On Mastodon: hcommons.social/@ryan
This is placeholder for me to write notes and thoughts while reading and studying this introductory textbook.
Language is made up of discrete units in some sequential order. (p. 52)
In this years fiscal budget a Republican congressman, coincidentally from the area where my sister lives; attempted to completely defund the United States Peace Corps. It's an organization I have mixed feelings about now, but don't at all think it needs to be defunded. I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. My time was spent in Samoa teaching computers, English literacy, and coaching Taekwondo.
More recently the Peace Corps started a Virtual Service program. I got accepted into the Pilot program but ultimately left the program. This is where my struggle comes in. I was asked to help an association of South African Booksellers in Johannesburg promote literacy and access to information. Yes, yes, yes! This sounds amazing!
Then I got my Host Country National counterpart (HCN). Which in this case was two Americans from Georgia that moved there. They had one employee who was a Graphic Designer in India they found online. They also had a small grant that enabled them to hire some 50 workers at very low wages. Oh, and the association - it was meeting in their bookstore and publically called for using bookstores to revitalize and essentially gentrify the community.
I felt very concerned about this and without any clear path forward I decided not partake in the program. I felt too strongly opposed to helping Ex Pats gentrify a neighborhood and lead what should've been an Afrikaan story.
All the same, the work Peace Corps does is overwhelmingly positive. Every Returned Volunteer I know works in some degree of NPO, NGO, or Government work. We are teachers, volunteers, activists, community organizers, leaders. We spoke up, to the tune of over 10,000 letters being sent to congressional leaders - and the Peace Corps recieved its funding.
It got me reflecting a lot though on my time there, my career since, my father's passing, life, all of it. I started revisiting the prospective Peace Corps fellows programs and seeing if there were any affordable remote degrees I am interested in. I am most interested in Library Science or Linguistics. The power of words and symbols has been and will forever be my life's work. Not a single Library Science degree is currently in the Peace Corps Fellows program sadly. The University of Central Florida has joined the Fellowship program and its a degree in language but its geared specifically towards TESOL. I need to look into it and decide if its right for my interests. I don't know what the future holds, but I know I want to continue reading, continue advocating, and continue to better society and myself.
Heather is reading I Am A Strange Loop so I decided to revisit Godel, Escher, and Bach: An Enternal Golden Braid(G.E.B.). Both books are by Douglas Hofstadter and focus on what conciousness and self entail. I have full read I Am A Strange Loop.
Having now read and understood I Am A Strange Loop I am finding that G.E.B. is more engaging and easier to understand though still very complex.
"You're just arguing semantics!" A common phrase in the Waxberg house growing up with me. It's true, I do argue semantics a lot. Looking back had I known I would've studied either Semantics, Sociology, or Library Science. Words and their meanings is everything to my autistic brain.
Words are a bunch of symbols, symbols themselves also being units made up of smaller symbols like dots on a piece of paper. The meaning they have is imperfect and changes.
Fuzzy, neurotypical, language demands we question motives and meanings. Moreso, a neurotypical person conforms to social norms which embody language acquisition and usage. If society is capable of dictating taxonomies and classifications for an infinite number of categories than I would like to argue many of those categories are meaningless.