If you can't read the heading for this, you probably don't have a mac. I finally finished reading Haruki Murakami's (wicked link, by the way) novel _Umibe no Kafuka_ or rather _Kafka on the Shore_ in Japanese. This is my third Murakami book in Japanese, although at over 1000 pages and two volumes, the longest. This is quite an accomplishment in my small, self-promoting world. I took a long break from the book over the summer, but came back this last week. I can't find my English translation which is bothering the hell out of me as I am really interested in how the last line is translated as it is one of those troubling present/ future- progressive verbs that could be read two ways. This is interesting to me.
I started a new class at Birmingham this week. "Corpus Linguistics" is just about as interesting as it sounds and I'm sure I'll have thoughts. I just like being able to tell everyone who argues with me about grammar, Well, why don't you check the corpus and tell me what you find. Everyone is always so shocked that you sometimes can't say things that are "grammatically" correct, like "She has been passed away for two years." Nothing wrong grammatically there, but if you say it, you sound retarded. One teacher was shocked that I found it hard to hear the prononciation difference in the "O" between "bone" and "born." "And you're a native speaker!?" she said.
Lastly, I was wondering during the church service today why it was that I was at church. The sermon was about the Bride of Christ and as I was thinking about what a lame metaphor this was and how everyone in church seemed to be sleeping, it seemed that it wouldn't really make any difference if I left. Anyway, Yoko was playing the organ today and as the communion time rolled around, I noticed she didn't look so hot. This look (one that I've come to recognize the last couple of days) got worse and worse and by the time she went to cover her mouth, I was out of the pew, standing in front of 40 or so, now not so sleepy, elderlies , and urging her to go to hurry to the bathroom. The organ was saved and so was our "face" to some degree as she quickly returned, apologetic, to play the rest of the songs for the morning. We still haven't told anyone at church about the baby, but I think everyone knows. The pastor's wife stopped us after the service, saying, "How is the WIFE? We need to take care of the WIFE" and then in a quieter voice, "You know, I had diarrhea last week."
There's that sound again...