I’ve been really busy this week, with the term ending soon. My last final is Tuesday, December 5th at 7:30pm. Last night while my brother had friends over playing poker, I was holed up in my room working on a group assignment. I was up until 2 am, and read for another 45 minutes, before finally going to sleep. Then this morning, I got up at 8am - on a Saturday! I’m accompanying my dad to a basic dog training class at 10 am for his black lab, McKenzie (named after a river in Oregon). She’s a great dog, and is lucky enough to be owned by people who love the outdoors and frequently takes her to the beach or mountains. Unfortunately, she still have behavioral issues like jumping on people and leading, when out for walk.
After I come back, I’m back to studying. I really, really don’t want to do my take-home final. I’ve been procrastinating for the last couple of days since receiving it, but the pain is inevitable. There are basically four essay questions to answer, that encompasses everything we’ve study for the term. My professor set the writing limit to 16 single-spaced pages! 16!! So, that gives you an idea of what I’m up against. Ughhh!
My linguistics final should be easier, since we’re only tested on the second half of the term, which includes syntax, semantic/pragmatics and sociolinguistics. For the last two classes, we watched a great PBS documentary called, “Do You Speak American?” I think this would be a great video to show to advanced university students in Korea. There’s even a short listening quiz to test your ability to distinguish words with strong accents. It was tough! I only got one out of five correct. Take it, and let me know how you did. And do you know what Americans perceived as the “perfect accent?” The Midwest. Personally, I’m biased towards the Northwest. 
Ras is coming back from Florida on Monday and Kiran is supposed to come down and visit from Vancouver BC on Wednesday. Next week should be much more fun.
Update: I just reserved “Do You Speak American” on DVD from the library. Maybe I’ll force Ras and Kiran to watch it with me again. The section on Ebonics and Chicano English was really interesting to me.
December 2nd, 2006 at December 2, 2006 - 11:24 pm
I couldn’t understand any of them.
Was that the Okracoke accent? I’ve been there before and it’s really hard to figure out if they are even speaking English.
December 3rd, 2006 at December 3, 2006 - 12:38 am
No, that wasn’t the Okracoke accent, but I can’t remember where it was from either. I’ll find out once I watch the DVD again. I think these examples are pretty extreme, though. I’ve never heard anyone, even in the movies or TV pronounce “block” as “blaaaack”. That’s a really strong accent.
December 3rd, 2006 at December 3, 2006 - 10:06 pm
Interesting. I spent about seven years in North Carolina (college and a bit afterwards) and they have some really interesting accents down there. Had a friend who grew up in Mt. Airy (which Andy Griffith changed to Mayberry) and I got to hear the accents of some of the mountain folks there. It was fascinating, but I mostly kept my mouth shut as I figured my then-thick Yankee accent would not go over well.
West Virginia also has some pockets that are almost Scottish/Irish brogue. A lot of Scots/Irish folks settled there in remote areas and have a really distinctive accent.
I think once I’m done with school I’ll have to learn some more about these pockets in the U.S., it sounds like your class is fascinating.