Exotic toys

I don't have any linguistics classes this semester, but for some reason, while I was walking home from Club Council meeting today, two ideas for big linguistic studies popped into my head. Of course, the studies will never be performed, one because it would require too much setup and the other because humanitarians would object. But it's still interesting to think about.

For the first idea, say I take 300 native speakers each of every different language I can find in the world. I move them all to some isolated country and teach them a made-up language, like Esperanto or Vulcan or Tel'Mithrim or something. I think it would be interesting to see how the language evolves over time. It stands to reason that if I took only people from Fairbanks, or only native English speakers, that the language would change to become more English-like. But if I take speakers of every different language I can find, the language can't evolve too terribly heavily toward any one specific language. However, human nature is to come up with slang and expressions and made-up words. So what would they do?

The other experiment would be--and I'm not saying this is humane in any way--taking about twenty babies from their parents as soon as they're born and raising them isolated from all people except each other. You'd have someone go in and feed them and clothe them and stuff, but the caretaker wouldn't talk to them, and would interact with them as little as possible. So the only interaction with other people the babies would have would be with each other. Every year, add twenty more newborn babies and do the same thing, but also let the older babies interact with the new ones. It would be interesting to see how their language, culture, intellect, and values develop without parents and teachers. I think they would quickly develop a language that's more complex than a simple grunt-and-point, and I think it would rely at least as much on sign language as on actual words. I also wonder how long it would take for them to develop some kind of religion.

Shame I'll never get to try either of those experiments.

Anyway, I gave a professional speech today about juggling. Unfortunately, I had to cut out about two thirds of it because it was too long, so I only got to talk about toss juggling. First thing, I'd like to publicly thank my dad because he's a genius and came up with an outstanding way for me to make my topic relevant to college students. The teacher actually complimented me on it, so I think I got a good score in that section, at least. Also, I was able to incorporate that into my speech a bit, and it helped the whole thing go more smoothly..

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, my teacher was a little doped up on cold medicine when I was giving my speech, so after the first minute or so, she pretty much giggled the whole way through it. I guess because I was playing with my balls in front of the whole class. I talked about how size and weight makes a difference, and talked about which balls bounce better than others. Then when I moved on to talk about juggling torches and knives, I referred to them as "exotic toys," which I didn't even realize could be misinterpreted until my teacher nearly fell out of her chair giggling. I was tempted to interrupt myself, put my hands on my hips, and mock-indignantly say, "Professor, do you mind? I'm trying to give a professional academic speech here. If you can't control yourself, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room until I finish."

After I finished my speech, the entire class spent about ten minutes making wisecracks about the professor making fun of my balls during my speech. I asked her, "Aren't you glad my closing statement wasn't about how it takes balls to juggle knives?" I was actually surprised when she told me I should have done that! (The girl sitting behind me said that even funnier than the fact that I kept using words like "balls" and "exotic toys" was the fact that I said them innocently, with a straight face, as if I had no idea what I was saying.)

I think I pulled off at least a B this time! At the very beginning, I was pretty nervous, but once I got into my speech, I calmed down a lot. I did drop my balls when I was showing them Factory, and lost several seconds when I had to chase them around, and to make up for that mistake, I think I also talked a little too fast. Then I stumbled over my conclusion. And I think I used the words "you" and "um" two or three times. But overall, I think I did better than last time. (It really helped that the class actually seemed interested and, yes, amused. Go figure.) And in fantastic news, I was one of the first people to go, and these speeches will take at least the next three classes to get through everyone's, so that pretty much means no homework for that class for the next week!

At juggling practice, I was assigned to be the Club Council representative, mostly because I'm the only person in juggling club who attends regularly and who doesn't have a class during the time Club Council meets. So I went to the meeting today and got drafted to be on the Club Council Organizational Committee. I was tempted to decline because I already have a lot on my plate. But for one thing, the ASUAF vice president called me by my name (even though I'd only met him once, briefly, before) and requested I do it, and how can you say no to someone who makes an effort to remember your name like that? For another thing, we were having a hard time finding anyone at all willing to do anything on the committees. My main reason, though, I think, was that it would probably look pretty good on a resume. Heh, organizational committee. Ironic, since I've always had a reputation for being pretty disorganized. Which reminds me: my room is a disaster. I should probably clean up sometime soon.

By the way, my brownie experiment turned out all right. Not quite the way I'd expected, but still all right. I don't recall if I mentioned this or not. Anyway, I made dark chocolate brownies in an 8 x 13 inch pan, cut them in half, put banana pudding on one half, set the other half of the brownies on top, then frosted it with chocolate chips that I'd melted and mixed with sweetened condensed milk and a little bit of butter. I threw it in the fridge overnight to let the banana pudding flavoring seep through the brownies a bit and to let the frosting harden. At least, that was the idea.

The next day, the banana pudding was almost completely invisible. It had soaked into the brownies a lot more than I had expected. Also, the frosting had gotten as hard as a rock, and the banana flavoring wasn't as strong as I would've liked. But it tasted pretty darn good anyway. If I ever make it again, though, I'll definitely be making some changes to my recipe.