A Prescriptive Addiction: How I Became a Descriptivist when I Became an Editor

 Note: Since I am on vacation and don't really want to write a new blog post, but I still want to do a new post every Sunday, I am here posting a paper I wrote this past term. It had a length requirement, but not many other requirements. I tried to have fun with it, and I hope you like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I have long known that I want to be an editor. I knew as early as high school that being an editor would be a good career choice for me. Prior to taking editing classes, I actually didn’t know much about what editors do. But coming through the editing program at Brigham Young University has educated me about what it is that editors do. 

I initially wanted to be an editor because I was very much a prescriptive grammarian, that is, someone who applies traditional grammatical rules and accepts them as absolutely necessary. Fortunately, before I actually did any editing, I was converted to descriptivism, which is concerned with why people are saying something a particular way, rather than being concerned with what people “should” say. Are there conflicts between being an editor and being a descriptive grammarian? Perhaps. But I think that being aware of descriptivism has made me a better editor. Let me discuss my prescriptive past, my conversion to descriptivism, and how I apply both of those principles to editing.

A prescriptive teenager

Throughout my junior high and high school years (and even in elementary school), I was quite concerned with speaking “proper” English. When I learned a new grammatical rule, I would do my best to apply it, seldom questioning where the rule came from. In the public school system, these rules were always taught as being essential and as being absolutely right. And who doesn’t want to be right?

So I learned these rules. And I loved them. I would even learn new grammar rules for fun. I was that annoying friend (or enemy) who would always correct you. Whom, I would say, not who. To where are you going, I would say, not Where are you going to. If someone called me a grammar Nazi, not only would I admit it, I would accept the title gleefully. 

I was pretty good at all this grammar stuff. I shined especially bright in eleventh grade, the year we learned the most grammar. During the school year, I was chosen as the student of the month from the English department. I consistently had the highest scores on the grammar tests out of all of the Honors English class periods. When it was time for our first grammar test, I heard people from other periods talking about how difficult it had been. There were fifty points, and these students were amazed when people got scores in the high thirties. My period was one of the last ones, so I heard how difficult it was before I took it. I was a little nervous to take it, having heard others express their difficulties with it. But when I took it, I got forty-seven points. That was the highest score of all five periods. I think during the entire school year, there was only one test on which I did not get the highest score, and even then my score was pretty high. Since our teacher took the point total out of the highest score, students would always hope that no one got a really high score, and when they found out that I had not yet taken the test, they were disappointed. It seems that it was known in all of the eleventh grade that I consistently got the highest scores on the grammar tests, and that didn’t bode well for everyone else’s grades. 

Of course, it wasn’t in just the eleventh-grade English class that I excelled grammatically. I scored a perfect score of 36 on the English portion of the ACT—which, if I remember correctly, was fairly prescriptive. I became the proofreader for my school’s newspaper my senior year. That, however, was perhaps more of an embarrassment. It was highly publicized that I was the proofreader, but I rarely had time to proofread other articles (they always got finished too late), and our teacher (who had no business teaching that class in the first place) knew nothing about grammar but thought she did. (I can remember one time when she “edited” my paper by deleting the second comma surrounding an appositive phrase. She thought she was making it right, but in fact she was making it wrong. I took her edits back and conveniently ignored most or all of them.) That meant that our newspaper was full of typos and grammatical problems. I worried that people would think I didn’t know what I was talking about, even though I was supposed to be the grammar guru. (I even wrote an article about using “proper” grammar, using TV shows and movies as examples. It was one of the most prescriptive things I’ve ever written. It also illustrated how strange and backward I was, since I referenced such obscure movies as Munster, Go Home! and A Boy Named Charlie Brown.) I “corrected” people’s grammar all over the place, and continued to do so until I entered college.

A descriptive adult

When I registered for college at age 21, I declared myself as an English major. I wanted to be an editor, and I had always learned grammar in my English classes. But then I discovered that there was an English language (ELang) major, and I knew that that was the major for me. After all, I don’t care much for literary analysis, and writing isn’t my primary area of focus. I knew that I wanted to be an editor, and I saw that there was an editing minor housed in the English language major, so I realized that the ELang major was probably what I wanted. I was excited at the prospects of learning even more grammatical rules. All those grammatical questions I had had would be answered, and I would be the biggest grammar Nazi in the county! (No, that's not a typo; I did mean to say county and not country.)

Imagine my surprise when I took my first ELang class, Introduction to English Language, and learned that those rules I had accepted as absolute truths weren’t as absolute or correct as I had believed. I learned about the ideas of descriptivism and prescriptivism, and I began to realize that I was a prescriptivist but that descriptivism was less judgmental and more logical. I remember one particular class in which someone asked if funner was a word. My prescriptive heart said, “No, funner is most definitely not a word.” But then our professor, an educated man with a PhD, said, “I would say it is.” That was a dagger to my prescriptive heart. That introductory class made me question and reevaluate all the rules I had learned growing up.

My grammatical heart transplant was completed the following year when I took Modern American Usage from Dr. Royal Skousen, a strong descriptivist. He taught us about several descriptive rules, where they came from, and why they are silly. He said that the rules that the prescriptive grammarians (usually from the 1700s) had made up caused frustration for millions (people who had to learn to apply them) and caused delight for thousands (the prescriptivists, like my former self). I realized how foolish it was to apply a rule that some pedant had made up hundreds of years ago, rules that weren’t even grounded in reality. Most of them were based on Latin. Why should I follow the rules of a language I don’t even speak? 

Being a descriptivist has given me great freedoms. I now put prepositions wherever I want to, since I know where that rule comes from. I no longer try to carefully avoid splitting infinitives. It was me that was one of the biggest advocates of the predicate nominative, but now I don’t care. And I use conjunctions however I want to. Being a descriptivist is much funner than being a prescriptivist.

Problems with prescriptivism

The problem with prescriptivism is that it doesn’t seem to take into account the idea of register or formality. Prescriptivism says there is one right way, and it is always the right way. But that is wrong. I remember seeing a blurb in an informal newspaper in which the writer was lamenting the use of fail as a noun. One of her examples was a soccer player missing the goal and saying something like, “That was such an epic fail!” She said that fail was an example of undignified speech, and she insisted on always using dignified speech, even in a soccer game. I suppose she expects soccer players to trade their mid-thigh shorts for black pleated slacks, too. 

Looking back, I must say that I am absolutely shocked that I had never heard of the idea of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism until I was in college. I heard terms like standard and nonstandard in my high school English classes, but they never told us what those really meant. I was under the impression that standard meant “correct.” That’s what the textbook made it seem like. The public school system is shamelessly promoting prescriptivism.

What scares me even more is that there are people who went through the prescriptive public school, but they never got another opinion, and they will go through life applying these prescriptive rules to the detriment of both themselves and those around them. I had no idea of descriptivism until my ELang classes. People who major in math or history or, most terrifying, English and who never touch linguistics will continue to make people feel dumb about themselves. I think prescriptivism is really just a way for people to brag about how much smarter they are. And then other people are sucked into the trap of thinking there is only one “correct” way of speaking.

I remember one day when I heard my roommate answer his phone. The person on the other end asked for him, and he said, “This is he.” I asked him later if he naturally said “This is he” instead of “This is him,” or whether he had been trained to say it that way. He told me that when he was ten years old, he had said “This is him” on the phone and his mom yelled at him, saying “This is he!” Well, Mrs. Roommate-Mom, and anyone else who insists on that, do you even know where that rule comes from? Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time in England, smart people learned Latin. They loved Latin, even though it was a dead language. This linguistic necrophilia led scholars to study Latin more than they studied English—but eventually they did turn around and start studying English. The problem was that they applied the rules of Latin to English, even though English is a Germanic language and Latin is a Latinate language. They knew that in Latin you would say something like “It is I” instead of “It is me,” so they said that you should use the nominative form in the predicate position. Never mind that in French, which is also a Latinate language and which had a more direct influence on English, you would say “C’est moi,” which is closer to “It’s me” than it is to “It is I.” So insisting on using the predicative nominative, as it is called, is based on a cockamamy rule that has no basis in intuitive English structure. 

It only seems logical that if you are going to follow a rule, you should know why it exists. When it comes to grammatical rules, when you learn a lot of them, you will learn how foolish they are and you will no longer want to follow them. If I were to travel back in time and meet my former self, the younger me would probably correct me on my “improper” use of who or my “incorrect” use of the predicate accusative. But now that I have an even greater knowledge of the English language, I would be able to get in a linguistic argument with the younger me—and I would win. Prescriptivists think they are so educated. But we descriptivists know even more.

The linguistic dress code

Now, you may wonder, How can you be an editor if you’re such a descriptivist? As a descriptivist, doesn’t that mean you accept anything that a native speaker of English says to be grammatical? And isn’t the whole point of editing to “correct” people’s writing? Now, I will admit that at times I find my identity as an editor at odds with my identity as a descriptivist. But I try to find a good balance between the two.

When I edit things, I do find myself fairly permissive. I’m more likely to create a style sheet that permits certain forms rather than changing them. In fact, if I see an instance of they used with a singular referent, I will flag it—not because I want to change it, but because I don’t want it to be changed. I don’t want anyone else “fixing” they into the clunky he or she, and I’m doing my best to make sure that singular they becomes standard. (I think it’s on its way there already.) 

When I was a high-schooler, I wanted to be an editor because I thought that it was the editor’s job to make sure that all the grammar and writing were “correct.” But now that I have studied editing and have had experience as an intern, I see editing differently. Editing is not about making writing “correct”; it is about making it clear. If an author creates an ambiguity, it is my responsibility to get rid of the ambiguity so that the readers will understand. If an author creates a sentence that is so convoluted and complicated that it can’t be understood, it is my job to recast the sentence to make it clearer. It is no fun when you have to read a sentence multiple times to understand it. My job is to make writing as easy to understand as possible. 

However, there are times when I have to edit things not to make the writing clear but because convention calls for it. For example, I could not care less whether a number range uses a hyphen or an en dash. I think hyphens are perfectly clear to show a range of numbers, and I think the only people who will notice hyphens where there “should” be en dashes are people who have learned about them—namely, other editors. But despite my apathy toward en dashes, I know that it is my job as an editor to fix them, simply because of convention, so I do. (I can recall a Thanksgiving Eve visit to a furniture store in which I noticed that the store’s hours had hyphens instead of en dashes. That made me realize how editorially minded I am.) 

Changing things simply because convention calls for it makes me feel like a prescriptivist. And that bugs me. But I have come to think of it as enforcing a dress code.

In society, we have expectations about clothing. We expect people to wear shiny leather shoes to church, colorful sneakers to the grocery store, and flip-flops to the beach. It’s not that any one of those shoes is necessarily better than the others, it’s just that there are societal norms that we follow. (And yes, I know I just used a comma splice.) There can be definite consequences for violating these societal norms, whether they are fair or not. You might get kicked out of the five-star restaurant for wearing your dirty overalls, but if you showed up at the local barn-raising ceremony wearing a tuxedo, they would probably tell you to go home and change. 

This is the way I think of language and editing. I need to apply conventions to certain writings, not because the conventions are “right” or necessary, but because they are expected in different settings. A tie may be a pointless piece of cloth, but it is expected in formal settings. Using whom instead of who in a given sentence may not make the sentence any clearer, but it is expected in a formal setting. If I am editing something really formal, I may need to apply prescriptive rules. (And there’s where my prescriptive education comes in.) However, if I am editing something that is more lighthearted, I can break as many prescriptive rules as I want. 

Now, I must admit that there are some rules that have a place because they aid clarity. Punctuation is a good example. There are some rules about commas that I really don’t care about, but generally punctuation really helps understanding. Consider the YouTube singing sensation Jan Terri. When she announced that she was working on a new album, someone asked her if she was going to have songs as great as her masterpieces “Get Down Goblin” and “Excuse My Christmas.” Her response was, “no new songs.” What she meant was, “No, new songs.” But because she omitted the comma, she actually said the opposite of what she meant. 

But that’s where an education in both prescriptivism and descriptivism is helpful. I know what rules and guidelines actually help writing, and I know what rules are pure nonsense and can even hinder writing. (Have you ever seen someone purposely avoid putting a preposition at the end of a sentence? Yuck!) I also hope that I can spread my knowledge of descriptivism. I can discuss it with other editors and authors who may be unaware of the concept of descriptivism. And if I allow certain forms that go against the prescriptive rules, I will be able to make them become more standardized and less stigmatized. And if any prescriptivists judge our organization because we put prepositions at the end of sentences, phooey on them! 

The End

I have known that I wanted to be an editor since I was in high school. But if I had been an editor straight out of high school, I would have been a terrible editor. I would have applied all sorts of nonsensical rules. I would have insisted on no split infinitives, no sentence-final prepositions, no predicate accusative forms, and so on. I think in many cases I would have made the writing worse (although some writing is so bad it can't possibly be made worse). But now I actually know what editing is all about. I know that language is something dynamic and powerful. We can communicate all sorts of amazing, beautiful ideas with our language. And it is my responsibility to make sure that those brilliant ideas are communicated to the world. It is quite the heavy responsibility.

But I feel I am up to the challenge.

Odds and Ends

I had a lot of random events happen to me this week that led to a lot of random thoughts. Which means this is going to be even less structured than usual.

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On Monday, my ward had an FHE with piñatas. But these were very fancy piñatas. They had candy in them, but none of it was Fourth of July candy, so I didn't have any. But they had non-candy options as well. I got a flashlight that requires D batteries. The batteries are probably more expensive than the flashlight. I got a thing of bubbles. They also had non-candy foods, so I got a pack of ramen and a bag of sunflower seeds.

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In all my time at college, I have never eaten ramen. I'm sure I had it during fall 2010 and 2011, when I was living at home, but actually at college, I've never had it. I know, shocking, right? Nor have I ever had macaroni and cheese. But I have had plenty of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Once I even had peanut butter and jelly spaghetti. I don't recommend it. 

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Eating sunflower seeds made me remember my old job cleaning up sunflower seeds. It also made me remember filling up the food dish of the pet bird my family used to have. Once when my niece was only 2 or 3, I was putting the bird seed in the dish, and she came up and said to me, "Bird seed is so gross. I tried it once when I was a little bird, and it was yucky." I found it quite funny. She used an interesting presupposition trigger: "When I was a little bird" presupposes that she was a little bird. That's something I didn't know about her.

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This week I was studying for the final for my Structure of English class. For this class we learned all about ambiguity, so I have become sensitive to it. While I was studying, my roommate Bryton put Drano in our drain, since it had been backed up. Then later I was using the sink and I poked my head out and said to him, "Thanks for making our water drain." Then I had to poke my head out again, because I realized that what I said was ambiguous. It could be interpreted as "Thanks for making our water to drain," or it could be interpreted as "The water drain was made by you." Bryton informed me that he was actually the one to put the drain in the bathroom, so both interpretations of the ambiguity actually applied.

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On Monday I had my last class period for my editing class. Then the next morning I dreamed we had a substitute teacher who happened to be the Prancercise lady. Then on Wednesday I finished up my project for that class, and I was done with both the class and the editing minor!

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Wednesday was my Structure of English final, and I had planned to finish my editing project on Thursday, but then I realized that I could finish it up Wednesday, so I did. Then I was done with classes until Fall! The last time I finished up classes before an extended break was on August 11, 2011. I finished up my finals, then cleaned up my apartment for a few hours, then packed up my things and drove home. I was in the parking lot when my former roommate Tristram saw me and talked to me. He asked where I was living in the fall. At that point I didn't even know if I was going to be going to school in the fall, and if I did, I didn't know where I was going to be living. That was a long time ago. And this paragraph almost turned into my other blog.

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On Thursday night I went to go running, but then I found a patch of dirt with those abominable goathead plants. I had to stop and pull them up, because I feel a moral obligation during the month of June to pull them up when I see them. Why June? Well, in May they're not as visible, but in later summer they start to get their nasty seeds. These are evil plants. If you saw them, you might think they are kind of cute, with their little leaves and little yellow flowers. But they're not cute. They're diabolical. Their yellow blossoms become big pointy stars, and these stars break into five pieces, each piece looking like the head of a goat. The goat horns are super sharp. They pop bike tires and stab people. If I didn't have slime in my bike tires, I would have had to buy dozens of bike tire tubes on my mission. I think I only had to buy two or three tubes on my mission (one of those was because I didn't have slime at first).

--

I pulled up a bunch of goatheads on Thursday, but then it got dark. I went back yesterday to pull up the rest of them. My fingers and knees are sore from their stabbings. I would actually say my knees are sore not so much because of the stabbings, but because they are as hard as rocks, so it's like kneeling on little pebbles. I might have some small slivers in my fingers. This goathead area was a patch of dirt in a parking strip on 900 East. I don't know who it belongs to, but I don't think they care, since people walk through it all the time, which is probably why they keep it as dirt. But if they didn't keep it as dirt, there wouldn't be as many goatheads, which are a menace to society. So I felt justified pulling them up. I filled up a grocery bag with them.

Then walking back home, I found some more, some young ones, near a shaved ice stand. So I stopped and pulled those up. It was kind of awkward, since there were lots of people around, and I just stopped and pulled them up. One lady walked past and said, "Oh, those are those awful pokey plants, aren't they?" At least someone knows what I'm doing. Some toddlers saw me playing in the gravel, so they came over and played in the gravel. But they actually just played in the rocks or kicked them, whereas I was pulling up the evil plants from the rocks.

--

It's kind of satisfying to look at the big patch of dirt and see that it is free of goatheads, thanks to me. But then I walked by today and saw a few small ones. I don't know if they were ones I missed, or if they grow fast (which is a scary thought). I know more will grow there, since there are lots of hidden nefarious seeds in the dirt. But I feel satisfied knowing that I prevented so many more seeds from growing. These plants are just like bullies: They don't deserve to exist. Fruit plants are kind in their reproductive patterns, in that they provide a lovely, edible fruit. But goatheads are selfish and mean and just make pokey things to stick in animals. I hate them so much!

--

Provo at this time of year reminds me of East Wenatchee, WA, my second mission area. Both places have smelly trees. Both places have goatheads. And both places have nice neighborhoods with mountains to the east.

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This week I saw a trailer for a Thanksgiving movie, Free Birds. I don't think it will be a particularly good movie, but I'm excited for it simply because it's a Thanksgiving movie. Hopefully it will be clean enough for me to watch, unlike the Easter movie Hop. What is encouraging is that this trailer doesn't have the potty "humor" of the trailers for Hop and Hotel Transylvania. So hopefully it'll be more sophisticated and I can incorporate it into my annual Thanksgiving celebrations. But I don't want to get my hopes up in case it is inappropriate.

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This year I have been lamenting the fact that there aren't as many Fourth of July goodies as there were last year. But then I found some red, white, and blue M&Ms, which I haven't seen since 2007! It made me happy. I almost passed them by, because the bags look almost the same as regular M&Ms. I'm so weird. 

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There was a broadcast about missionary work today. I could have gone to the live event in the Marriott Center, but I declined tickets. And I don't feel too bad about that, because half of the meeting was just video clips. They announced that missionaries can now spread the gospel online during the unproductive hour mornings. I think that's a good idea--on my mission I always hated mornings, because the only people who were home were old people, and they didn't want to talk to us. 

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This has been long. I'd better sign off now. Good night!

Welcome summer

After last week's busy-ness, this week was a relief. Unfortunately, I still had things to do, but I was all out of motivation. I did do what I needed to, but I could have done better. I am just so excited that the term is over this week! I have a final on Wednesday, and I have a portfolio due Thursday, but that is almost done anyway, and then I'm home free! I'm not taking summer classes--it will be my first break from classes since fall 2011, and my first ever break from classes in Provo. Provo is really fun in the summer, and it will be even better without homework!

I've felt that this term has gone by fast, and I was thinking, "Well, that means that summer term, my break, will go by fast." But then I realized that that's not necessarily a bad thing, because when summer term is over, I have my two-week Geology 210 "class" (which I'm nervous for), and that will also go by fast. And then it will be September, my second-favorite month. I find the last third of the year to be the best. During September it is my birthday and the beginning of the Halloween season, which is my third-favorite holiday. After Halloween is Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. And after Thanksgiving is Christmas, my second-favorite holiday. It's going to be a great six months!

Hopefully my summer will be a sufficient break for me before I start classes in the fall. I did decide (tentatively) to wait until April to graduate so that I can take Groundwater. (The only drawback to an April graduation is that Easter is right in the middle of finals week.) Because I have the maturity of a thirteen-year-old, I found myself amused by the Captcha I got when signing up for Groundwater:

On Friday night I went to a concert at Central Utah Gardens in Orem to see Cherie Call. It was the fifth time I've seen her live: I saw her in a Temple Square concert on New Year's Eve in 2010; in an American Fork concert on August 1, 2011; at an art exhibit opening in the HBLL in October; and at a B 98.7 mini Christmas concert in December. I didn't think her singing was her greatest this time, but I still liked it. She performed with a bluegrass group called Lincoln Highway, who gave her songs a nice bluegrass touch and also performed some of their own stuff. Cherie sang "A Secret I Can't Keep," "Invincible," "River of Tears," "One Good Woman," "Memphis," "Heart Made of Wind," and "Pilgrim Go!" Then for an encore she sang "Walk You through the Night," which she has sung every time I've seen her. I really like her unique voice and I like how every song has a story behind it. If you haven't checked her out, I recommend doing so. Here is one of my favorites of her songs, "Pilgrim Go!" (this song is not really religious, by the way).

Then yesterday I got an ugly haircut that makes me look like some kind of inanimate object--maybe a loaf of bread. Then there was a stake activity. I think our "new" (year-old) stake presidency tries to have a lot more activities than the previous one. I heard a story that there was a dance party (which I didn't go to), and the stake president specifically asked for them to play lots of slow songs. I heard from our Relief Society president that every time a slow song came on, everyone cleared the dance floor. I find that a hilarious example of the generation gap. Maybe "slow songs" were popular decades ago, but when I think of slow songs now, I think back to junior high. Adults don't do that anymore!

I'm so excited to get done with everything this week! It will be a great summer, even though I usually don't like summer! (I feel dumb using all those exclamation points. At least I didn't use multiple exclamation points, as women who are 30 and older do.)

A long week and a long day

This was a crazy week. Tomorrow I have two papers and a portfolio due, so I had to budget my time this week to make sure I got everything done.  I also had a midterm on Wednesday that I had to study for. I did a fairly good job at staying on task.

Friday I had planned to go to the Rooftop Concert Series, but my plans fell through, so I was able to pound out the last of the assignments. I was so glad to get them done that I didn't really feel relieved. I know that seems paradoxical.

Now, in my Structure of English class, we have to do presentations on a book chapter. Our professor passed out a sign-up sheet, and I was one of the last to get it, so I had to sign up for Monday. Yet another thing to do. 

Saturday was a lot more free than I had anticipated, since I finished my projects Friday night. So I spent the day buying patriotic Tootsie Roll Pops, working a little on a project due next week, and going running. It was fairly late at night (it had to be, since it's so hot now), but it was the first time I'd gone running for an hour since April. I've been having knee problems, and I had some last night, but it still let me go for a full hour, instead of only fifteen or twenty minutes. I think I went slower than usual--I'm not sure if it was the heat (I go fastest in 40 degrees) or the lack of running over the last month--but that's OK. It did leave me a little sore and thirsty, though.

Because I wanted to go running, I didn't finish my presentation. Hopefully, our professor will go on one of his wild tangents again, and I won't have to present tomorrow. (He once went on a forty-minute tangent about the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello.) I'll try to get up early to finish it tomorrow.

I'm so tired. It's been a long day. I got to bed late last night (since I had been running and working on my presentation), and then I had bishopric meeting at 8:30. I was at church until 4:30, and then I was home for an hour, and then I went to our bishop's house for dinner. He invited my apartment, another apartment, and a married couple who used to be in our ward over for shish-kebabs. It was fun. But they live in Alpine, so we had thirty minutes of driving, two and a half hours there, and then another half hour driving back. I had a long day. But I feel worse for our bishop, who had to do the same things, and also has to get on a plane at 1:00 a.m. I'm glad that I'm not a bishop and that I will never be called to be one.

I'm sorry this was such a boring post. It's just that I'm tired and want to go to bed.

And anyway, I started this blog to be a description of my life, not to be entertaining. And when you're as boring as I am, there's no way my life could be entertaining.

Summertime, and the living will be easy, eventually

It is now June, which, if I am not mistaken, is the beginning of meteorological summer, which, in my opinion, is more meaningful than astronomical summer. I mean, if you're going by the astronomical system, then that means it's not winter until a few days before Christmas, even though it's cold and snowy long before then.

Anyway, even though I don't like heat, I'm excited for summer. I'm not going to take any classes during summer term. It will be the first time I haven't taken classes during summer and the first extended break from classes since fall 2011. Summer in Provo is awesome. Around the Fourth of July, I'm going to California to see my nephews. Then in the last two weeks of August, I will be in my Geology 210 class, out exploring the geology of Little Cottonwood Canyon and Utah's national parks.

Yes, my summer bliss starts in two and a half weeks! Unfortunately, I have to make it through those two and a half weeks.

On Wednesday this week, I have a midterm for my Structure of English class. Hopefully it won't get pushed back again, because I'm counting on it being over by then. A week from tomorrow, I have a four-page paper due in that class. The writing won't be bad, I just have to decide what words to write about and research them.

Now, it wouldn't be bad if that were the only paper due that day. But my Editing for Publication class this term is a really big time drainer. A week from tomorrow, I have an eight-page paper and a portfolio due in that class, while in the meantime I have to continue working on a group project.

This morning I went through and planned my week, hour by hour, to make sure I will get everything done. That means I will need to be especially diligent about staying on task. Unfortunately, I worry that some unexpected things may come up that may thwart my plans. But I will do my best.

One thing that may come up is related to my calling. All of the Church's clerical stuff is entered into MLS, a piece-of-junk program that's about ten years out of date. Our MLS hasn't been working properly, so on Friday I called the tech guys at Church headquarters. They diagnosed the problem but weren't able to fix it. In attempting to fix it, they deleted our MLS and then downloaded it again. But in redownloading it, something didn't go quite right, so now we can't use MLS at all until it gets fixed. The stake clerk is going to try to get it fixed. I hope he doesn't call me and ask me to be involved in fixing it, because that would mess up all my plans. Usually I only plan one day at a time, not a whole week.

But after next Monday, it should be a lot easier. And then a week and a half after that...

Ahh. I'm so excited.