When the professor was late one day, one student thought it was because he had been “fighting crime”.
• Good intercultural communication involves tolerating ambiguity (uncertain situations). Can I handle ambiguity?
• As a responsible citizen, I should note news: local, national and international. Also so I can pray over it. As a college student, now without a TV, I don’t though.
• The Western worldview or Eastern? Personally, where do I fit in more?
• Really random idea: rewrite “Teenage Dream” (by Kate Perry) for a positive message. (Inspired by the Glee version of the song.)
• Essay idea: Eastern and Western worldviews as portrayed in Disney films: like Pocahontas, Mulan, Lion King, and more.

And finally, in a more serious tone, from my notebook used for Bible study, sermon notes, etc.:

• Am I allowing time for lessons to stick proportionally with how much I hear and learn (spiritually and in life)?
• Idea: make a video of discipler and Jedi analogy   
• So I may have never felt a call personally to be a full-time missionary, but the young American couple in China showed me that they just see a couple of years there as one step in life to doing what they’ll do wherever.
• At Christian conferences, I’m always reminded how there are conferences like this going on at the same time, but on New Age mediation, etc… Creepy.
• Original sin stems from the belief that God is keeping something good from us...
• Will I stop caring about classes so much if it’s easy and my GPA is set?
• Sam’s life [a student who died this semester] is an example of how tomorrow is not guaranteed. So for the students who say “Later, after college, I’ll follow God,” I say, No way! You don't even know if you'll live to see tomorrow!

I promise I've been studying the actual notes in my notebooks, seeing how it's finals week. This just provided a fun study break :-)
Frankly yours,
Ellen P.