independent study

I am still here, still plugging along, still overwhelmed with school. The thing that exhausts me the most is thinking about reading and writing, so it's difficult to come home and face a space that allows still more rumination about storytelling and pagination and all of that.

Last night, in memoir class, we ended with a sort of game. Trish Hampl, our instructor, is on the board of the usage committee for the American Heritage Dictionary, and she had a kind of survey asking if we felt certain word uses were completely / somewhat acceptable or completely / somewhat unacceptable, such as the use of "alright" versus "all right" and using the word "dialogue" as a verb. It was an entertaining way to end our session, with much passion around the table, a kind of nerdy debate. It was nice to be in that sort of company, where we can squabble over whether or not it's OK to pronounce "jewelry" with three syllables or two or how we might say "aberrant." It felt frivolous, but I agree with Trish--it's important to recognize the power and importance of being that sort of gatekeeper.