Another Tag!

A!nne Marie tagged me again!

Here we go!

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Can I remember that far back? April of 1998, hmm. I was graduating from BYU! 17th? Don't remember exactly, but it could very well be the anniversary. Graduation's usually the middle of the month. I had actually finished classes in December but couldn't figure out how to do the whole register to graduate thing. In high school, it was taken care of for you! Well, I also had thought about finishing the minor in French, but without any money, I didn't think I was justified getting a loan for that. Oh well.

2. 5 things on your to do list today:
-Do a blog posting or two, including this one
-Pass some levels on this Drawing computer game--don't remember what it's called. I know, lofty ambitions.
-Try to work on Part II of my novel again--maybe I'll blog more about that.
-Read the scriptures
-Read some book(s) in preparation for classes this summer
Maybe I should have done this yesterday. I had more things to do then. But today was slow at work because everyone was telecommuting to avoid Pope traffic.

3. Snacks I enjoy:
chocolate chip cookies--cookies
Twix
salad with fruit in it
tortilla chips
Wheat Thins

4. What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire?
Pay off my debts, finish school, maybe get another degree that I've been considering and not feel too guilty about it. Since I was little and this question was asked, I've always said pay off my parents house. I don't think they have too much further, but I guess I'd still do that. And then maybe buy my own house, put some in some secure savings and stuff, and give a lot to good charitable causes.

5. 3 bad habits:
eating too many snacks
Sleeping in and having to drive to the metro
buying too many books

6. 5 places I've lived
Loveland, CO
Calgary, AB
Le Havre, France
Rouen, France
Provo, UT

7. 5 jobs I've had:
-administrative assistant
-editor, special ed seminary teacher training manual
-research assistant, history of rhetoric
-day care/preschool teacher
-copyright go-to, (I would say specialist, but I've been told only lawyers can say that), School of Language Studies, Foreign Service Institute

8. 5 things people don't know about me:
I guess it depends on which people :)
-sometimes I throw books away
-I had a blue frisbee in high school; our senior year, I used to play on the lawn in front with one of my friends during lunch and some sophomores teased us.
-I love collecting T-shirts
-The only time I ever watched conference on temple square (back in Tabernacle days), I fell asleep and didn't get much out of it. But hey--these were non-ticket days, too--we were in line very, very early in the morning to get in.
-Every once in awhile I dye my hair just a little bit blonder.

I don't know who my regular readers are or if they have their own blogs, so if you have one-consider yourself tagged !

Cherry Blossoms

As part of the Kite Festival Trip, we also scooted over to see the Cherry Blossoms. Although I've been in DC for almost six years now, interestingly enough, before yesterday, the only time that I'd been on the mall in the daylight hours to get good photos was during my visit before I actually moved here. So I was quite glad for this opportunity. Of course, Saturday was a busy day to be going so getting good pictures was a bit of a trick. But I do have to say that I've always kind of liked those candid shots anyway. Sometimes people in their normal living make good shots, too, right?

DC Kite Festival 08

This Saturday I had a fun escapade with other singles in the area, a trip to see the Kite Festival on the mall. I think it was more fun to see them there than the pictures will indicate. But I hope you can enjoy them all the same. Here are just a couple.

Spring and Photoshop

Not only do I enjoy taking photos in the spring, but having new pictures also provides opportunities to mess around a little so I don't feel like a terrible bum when I sit around watching tv and movies on Friday nights (or other nights). Here's a little of my messing around from last night. One of these pictures is the same as one I posted the other day. Can you tell which one?

Spring Blossoms

Seriously, although that last post was from last year, these are from this year--this week, actually. This is one of the things I love about spring--a good reason to get my camera out again and try new angles on the blossoms. These are some of my favorites from a batch I took during a lunch-time walk yesterday. Enjoy!

Happy St. Patty's

Okay so this is actually from last year, but it was taken in March. I just felt the need for a pretty picture and this is a nice green one. Happy St. Patrick's Day and Happy Spring! I pulled out my spring/summer wardrobe over the weekend, though I still found I needed a sweater yesterday and wore my winter coat to work today, but it's coming. Spring is in the air! Can't you feel it? I guess it depends on where you are. It's a nice feeling anyway.

Benefits of Bouncing

I didn't hear a rip. I have no idea when it happened, which is actually kind of scary. But when I went to cross my legs as I worked on something at my desk--which I do occasionally--I noticed a nice hole along the inner seam of my pants, yes right along the top of my thigh. So lovely.

I've had the pants for a few years now; they were the first pair I bought when I got my first respectable job that might require I have some professional attire. It actually makes me laugh a little to think about how I first perceived the job. A year or more into it, I didn't feel quite the need to have such formality. Nonetheless, I did participate in some meetings where I felt grateful to have some professional clothes.

But as all good things must come to an end, here almost a year after losing that job, I've lost the pants as well.

Fortunately, I don't have a lot of personal interactions in my job now or it could have been worse. I was able to wait until lunch to get out, but my priority was, of course, to get some pants I could finish the day in.

If it had happened when I was at AIA the last time--back in November and December--I wouldn't have known what to do with myself. I might even have felt obligated to spend the rest of the day in the open. But since I'd had another temp assignment not too far from here that happened to be just above a Dress Barn, I knew exactly where to go. I spent my lunch hour shopping for some pants. An hour or so afterward, I was particularly glad because, yes, I actually did get some work to do, which involved some personal interaction, and it could have been kind of embarrassing!

So though I don't have any other "benefits" with this job, at least there are benefits to bouncing.

English in America

For awhile, the past few years, I've been troubled by having to work with people whose abilities with the English language really suffered. I'm not talking just about the work-place, though I did have it there for awhile too since my former place of employment was the Foreign Service Institute in the School of Language Studies, working with teachers who had to be native speakers of the language they were teaching. Understandably, that was sometimes challenging, but I haven't been doing that for about a year now and haven't really had so much of an English problem in the work-place since. No, the greater problem has been working with poor English speakers in the "community"--on my personal business.

A few of those experiences include--
*the standard, trying to get tech support for my computer. I don't think my helper was living in the U.S. because his language was not standard U.S. English. That was extremely frustrating.

*trying to understand a pharmacy worker and have her understand me before signing any forms that involved my privacy rights.

*having a bus driver wiggle his head at me rather than speak to me because a person in a wheelchair was boarding the bus and he needed me to move. I hadn't seen the wheelchair and didn't understand what he was doing, so I looked at him quizzically, asked what the problem was, and he just continued to manually indicate to me that I needed to move. Finally another passenger let me know about the wheelchair.

The pharmacist was handled relatively easily--I never returned to that pharmacy. Though I'd already had the computer for a year and wasn't going to return it, I could at least take it to a local repair person. Thank goodness for competition. That's one thing of those great things about America.

But the bus incident was actually the scariest--to think the man driving the bus I was on didn't speak very good English. Could he understand his radio? Reports being given to him?

In some cases, it seems the English question is just a matter of a business's poor decisions about whom to hire for which positions. But the employment question actually takes another turn as well. I've applied for and studied job positions that I considered applying for and felt discriminated against because I didn't speak Spanish. This, for public service positions (in libraries) in the United States. Of course, the job descriptions couldn't say Spanish was required, just preferred. But as the number of people who don't speak English very well continues to increase, you can imagine how much that preference will influence the final hiring decision.

Recently, I learned of something that actually even minimized my hope of things even improving. That is, even if the borders are secured through hopeful legislation, there seems to be no promise that English-language capabilities will improve because, as I learned, the English-language tests for citizen applicants must be very weak.

A friend of mine reported after a day when she was in the jury pool that people had not only been allowed to be excluded but the judge forthrightly asked if their English language was good enough to understand the court proceedings. Why should the judge have any leeway to ask this question? If a person is born into US citizenship and grew up here, they would have gone through the education system and acquired sufficient English. If they became citizens by application, their English should have been tested to assure they could contribute to society including their natural duties as citizens--including jury duty. So apparently there's something wrong in one of these two areas.

Okay, so there is the other possibility that they be citizens born abroad and for whatever reason their citizen parent(s) didn't speak English with them, they didn't acquire it in school or whatever society, and then for whatever reason they just decided to move back to America without speaking a lick of English. Yes, I can see that there are some strong possibilities there.

Of course we know our education system has its problems, but it would seem that since a juror must be at least 18 years old, that at least by the very fact of living and growing up among English speakers the person would acquire sufficient English even if their teachers really stank. Children do tend to want to learn the language of the people around them. Are there really not enough English-speakers around to encourage these youth?

Without belaboring the point, it simply seems more likely the problem lies in the English testing of citizen applicants. So the question is why are the tests so lenient that a person doesn't need to communicate well enough to participate in his/her citizen's duties, such as performing jury duty? Is it because there are so many English speakers out there that we don't really need everyone to speak the only national language? Is it because this duty and honor is really only for natural born citizens? Or maybe jury duty isn't really that important. Our judicial system doesn't need any more lay citizens involved than it has to have already? It just seems to me that there is no good excuse at all for this.

We have enough trouble understanding each other even when we speak the same language that U.S. citizens shouldn't have to deal with additional language barriers when they're conducting personal business in their own country, trying to ensure their safety and rights. But most importantly, since the United States of America's only official language is English, her citizens need to speak this language with sufficient capability to perform all of their duties, which are in fact HONORS, as citizens.