Category Archives: Thoughts

Random Musings – Bush’s “Accent”

Posted on by
Reply

… I was sitting at my program department’s lounge working on an assignment for a class with a few other people. After a few tangents, we got on the topic of G.W. Bush. I talked about how felt stupid for voting for him twice. Some of the things he did during his campaign. Then his “thick” Texas accent got brought up.

Now the funny thing about this is that I never really paid attention to his accent. I just assumed it was just a part of who is he. One of the guys in the discussion pointed out that his parents don’t have the accent as they were from the New England area. So that kinda made me suspicious. Then he brings up G.W. Bush’s younger brother, Jeb, and how he doesn’t have that Texas accent. So I had to look this up. Thankfully, YouTube provides a lot of material of Jeb’s interviews. He was right. Jeb doesn’t have one.

So why the heck does G. W. Bush have that Texas accent? How your parents speak and the accent that they have does have a pretty strong influence on how you speak when you’re growing up, especially the early years. Your environment does play a role, but his parents are considered a part of that too. The only thing I could think of was he changed it for the sake of votes. Make yourself look like a Texan, get the respect of fellow Texans. That was the perfect way to do it. Maybe someday, someone will catch him without the accent and put that up on YouTube for all the world to see.

Anyone have any other theories on this or can explain why G.W. Bush has that “thick” Texas accent when three well-known members of his family (G.H. Bush, Barbara, and Jeb) don’t? Continue reading →


Questioning

Posted on by
1

These past two quarters of grad school have been quite an experience. When I say experience, I mean both good and bad. In the three classes that I’ve taken, I’ve learned a lot. I give a lot of credit to my instructor for her help and loyalty to her students in assisting them when they need it. If it wasn’t for her, I probably would be struggling a lot. It forced me to ask for help when I couldn’t figure out the answer. It made me think differently about syntax and about linguistics in general.

At the same time, it’s been a rough time, especially this past quarter. I don’t think I went a week without bitching and moaning about the problems that I encountered in the class. How do I set up this rule to ensure that these arguments are working? Are the semantics for this sentence correct? How do I implement these features in order to ensure that I get the full realization of the phenomena that I’m working with in my language? How do I make sure that this rule works without breaking this other rule? I think you can get the idea.

But over the past couple of months, it’s left me questioning a lot about what I’m doing.   Continue reading →


More than a Soccer Team…

Posted on by
Reply

I never thought I would manage a team, let alone a soccer team. Soccer never was on my heart until seven years ago, where I helped organize a team for intramurals. Sometimes, it seems like an obsession. That I have some personal motive that results in me choosing to be with the team rather than serving in ministry, hanging out with people, or something of the sort.

In running this teams, I’ve managed to experience a number of injuries. The worse of them were ones to my head. Three minor concussions and numerous hits to the head. A chronic injury to my dominant foot and my hamstring. Yet, I’ve been driven to keep continuing to play, manage and lead a team. Even at the risk of my own health, I’ve still been driven to continue doing this. But why?

Every so often, I think “Why am I doing this in the first place? What’s the point?” I could be risking further injuries. I know that any one severe hit could change me forever. I could be doing something completely different. Having to deal with the complications of managing a squad can be difficult too. Ensuring enough playing time goes around, finding a chemistry among 16 different players, and creating an strategy and tactic that fits everyone’s style of play. It seems like this overwhelming burden, doesn’t it?

Then I’ve looked back on the number of people that have come and gone on this team in the past three years. I’ve looked at all the relationships that have formed over these past years. I’ve seen people who never knew each other become best friends. I’ve seen photos of teammates going on hiking trips and out to the beach. I’ve seen strangers before joining this team to becoming bridesmaids for the bride-to-be at their weddings.

The team does have a focus on winning, teamwork, and playing a beautiful game. Every single person that’s been on this team have had that same desire and goal (minus a specific crazy Eastern European keeper). However, the team was more than just that. It’s been about creating those relationships. I’ve seen a lot of them blossom through this team. And while a lot of them might not be on the team now, I know that those bonds are still there. It’s been a joy to see all of the friendships created these past few years. That’s been what I’ve hoped and loved to see as I managed and lead these players that have come and go.

So in the end, it’s worth it. To me, anyway. Sometimes, that struggle is there. Things might not be going so well, but to create that opportunity and place for those relationships to be created and built outweighs the losses or sacrifices made in its place.

It’s not the score lines that are remembered, but rather the memories and friendships that were created.


New year… New Changes to the site…

Posted on by
Reply

So I’m likely going to make changes on this website in order to reflect more of some of the stuff that I’m doing with regards to grad school and my career (i.e. getting a resume up, list of courses/curriculum, etc.) That means updating the site with these changes, thus things like my about page and so forth. So bear with me if things start looking rather weird with the layout or links don’t work.

What about this blog? Will it change? I’ll still have random posts about things like sports, thoughts, and so forth, but will have stuff about grad school, what I’m working on, and such.

And the other thing is that I hope to update my site more frequently than just once every three weeks or so. That’s a new year’s resolution for me.


Bye 2009… Hello 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Well, happy new year. It’s not only a new year, but a new decade too. A friend reminded me that we both had been around for four decades (80s, 90s, 00s, and now 10s). That’s beside the point. 2010 definitely has a lot of things coming. Two events that stick out to me are the Winter Olympics up in Vancouver is coming up quickly and the World Cup down in South Africa. But before looking forward, I felt it would be good to look back on 2009.

Continue reading →


Mustard singing Creep

Posted on by
Reply

I thought this was kinda cool:

So he played on the Opie and Anthony Show on XM/Sirius (as you can tell if you clicked on the inset). It’s a different version of Radiohead’s hit song Creep. I think it’s just his interpretation and voice for the song that really stood out. It wasn’t too bad at all. His voice might have seemed hoarse, but I thought it worked great for him.