The Film Noir Experience

Languages may be a skill set that you can be taught in a classroom. They may have phonological systems and phonetic sets and grammar. They may contain a series of tenses that have endings that you have to memorize.

But, that's not what they are.

I took myself for a walk this afternoon, and while I did it I was thinking about languages. About how they are joint efforts. They are community experiences. They are tools that we use to express our thoughts and feelings. Things we use to ask for stuff. They are a way that we express ourselves, how we identify with others or how we alienate others. And, all this takes place in contexts created by the language and by the situations and by us as individuals. We create communities. I was thinking about being little and how then communitites were provided for you. There were the kids in the neighborhood and school. There was church and choir and bible study and Girl Scouts and dance class. I think its amazing (considering how many people don't like church or school) that when we grow up we make an effort to create communities of our own. How cool is that? Sometimes, we even create communities so that we can speak something that we're not even sure how to speak.

I think the interview went well. I sat down and the Professor said that it was going to get hot in the room and I said, "Guess I'm literally in the hot seat then." and everyone laughed and we talked for about half an hour about all kinds of things. Of course, since then, I've had a lot of time to think about how I could have answered things better but I'm trying not to dwell on it and make myself more nervous. I really hope I get this; I think it would be incredibly rewarding to have an opportunity to study how people build and work together on things.