Our second-to-last stop on the towpath Bike Aboard trail was at an information center at one of the locks on the canal. We arrived there just as a volunteer was getting ready to tell some of the history and provide a demonstration of the canal lock. We parked our bikes and stood there in the sun as he started talking – and while I wasn’t super excited about the history lesson, I was eager to see how the locks worked. I’m a builder at heart and like to see engineering in action.
To my surprise, he asked for volunteers to help Volunteer Sarah and Ranger Lisa operate the lock gates. I immediately headed across the small bridge to help Ranger Lisa and my dad and niece came along too. When we got to the right part of the demo the four of us pulled on the beam and opened our side of the gate. No one stepped up to help Volunteer Sarah, but she must have been much stronger than she looked.
We worked on both gates in the right sequence and it was interesting to see the mechanics of the process. From there it was onto the train station and lunch.
I’m not generally a big fan of studying history. The memorization and recitation of dates seems pointless to me and the study of history itself makes me cranky since we – as a species – are so aggressively terrible at learning anything from it.
But to participate in a little bit of engineering history – well, that was pretty cool.
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I’m in the process of hiring a new student assistant for the Campus Switchboard. The job posting, the resumes, the interviewing, the paperwork, and the dreaded scheduling are pretty far away from fun – but I do get to meet some interesting people.
One such guy was a law student from Nigeria. I always ask that the students call me to schedule the interview since it gives me a chance to hear them on the phone and unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble understanding him on the voice-mail. I replied by email indicating my concerns, but gave him the option – and the benefit – of coming in anyway in case the voice-mail was not a good reflection of his speaking voice.
If anything, it was worse in person because he was excited. With concentration and an “english to english” translation running in my head, I got about 80% of what he was saying. Which is not enough for our operators and the callers with whom they interact. It was unfortunate that I had to pass on him, he seemed really smart and a good problem solver.
It got me thinking again about how human language tends to diverge instead of converge. It doesn’t take much for an accent to shift to a dialect and then to a whole other language. And even the same language can turn into something else depending on the speaker.
I think I notice this because, being from Illinois, I don’t really have much of an accent. Other than a determination to call carbonated beverages “soda” and being the only ones to correctly pronounce the name of our state, we really don’t have much to speak of in terms of a distinguishing accent.
I do have an odd ability to add a twang when I’m singing – most amusingly to classic Britney Spears songs – but that’s about it.
Might be interesting to learn a dialect – the odder the better – and bring that out at the least appropriate of times. Maybe Cajun?
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I’ve started following people on twitter again – mostly the cast of Star Trek the Next Generation – and also decided that, since I’m writing more, I should start tweeting again.
When I first signed up for twitter I decided that I would only tweet in Haiku – the 5|7|5 syllable poetry – since it fit well with the 140 character limit.
I had stopped at one point because I realized, well, it’s not easy. I do like the structure and that you don’t have to rhyme – though you can if you have the time, it’s not considered a crime and could be sublime.
Ahem.
So, I’m writing a little – literally a little at a time – poetry and we’ll see how long that lasts.
And even if it isn’t great – it’s better than a lot of tweets out there right now.
I’m talking to you, 45.