Accents

This is what we had for lunch.  Not sure what it was called, or how healthy it is for you, but it was sure tasty!  It had Texas toast (reminded me of home!), turkey, ham, French fries, and cheese sauce.  I’m most concerned about cheese sauce- seriously, where does it come from? 

EDIT: According to my friend Lindsay Rittgers, who also went to Eureka, this is a "Horseshoe" and it is a common meal for northerners.  It is also served in cafes and the like.  Still looks like half a sandwich to me!

Today was pleasant.  My modern philosophy homework is due tomorrow, so that is most of what is consuming me right now.  I need to make a short Wal-Mart run tonight, which I intend on doing.  I have four short answer (really short essay) questions to do, so I split them up between everything else I have to do so that I don’t get too taxed.  It gets easy to get bogged down by a 17^th century philosopher!  Actually, I like reading what he has to say, not too bad of a thinker if I do say so myself, but his homework, designed by a 21^st century philosophy professor, is much harder.

Have you ever really thought about accents?  Over the last few days, I have.  It is rather humorous; I have spent as long as I can remember ensuring that I don’t get that “Okie” accent which is a mix of West, South and Texas, and now as I am ‘exotic’ in Illinois, I wish I had it so that I stood out by my heritage.  However, I do not have the Chicago accent that so many up here have, so that is something to be thankful for. 

I have made a dear friend from New Zealand here at the college and she has, what sounds like to my uneducated ear, a mix of Aussie and British.  However, I know that in the end it is just “New Zealandish”, but how did she get it?  She was actually originally born in the states and spent most of her life here in this area of the world.  How can she, who speaks the same language I do, who reads the same books, who uses the same dictionary that I do, sound so different?  It is naturally because of the people that we come into contact with (which this would be a good point to jump to- just goes to show, you are affected by who you run around with! But that is not really the purpose of this blog). 

Think of the enormity of our speech.  Someone at some time way back when must have sounded different on that island… and from there they changed the way everyone speaks.  Maybe it was one change, then another, or maybe it was a shift so gradual it could not have been perceived.  However, what is amazing is that it HAS changed and it wasn’t anything other than small differences made by people.

                                                                                                                                              

It wasn’t anything planned, it wasn’t forced to be that way.  People in their lives, unknowingly, changed a WHOLE culture without the intention just by speaking the way they did.

I think that is also how Jesus wants us to change the game.  Not by preaching, but be being solid in the way we do things and by doing it especially and differently.  Slowly, but boldly, we make a little change here and it carries.  We speak differently on this and people catch on, we go and go and go and in our difference, which catches on because it is better (PS- it has to be better to catch on, consider this) we can transform entire cultures.

Which ends with my friend from Colorado, that now lives with my New Zealand friend, going, “No worries!”