Girl's State and Fun links!

I'm going to be at Girl's State till Saturday, so I'll try and give daily updates about the goings ons here in addition to some fun current events stuff.

First Girl's State.

Can't say I'm enjoying the program to much as of right now. I have described it to several people as a kind of American Hitler Youth and have found no objections to that label thus far. So maybe that label is a bit harsh, but lots of things about this place scare me. They're all ultra patriotic about everything and lots of the counselors are ill informed. One of them was unable to verbalize the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Most of the people running this joint are pretty religious too. It's kind of annoying. We keep hearing "it'll get fun later on in the week!" and "you'll start enjoying yourselves later" but I'm not convinced. My counselor is not cut our for being a leader in my opinion. She is timid and just can't handle all us girls.

Another thing that has been bothering me is the language usage. A number of the staff (especially this one girl) have horrible oratory grammar. Well, not horrible I guess... better than my Spanish grammar... but still, it is kind of painful to listen to. She says things like "There is red and blue shirts..." and "most favorite". I'll discuss why I think she makes the first mistake tomorrow (this comment not directed at Jessie if you are reading this as I have already discussed it with you at lunch today!)

Good things:

I really like my roommate. She is nice and fun to talk to. I also like being able to hang out with my friends on occasion. I joined the chorus which is really fun, even if I don't have a clue what is going on. The songs we are singing are all patriotic (not that there is anything wrong with that...) except one. I know pretty much all of the patriotic songs but since I'm and alto I have to sing it in a funny way that I have not encountered before. It makes for an interesting effect.

I also like hearing the different accents and speaking quirks people from different areas have. My room mate and her friends who are all from the beach like to use nouns and adjectives and there are also slight pronunciation differences between different people, especially on the vowels "a" and "o".

Now link of the day from Language Log (one of my favorite blogs!)

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=248

great story!