My A-Ha Moment

Do you ever have that a-ha moment where something just clicks?

Since I left/lost my job back in January, I’ve been struggling with what I want, what I want to do, and where I want to be.  I was a math/econ major, I worked on wall street, I worked for the government, I was an engineer (this is all in my FAQs ), but none of those things seemed to fit for me.

I thought about massage, but decided against it.  I thought about nutrition or nursing, but changed my mind on that too.  I thought back to college – the classes I really loved were… Italian, German, and Linguistics. Hm. Last week I took out some modern linguistics books from the library, and I’ve been pretty engrossed in them. My current two are Eve Spoke and The Science Times Book of Language and Linguistics.

I’m taking the GREs in the next month or two (have to pick a date) and we’ll go from there. I’m looking at PhD programs in the New York area.

I was tagged to list 10 things about myself yesterday, so here goes. They’re mostly linguistics related, since that was my surprise of the day.

1. My favorite website is the Online Etymology Dictionary.
2. I read the OED for fun. No, I don’t have my own copy. But my birthday is coming up!
3. One of my favorite foods is squash (in particular, kabocha ). The word squash comes from the Algonquian word  askutasquash, which literally means “the green things that may be eaten raw,” from  askut – “green, raw” +  asquash - “eaten”. (The  -ash is a plural affix like in succotash.) It was first recorded in 1643.
4. When I was little I fell asleep in this position all the time. My dad thought it was funny to take pictures of it. This happens to be on halloween. (Where I was… a pumpkin = squash. I needed lots of padding.)

   

   The verb sleep comes from the Germanic root meaning “to be weak, to sleep”. It might have a connection with the adjective slack.

5. I love salad. The word salad comes from a latin term meaning “salted vegetables”… salt and salad have the same root. The phrase “salad bar” appeared first in 1979.
6. If you hadn’t noticed, I also love yoga. But here’s a confession: I haven’t been to a real class in over 3 months! I just keep doing podcasts and my own flow.  Yoga comes from Hindi and from Sanskrit  yoga-s, literally “union, yoking”, from the base  *yeug- “to join” (like jugular ).
7. I am a Quaker and a Libertarian. How’s that for a puzzle? Puzzle comes from the word  pusle which means “bewilder, confound” or also “perplex” (like how nuzzle comes from nose ).
8. I drive a Honda Civic and it’s manual. Car comes from a Latin word meaning “two-wheeled Celtic war chariot,” and before that it came from a word meaning “to run”. Mine is actually a 4-wheeled salad chariot… but close enough.
9. I sang in Carnegie Hall with my choir when I was 10. Hall comes from a base meaning “to hide, steal”. “Hall of Fame” was first used in 1901 in reference to Columbia College.
10. I am procrastinating from writing the Geometry test that I have to give tomorrow. Geometry comes from words meaning “earth”, “land”, and “measure” = “measurement of earth or land”.

Enjoy your Thursday… Gotta go write up that test now. Almost the weekend!

What’s your favorite word?