I continue to sit here on my couch, somehow not getting around to that paper that I was supposed to have done already. Nevermind the fact that it just isn't that hard of a paper. But I think people can empathize.
I've had something on my mind lately. Yes, it's serious. Prepare yourself. I look around at other people's blogs, and I keep thinking to myself, "Self, your blog ain't that pretty."
Which leads to more thoughts. "Self, you should get a different blog background."
"But how, self? Where?"
"Self, 'tis a good question."
You see, I just don't know if there are good blog backgrounds/designs for men. I've mentioned this to a few girls, and they subsequently launched on some searches to find me blog backgrounds for men. But a bunch of them are all "sporty," and I don't consider myself a big enough fan or follower of baseball or football to have a blog background that displays some sort of ball flying through the screen or showcases some particular team. Well, there are others. But quite honestly, they just begin looking so doctored that they seem to cry, "My wife/girlfriend/female acquaintance made this blog background for me!" Or perhaps, "Yeah, she put so much work into it for me, I felt bad not using it. Yeah, I know it's 'cute'." And I just can't have it. My blog must be me. And currently, it seems that I am several different shades of green and some arrows and stuff.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Can I be fewer than one person?
I thought this was interesting. I ran into it on someone else's blog, and so I took it for a whirl myself, and here's the result. I do, however, think that it is actually wrong. Upon Google-ing myself in the past, I'm rather certain that there is another Cameron Poulter that lives in Chicago, and works for some sort of print company. Which makes two of us. He must be a great guy.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Plans? What plans?
This is intended to be a long-deserved note to my readers about the current status of my life and the plans that I've made, am making, and will make. Ok, that sentence was meant to be really deep or something, and I don't think it was. I also kind of think that I no longer have any readers, since I've only posted a couple of things in the last several months. But if you find yourself reading this, I claim that to be headway.
"Are you graduating in April?" "Yeah." "Oh, wow. What are you going to do?" And my usual response is, "Isn't that a good question?" 'Cause let's face it, it is. In my previous post, I made a couple of references to what I'm doing now to plan for the future. Now, I'm following up.
At the beginning of the semester, I was seriously looking at options of postponing my graduation in order to complete a second BA in Communication Disorders. I've been tentatively planning on going on to complete an MA in Speech Pathology for about a year and a half now, and the headway I've made in that direction has been the completion of my minor in Linguistics, and several of the classes that people have to take to complete a BA in Communication Disorders. I've enjoyed all of it. I say, I've profusely enjoyed my entire college career, which I realize as I reflect back on it, myself now steadily moving toward the end of it. I've loved continuing to study Spanish and all the aspects of it: the grammar, the linguistic properties, the cultures, the art forms, etc. And I've loved being a Spanish Translation major and having my mind opened to what our minds are doing when we begin transferring meaning from one code to another. It's been enchanting to study Linguistics. And so I repeat, my undergraduate career has been enjoyable and has opened my mind in so many ways that I can't count them.
So I've taken a few steps toward an MA in Speech Pathology, although I discovered at the end of last semester that I was quite as close as I had thought I was to beginning it, because there are quite a few pre-requisites that I hadn't sufficiently researched prior to that point. That gave rise to my consideration throughout the two-week semester break of several options. One was to postpone my graduation for a year and complete a second BA in Communication Disorders at BYU. I looked at the requirements, and saw it as plausible to do. (Besides, it would've given me the opportunity to be in a BYU choir again, which I've thoroughly been pleased with being for three years.) Another option was to go ahead and graduate, and then complete an online program for a 2nd BA in Communication Disorders through Utah State. I probably would've continued living in Provo as I did that. And a third option was to just go ahead and apply to MA programs, and complete the pre-requisites before I started on the core of the degree.
After correspondence with professors from a few different schools, I ended up applying to the University of Utah for an MA in Speech Pathology. It was one of the projects I worked on through January; getting the materials sent to them, taking the GRE, and getting professors to write letters of recommendation for me.
Throughout the semester, I've continued receiving e-mails from BYU's career center and from my college and my organizations, and new options have surfaced. After a visit with a representative from MIIS, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, I came to the conclusion that I needed to apply there as well for a Master's Degree. They are home to one of the (if the THE) best translation and interpretation schools in the world. I heard talk of the school here and there in my two years of translation classes at BYU, but didn't feel incredibly inclined to graduate school at those moments. Anyway, I decided to apply. I also found out about opportunities to go teach English in Korea, Japan, or China, and began thinking about that possibility. Additionally, I found out about a job opportunity to be a Team Leader for an organization that does youth leadership conferences for high school and middle school students. As they have international conferences, I immediately became interested.
Anywho, the point of the current rambling is to say that as things now stand, I've finished my application to the University of Utah for an MA in Speech Pathology. I'm a good portion of the way through my application to the Monterey Institute of International Studies for an MA in Translation, and will be done soon. For both of those, I think I'll have a month or so to sit and wait to hear back.
As for the summer, I've applied for the job with Lead-America, and hope to be hired to work a couple of their international Ambassador Abroad programs. If that goes according to my hope, I'll be working for them all through July and will go to Costa Rica for two weeks and Europe for two weeks. And last week, Freedom from Hunger contacted me (and the team from last summer) and gave us the first right of refusal to another internship opportunity this summer. It would be shorter, just 6-8 weeks, and would take place in Chiapas, Mexico. Needless to say, I'm extremely interested. My eventual decision will depend on the time they decide. And personal finances. And other stuff. (That became a less and less definite statement. Oh well.) And I'm also probably going to apply to be an EFY counselor for a few weeks of the summer to fill up some of the other weeks that I don't have planned yet. Ideally, all three of those options will work out. But practically, it's a bit of a long shot that they will. But for now, I just need to wait to hear more from these opportunities.
And who knows, really...I may end up with quite a different future than any of my options predict at the moment. But most likely, come fall, I'll either be back close to home in SLC and attending the U of U, or I'll be in Monterey, CA, Latinizing myself at a pace that I may have never reached before. And hopefully, I'll have had an exciting summer!
I'm looking forward to the rest of this current semester as one of the best that I've had here at BYU academically, and I also plan to continue building friendships and having a really great time.
"Are you graduating in April?" "Yeah." "Oh, wow. What are you going to do?" And my usual response is, "Isn't that a good question?" 'Cause let's face it, it is. In my previous post, I made a couple of references to what I'm doing now to plan for the future. Now, I'm following up.
At the beginning of the semester, I was seriously looking at options of postponing my graduation in order to complete a second BA in Communication Disorders. I've been tentatively planning on going on to complete an MA in Speech Pathology for about a year and a half now, and the headway I've made in that direction has been the completion of my minor in Linguistics, and several of the classes that people have to take to complete a BA in Communication Disorders. I've enjoyed all of it. I say, I've profusely enjoyed my entire college career, which I realize as I reflect back on it, myself now steadily moving toward the end of it. I've loved continuing to study Spanish and all the aspects of it: the grammar, the linguistic properties, the cultures, the art forms, etc. And I've loved being a Spanish Translation major and having my mind opened to what our minds are doing when we begin transferring meaning from one code to another. It's been enchanting to study Linguistics. And so I repeat, my undergraduate career has been enjoyable and has opened my mind in so many ways that I can't count them.
So I've taken a few steps toward an MA in Speech Pathology, although I discovered at the end of last semester that I was quite as close as I had thought I was to beginning it, because there are quite a few pre-requisites that I hadn't sufficiently researched prior to that point. That gave rise to my consideration throughout the two-week semester break of several options. One was to postpone my graduation for a year and complete a second BA in Communication Disorders at BYU. I looked at the requirements, and saw it as plausible to do. (Besides, it would've given me the opportunity to be in a BYU choir again, which I've thoroughly been pleased with being for three years.) Another option was to go ahead and graduate, and then complete an online program for a 2nd BA in Communication Disorders through Utah State. I probably would've continued living in Provo as I did that. And a third option was to just go ahead and apply to MA programs, and complete the pre-requisites before I started on the core of the degree.
After correspondence with professors from a few different schools, I ended up applying to the University of Utah for an MA in Speech Pathology. It was one of the projects I worked on through January; getting the materials sent to them, taking the GRE, and getting professors to write letters of recommendation for me.
Throughout the semester, I've continued receiving e-mails from BYU's career center and from my college and my organizations, and new options have surfaced. After a visit with a representative from MIIS, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, I came to the conclusion that I needed to apply there as well for a Master's Degree. They are home to one of the (if the THE) best translation and interpretation schools in the world. I heard talk of the school here and there in my two years of translation classes at BYU, but didn't feel incredibly inclined to graduate school at those moments. Anyway, I decided to apply. I also found out about opportunities to go teach English in Korea, Japan, or China, and began thinking about that possibility. Additionally, I found out about a job opportunity to be a Team Leader for an organization that does youth leadership conferences for high school and middle school students. As they have international conferences, I immediately became interested.
Anywho, the point of the current rambling is to say that as things now stand, I've finished my application to the University of Utah for an MA in Speech Pathology. I'm a good portion of the way through my application to the Monterey Institute of International Studies for an MA in Translation, and will be done soon. For both of those, I think I'll have a month or so to sit and wait to hear back.
As for the summer, I've applied for the job with Lead-America, and hope to be hired to work a couple of their international Ambassador Abroad programs. If that goes according to my hope, I'll be working for them all through July and will go to Costa Rica for two weeks and Europe for two weeks. And last week, Freedom from Hunger contacted me (and the team from last summer) and gave us the first right of refusal to another internship opportunity this summer. It would be shorter, just 6-8 weeks, and would take place in Chiapas, Mexico. Needless to say, I'm extremely interested. My eventual decision will depend on the time they decide. And personal finances. And other stuff. (That became a less and less definite statement. Oh well.) And I'm also probably going to apply to be an EFY counselor for a few weeks of the summer to fill up some of the other weeks that I don't have planned yet. Ideally, all three of those options will work out. But practically, it's a bit of a long shot that they will. But for now, I just need to wait to hear more from these opportunities.
I'm looking forward to the rest of this current semester as one of the best that I've had here at BYU academically, and I also plan to continue building friendships and having a really great time.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Christmas card? Er sumpin...
It occurs to me that I guess I'm old enough to where I can start sending out that Christmas card that gives the run-down of my past year. So along with that idea, I'll try to give some of my shpiel, despite the fact that I missed Christmas by two months.
2008 saw some great times. I spent the first four months of the year at BYU, in my third-to-last semester. Many of my classmates were actually in the last semester, and we were all working on our senior projects, which were 5000 word translations. (That was a step up from the usually 200-ish word translations that we were accustomed to doing.) I actually really enjoyed my project, and I translated the first two chapters of a manual of Hispanic phonetics, written by a professor who teaches here at BYU. I chose that book because I had taken a few linguistics classes by that point, and had declared a minor in Linguistics. I had also recently declared a minor in Music, but that doesn't have much to do with the present story. So, I turned out enjoying my project quite a bit. That semester, I also spent a good amount of time preparing for my upcoming trip to Peru. I had two prep classes in swing beginning the second half of the semester, one being a more general cultural-awareness prep class and the other being a more specific class in which we studied public health topics in preparation for our internship.
For you see, the internship that I had secured the previous November and December was a public health internship. It was an internship program run through the Kennedy Center, BYU's Center for International Studies. And if I may insert my opinion, its a pretty great center, as evidenced by BYU's numerous study abroad programs, internship programs, and field study programs. As many know, the original plan was to go to Bolivia. And in fact, of our small group of 12, 8 did go to Bolivia. The other 4 of us, including our field supervisor Cam Nelson, chose to do our internships with Freedom from Hunger, a non-profit organization who sent us to Peru to work with some of their partners down there. And that was what took up my time from May 12 to August 13. Anyone interested in details can, of course, go back and read previous entries in this very blog. Which you probably know, since if you're reading this, you probably read those entries.
I came back in August, and immediately picked my job back up with Wells Fargo Bank, for whom I had worked from April 2007 to May 2008. I was very fortunate to get my job back there, and it was great to jump right back in and start working for a few weeks before school started. I also spent time finding a new place to live in Provo, and chose it along with Matt Manwaring a good friend and roommate.
When school started, things didn't work out with Wells Fargo and I ended up needing to find different employment, which I found within a month with BYU, working at the Global Service Desk, which provided technical support to the Church; to leaders, employees, members, and non-members. I worked that job from the beginning of October to the last day of the year, and it was an interesting and beneficial experience. I won't say it was my favorite job ever...but it was suitable and again, beneficial to me.
More importantly, I continued my studies in my penultimate semester at BYU, and enjoyed a Historical-Comparative Linguistics class, a Spanish Literature class, a Statistics class, an intro class to Communication Disorders, a Church History class especially, and also a new semester in Men's Chorus. Along with work, this semester turned out to be a pretty busy one. The Linguistics class and the Spanish class obviously were for my major (oh, and I also took a government Oral Proficiency Exam in Spanish and scored an Advanced High, next only to Superior. I was pleased, and also recognize places for improvement), while the statistics class and ComD class were in preparation for doing a Master's Degree in Speech Pathology. More about that in the next post, I think. My Church History class was fantastically interesting, and I felt my testimony in Joseph Smith and the Church grow immensely. I gained a much deeper appreciation of our heritage as a Church.
As for my social/dating life throughout the year, I dated a couple of girls at the beginning of the year during Winter semester, although not too seriously. I definitely thought about getting more serious, but just couldn't find it in myself to truly want that. When it came to Peru, it was close-quarters with the two girls on my team, but we were asked as part of the rules to not date - either with people in our group or with native people of the countries we went to, even members. It may seem like a controlling rule, but there was a lot of benefit to just focus on what we went to to, as well as not have to deal with any cultural issues that might've surfaced. And anyway, our team was so busy and traveled so much that we were pretty distracted with what we were doing. The last four months of my year saw a good amount of dating. I found myself interested in a lot of girls, and in a lot of circles where I could get to know new people. I think I did a good amount of dating. In fact, I found myself more interested in a girl than I have been in a long time. Unfortunately, it turned out that she had recently gotten out of a relationship that had been going for a long time. However, it was still a good experience, and it was refreshing to feel that way. I continued pursuing other interests, and getting to know lots of people.
The year ended with some good time spent with my family at Christmas and New Year's.
And the new year began, with enrollment in my last semester of undergraduate study at BYU! Actually, there was some debate going on in my head at the beginning of the semester whether I'd really graduate, or whether I might postpone, but by now I've decided to go ahead and graduate. I'll go into more detail in that in my next post. For now, I've started the last semester with two Linguistics classes, Phonology/Morphology and Syntax, an Acoustic Physics class, a Persuasive Writing class (my last general!), Men's Chorus, and another Church History class that I felt inspired to take after my excellent experience in my previous one. I opted not to work this semester because of my schedule, and because of the many things I want to accomplish as I prepare to graduate. I feel it was the correct decision, and so far my semester has been going very well.
2008 saw some great times. I spent the first four months of the year at BYU, in my third-to-last semester. Many of my classmates were actually in the last semester, and we were all working on our senior projects, which were 5000 word translations. (That was a step up from the usually 200-ish word translations that we were accustomed to doing.) I actually really enjoyed my project, and I translated the first two chapters of a manual of Hispanic phonetics, written by a professor who teaches here at BYU. I chose that book because I had taken a few linguistics classes by that point, and had declared a minor in Linguistics. I had also recently declared a minor in Music, but that doesn't have much to do with the present story. So, I turned out enjoying my project quite a bit. That semester, I also spent a good amount of time preparing for my upcoming trip to Peru. I had two prep classes in swing beginning the second half of the semester, one being a more general cultural-awareness prep class and the other being a more specific class in which we studied public health topics in preparation for our internship.
For you see, the internship that I had secured the previous November and December was a public health internship. It was an internship program run through the Kennedy Center, BYU's Center for International Studies. And if I may insert my opinion, its a pretty great center, as evidenced by BYU's numerous study abroad programs, internship programs, and field study programs. As many know, the original plan was to go to Bolivia. And in fact, of our small group of 12, 8 did go to Bolivia. The other 4 of us, including our field supervisor Cam Nelson, chose to do our internships with Freedom from Hunger, a non-profit organization who sent us to Peru to work with some of their partners down there. And that was what took up my time from May 12 to August 13. Anyone interested in details can, of course, go back and read previous entries in this very blog. Which you probably know, since if you're reading this, you probably read those entries.
I came back in August, and immediately picked my job back up with Wells Fargo Bank, for whom I had worked from April 2007 to May 2008. I was very fortunate to get my job back there, and it was great to jump right back in and start working for a few weeks before school started. I also spent time finding a new place to live in Provo, and chose it along with Matt Manwaring a good friend and roommate.
When school started, things didn't work out with Wells Fargo and I ended up needing to find different employment, which I found within a month with BYU, working at the Global Service Desk, which provided technical support to the Church; to leaders, employees, members, and non-members. I worked that job from the beginning of October to the last day of the year, and it was an interesting and beneficial experience. I won't say it was my favorite job ever...but it was suitable and again, beneficial to me.
More importantly, I continued my studies in my penultimate semester at BYU, and enjoyed a Historical-Comparative Linguistics class, a Spanish Literature class, a Statistics class, an intro class to Communication Disorders, a Church History class especially, and also a new semester in Men's Chorus. Along with work, this semester turned out to be a pretty busy one. The Linguistics class and the Spanish class obviously were for my major (oh, and I also took a government Oral Proficiency Exam in Spanish and scored an Advanced High, next only to Superior. I was pleased, and also recognize places for improvement), while the statistics class and ComD class were in preparation for doing a Master's Degree in Speech Pathology. More about that in the next post, I think. My Church History class was fantastically interesting, and I felt my testimony in Joseph Smith and the Church grow immensely. I gained a much deeper appreciation of our heritage as a Church.
As for my social/dating life throughout the year, I dated a couple of girls at the beginning of the year during Winter semester, although not too seriously. I definitely thought about getting more serious, but just couldn't find it in myself to truly want that. When it came to Peru, it was close-quarters with the two girls on my team, but we were asked as part of the rules to not date - either with people in our group or with native people of the countries we went to, even members. It may seem like a controlling rule, but there was a lot of benefit to just focus on what we went to to, as well as not have to deal with any cultural issues that might've surfaced. And anyway, our team was so busy and traveled so much that we were pretty distracted with what we were doing. The last four months of my year saw a good amount of dating. I found myself interested in a lot of girls, and in a lot of circles where I could get to know new people. I think I did a good amount of dating. In fact, I found myself more interested in a girl than I have been in a long time. Unfortunately, it turned out that she had recently gotten out of a relationship that had been going for a long time. However, it was still a good experience, and it was refreshing to feel that way. I continued pursuing other interests, and getting to know lots of people.
The year ended with some good time spent with my family at Christmas and New Year's.
And the new year began, with enrollment in my last semester of undergraduate study at BYU! Actually, there was some debate going on in my head at the beginning of the semester whether I'd really graduate, or whether I might postpone, but by now I've decided to go ahead and graduate. I'll go into more detail in that in my next post. For now, I've started the last semester with two Linguistics classes, Phonology/Morphology and Syntax, an Acoustic Physics class, a Persuasive Writing class (my last general!), Men's Chorus, and another Church History class that I felt inspired to take after my excellent experience in my previous one. I opted not to work this semester because of my schedule, and because of the many things I want to accomplish as I prepare to graduate. I feel it was the correct decision, and so far my semester has been going very well.
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