Hello, hello Fellow Musers, I hope your day and summer is going well! It’s been semi-hot here in Texas and is also starting to get hot hot hot here in Texas (I’m talking weather-wise of course-apparently it’s always hot hot hot politically-wise in Texas and it’s much more annoying <this is me being nice> than the actual weather)!
We have some new Fellow Musers who have become subscribers to this smol yet ever growing corner of Substack. Let’s welcome them and give them some love and hearty Huzzahs!
Shout Out to New Subscribers!!!
Priya
Julia
(Check out her Substack: Eyewitness Newsletter! She writes about living with autoimmune conditions, and not letting it stop her from living her life! )
Harriet
(Check out her Substack: The Blue!)
Thank y’all so much for subscribing to this newsletter! I’m so happy to have you in this space and I look forward to your thoughts, if you decide to share your thoughts, no pressure though. Many hearty Huzzahs to y’all!
By the time this post comes out, I will have just completed my FINAL Spanish course! Please enjoy one of my many Happy Dances that I’ve been doing today!
Woot! Huzzah! Purrzahz!
I’m hoping to continue to keep learning Spanish so that I can eventually become fluent in it, but I’m so glad to be done with the courses.
Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in Texas due to it’s history of being a Spanish colony longer than it was a French colony. Even though prior to taking the classes I could already understand it a bit (but not speak it very well), actually learning it was more difficult than I imagined it would be. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the multiple ways to say the verbs, adjectives, etc. This final semester, I confirmed to myself that I have an issue with how the language is taught in academia. I felt that the examples and some of the vocabulary used in my online textbook were not conducive (yeah, Ima use that damn word) with how the language is actually spoken in various regions of Latin America, South America, Spain, and other countries where Spanish is the main language.
I enjoyed talking to my coach who I had from last semester. After our final session on June 24 (I had a normal session and then I had a make-up session due to missing one), she and I talked for about 30 minutes afterwards. I told her that she was awesomesauce, and she explained that she enjoyed teaching. I asked her if she was a teacher or had been a teacher in the past. She said that she was teaching sign language (SL) to people who are deaf, and had been doing so for about 20 years. She said that the signing itself-meaning how you form the sign for say a parent, to say Thank You, etc.-was the same no matter what country you’re from, even though the grammar may be different. She showed me the American SL for Mother and Father, it was the same sign but the placement is a bit different. I tried to look online for Honduras Sign Language for the different placements<also known as “Lengua de Señas Hondureñas” (LESHO)> but I was unable to find any sites that showed it. I’m truly going to miss speaking with Sadia!
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I would like to take a moment and give a special shout out to my mom, my dad, my boyfriend, and Substack friends. Thank you to my mom and dad for helping me pay for the course, and occasionally checking up on me in our group text to see if I was still sane-ish. Thank you to my Substack friends for the good vibes!
And thank you to my partner, for all the usual sillyness and extra sillyness that kept me sane, listening to my frustrations about the course, and who on Friday (June 28th) called me at 9am and stayed on the phone with me for 40 minutes until we were both convinced that I wouldn’t go back to bed so that I could start my day with enough time to get my damn presentation completed and turned in on time. By the way, I got that damn sucker sent in at exactly 11:59pm, exactly on time and precisely when it was due! Huzzah! Yes, I did call him and let him know about it! He was still up, playing his computer games, and sending me silly emotes😍💜💞
The next day-actually, yesterday July 29th-I took my final final Spanish exam! Afterwords, I celebrated by washing my towels and went to go see The Quiet Place: Day One. No spoilers, but it was great!
I thought I was going to get a C in Spanish because I either make that or D’s, but it looks like Ima get a B! I’ve never gotten a B in any of my Spanish classes at this university, so this is a huge thing for me to get anything higher than a C!
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Upcoming Posts News and House Keeping
Next month, July, I’ll be releasing my Archeology Intro/Foundational post! (“Yay, Finally, About Damn Time” I hear some people say even though I don’t actually know what their voices actually sound like, except for maybe a few people-read my mom, my partner, my sister and her partner, and Taegan).
Sometime this upcoming week, I will also be starting to use the Chat feature that people love to rave about on this here platform! It will be in the evening U.S. Central Time, sometime, but it’ll be open to all subscribers of this Substack to engage in! So come on over and hang out with me! Oooh, maybe that’s what we can call it unofficially instead of Chat? The Hang Out Space. I love it! What are your thoughts on it, Fellow Musers?
I was hoping to also release my first Musings #1, but that will probably not get released until August, so in lieu of that I will most likely release an Artist’s Corner post…just gotta figure out what it’ll be about…Wait, I think I got an idea! Huzzah!
Ugh, thinking hurts right now…
I realized I forgot to put this in my anniversary post, but sometime this year, I would also like to do a post about the various methods used in anthropology for data collection, field work, etc., as well as mention some classes that appear very subfield specific but can overlap with other subfields, as well as fields outside of anthropology. I believe I briefly mentioned that I would talk about them in my very first post, so in a way it’ll come full circle. Sounds fun, eh?
That’s all I got for now! In between writing my archaeology article-essay and Artist’s Corner post, I’ll also be catching up on my reading here and commenting on said readings. Most comments will probably be “This was great!” but I’ll try to elaborate specifics if my brain allows it, because it’ll probably take a bit to recover from doing 16-weeks of school work in 5 weeks! *Plops onto mah bed face-first and screams into pillow*
Mmmkay, that’s all I got! Thank you again to Priya, Juliet, and Harriet for joining this smol-yet-ever-growing corner on the Substack platform! Come hang out with us in the comments, we a fun group! Thank you, always, to everyone who continues to stick around and read what I put out, even if you don’t always do the comment/like/stack/restack thingamajig-I see you and I still appreciate you-and thank you continuously to everyone who does do the thingamajigs!
Y’all are awesomesauce and I appreciate y’all!
Carpe diem and Huzzah! ¡Hasta luego!
~Kimber, Nalia, and Salem
Can’t afford a subscription, but would still like to support my work? I’ve got a few buttons right here that you can clickety-tappity-samashity that can help you help me!
Congratulations on the B! Very good news! You are moving along. Also, when your archeology info comes out, you know who will be No. ! reader! Have a great summer!
Congratulations, Kimber! I knew you could do it! Wooo! I hope you're celebrating right now and enjoying the well-deserved break!