Situational rather than Abstract

When we concluded the class today talking about the last item of Ong's list, I felt right at home. It does not occur to me how many "place-fillers" are used in language. The people who are around me often, enjoy reminding me that "like" is not a good thing to put in one's sentences. 

The girl was NOT like, the girl said. This is the phrase I hear weekly. Much less often now because I am being conditioned into a different habit. 

Another filler I have noticed recently is when people are listing something off they something conclude with, "blah, blah, blah." This is one that always caught my interest. I never knew why one would say that. But I suppose that people are more focused on the abstract, instead of the situation. We often forget to provide specifics when telling a story. Because we are in a written culture I believe that we, as Dr. Sexson mentioned today, want to get straight to the point. We omit the details in order to get the story over with, so we can save more time. There is no longer a need for just siting around and listening to a good story.

50 memorable things to memorize

For this assignment, I have chosen to memorize the top fifty places, people should see before they die. I am interested in this because I have always loved to travel and I think it would be a good list of things to be able to rattle off when I tell people where I want to go next. 

For my memory palace I have chosen to use, of course, my house. I can envision everything in it from the rooms to the pictures on the wall. After all I have lived here for six years. I also distinctly remember my sister ( a Dr. Sexson alum) walking through the house, rattling off MSU's top one hundred... The Complete Works of William Shakespeare was on the door knob.

I find it amazing, that my sister walked through the house over and over again, looking quite odd I must say and from then on I have wanted to be an English major, or at least take a class from Dr. Sexson.