"copyeditors are hideous"

At the monthly birthday party at the Physics Department, I was chatting with a few of the professors whom I'm on pretty good terms with, and I volunteered my editing services. I just said that if any of them ever needed any editing done on articles or book chapters or whatnot, to come find me and I'd be glad to do it. I told them I was an editing minor, and then they asked some more questions about that and my major, etc. The conversation moved on and a little while later, one of the professors started griping about some conflict he was having with an editor: he complained about how the editor edited his stuff electronically and how he hated that, how the editor took out all the uses of "new," and a few other things. The whole time I just sat back and chuckled to myself, because I know that as an editor, I probably would have done the same thing. Also, the professors were talking about duping editors by putting in Greek symbols that mean the same thing as another word. (Little do they know, however, that copyeditors are trained not to be duped, and so would perform the necessary research to figure out exactly what the author was saying, hence fixing the dupe.)

A little while later I was walking down the hall, and another professor (who wasn't there when I volunteered my superb editing skills) was talking with some colleagues and vehemently expressed, "Copyeditors are hideous!!" The professor then proceeded to tell the story of the aforementioned physicist and the problems with the editor. I was quite surprised at this verbally violent treatment of those of my kind, and kept walking, but turned my head around to look at the group of editor-abusive men; one of the professors in the group who knows I'm an editor and who was there when I advertised my editing caught my eye and laughed in a commiserating way.

I had no idea that the group of people who I believe serve noble missions in the fields of rhetoric, grammar, and just good writing, the group of which I eagerly, willingly, and proudly count myself a part, is so hated.

ps--If you have any need of an editor, I'd be more than glad to offer my "hideous" copyediting expertise.

graduation celebration!

It really doesn't seem like that long ago that I graduated from high school, but two years later, I'm no longer straight out of high school, and now I find myself coming home to go my sister's graduation. I was able to fly home on Thursday morning and spent four full days in Denver with my family. It was so much fun just to be home and spend time with my family. Here's the weekend recap:

Thursday:

• spent time with Rachelle
• went to TJMaxx with Mom to buy a graduation present for Emily. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find a super cute dress for $20!
• watched the season finale of "Law and Order"
  
  
  

Friday:

• graduation!!
• homemade hamburgers and buns with root beer floats for dessert at Grandma's
• watched "The Holiday"
  
  
  
  

Saturday:

• shopping at Macy's
• "Indiana Jones" with the kids and our neighbor Nick. Flesh-eating ants=sick
• rewatched the season finale of "The Office" ("Hazing is a great way to show a new employee that she is neither welcome nor liked"--ha!)
  
  

Sunday:

• church in the Applewood Ward
• hanging out with Mom and Emily while getting ready for dinner
• spending a bit of time with Rachelle because she came over for a bit
• ate a delicious dinner of talapia (spelling?) fish and lemon pasta--mmm!!! Oh yeah, and yellow cake for dessert
• drive to see some of the houses that Mom's boss builds--way cool houses
  
• movie night with just the family: "August Rush"--so good
  
  

It was pretty much an amazing weekend, and a taunting teaser for the summer. Basically when I left, I felt like the weekend was saying, "Ha! Sucker! Still 3ish more weeks of school--mwa hahahahahahahaha!!!!" Still a great weekend though :)

ready . . . break

Tonight:
study for big, scary Shakespeare test
study for not-so-big-and-scary editing test
do Wednesday's editing homework

Tomorrow:
study for big, scary Shakespeare test
take not-so-big-and-scary editing test
do Friday's editing homework to turn it in on Wednesday
vote for David Archuleta in the AI finals

Wednesday:
take big, scary Shakespeare test
turn in the editing homework for the rest of the wek
turn in take-home portion of not-so-big-and-scary editing test
pack for HOME!!
RS presidency meeting at 9 p.m.

Thursday: HOME!!!!!!!

Phew.

a first

As I've grown older, I've been more amenable to trying new things (e.g. racquetball, and please exclude "new foods" from this whole new things idea ;) ). So, last week some new boys in the ward were going around introducing themselves, and they talked with Katelyn and me for a bit. A few days ago, one of them (Paul) called me and invited me to the opera. I've never been to the opera before and I was impressed! We went up to Salt Lake to see Don Giovanni with Paul's roommate and his roommate's date. The opera was an intriguing mix of hilarity, scandal, and moralizing; the music was amazing, the costumes were great, the ending was just cool. A downside though was that the opera started at 7:30 and the final curtain call wasn't until 10:45...why a thirty-minute intermission?? Over three hours is just a little long. Overall though, I had a pretty fun time! I felt a little weird going on a date with someone other than Josh (Josh went home to Oregon for the summer :( ), but it was fun just to have an excuse to get dressed up and look pretty :) I would definitely be okay with seeing another opera sometime, and now I can cross "seeing an opera" off my list of things I've never done!

I have my priorities

For my Shakespeare class, I had to watch a film version of "Henry V": so long, so long, so long, so boring to me. I figured the Kenneth Branagh adaptation would be the best, so I went up to the LRC in the library, checked out the DVD, and camped out in one of the cubicles to watch the almost-two-and-a-half-hour movie.......................................................so long. Nearing the end of the movie during the denouement of the climactic battle scene, there was blood and carnage everywhere, and all I could think of was, "Man, were I those soldiers, I'd really want to brush my teeth." Ha. There are my priorities for you: clearly, it's definitely no coincidence I was born in 1987 and not 1487.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I just wanted to let you know I think you're amazing. And I'm completely serious. I see how you raise a family, cook dinner, sew, clean, work, care for your parents, be a wife, check blogs, talk on the phone to me, and watch "The Office" and I'm completely amazed. You're Wonder Woman to me. I know you often feel inadequate in all your responsibilities, but I want you to know I see you and see faith-empowered energy and a humble devotion to service and the Lord.

You've always been such a rock in my life. You've always been one of my best friends and I'm so glad that we have the relationship we do. I'm glad that I always look forward to coming home, and that I'm always sad to leave. I love it that I love spending my Friday nights in our basement watching shows from the DVR. I love drinking Cherry Coke Zero while you sew and I fold socks. I love it that I always love being with you. You've built a home that is centered in Christ, and you've helped cultivate a spirit in our home that makes me feel truly at home.

Thank you for teaching me the Gospel. I feel like I've always had a strong testimony, and I know that is because of you and Dad teaching me truth. You taught me to pray, you taught me of my divine worth, you taught me that in Christ I can do anything. You grounded me in correct principles, equipping me with the armor I needed to leave home and go out into the world. You taught me to love my Savior. You taught me to serve. You taught me largely through example, and I'm constantly learning through your own humble and righteous life.

I can't adequately express how grateful I am that our family is forever. Thank you for honoring your covenants and for working with Dad to make our family eternal. I can't think of any other people that I'd rather spend eternity with. Because of you and Dad, I feel an even increased desire to be worthy to go to the temple, to live the commandments so I can someday live with you forever. I miss you so much when I'm away, but knowing that our family doesn't part at death shortens the miles between us and gives me unending comfort.

I love you so much. When I say I think you're amazing, I mean it with every part of me. I see you and I see someone I only hope I can someday be. Thank you for being my mom; thank you for loving me unconditionally; thank you for loving my dad; thank you for loving the Savior; thank you for being the teacher you are; and thank you for letting me have ice cream for dinner on my birthday :)

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.

Love,
Charlotte Jane

I bless the rains down in Africa

I think that everyone needs a bit of excitement on the everyday level, and I think one of the most effective ways to do this is to make certain days special. Yesterday, as deemed by Katelyn and me, was Safari Day.

Safari Day started with a trip up to Salt Lake to visit the Hogle Zoo. So, my whole apartment (pictured below: me, Jenica, Emily, and Katelyn), and Katelyn's man friend Alex, all drove up to Salt Lake and spent the afternoon exploring the Hogle Zoo. It was the perfect weather for such an excursion, and we felt very comfortable temperature-wise walking around the zoo. Some of the animals were particularly active: the elephants were eating hay they stashed in their tusks, and we got to see the elephants take water through their noses and redeposit it in their mouths. I hadn't actually ever seen that before! There were way cute baby giraffes, and I steered clear of the chimpanzees (reference chimpanzee post). I started getting a headache about mid-afternoon, but it wasn't too bad.


It was such a fun day! I spent time reading a bunch of the animal plaques, which were pretty interesting, but because of my refined editing skills, I noticed several editorial errors. There was the inconsistent use of the serial (or Oxford) comma (that's the comma placed before the conjunction at the end of a list. It's usually optional, but I like it), incorrect usages of the colon, and inconsistency in capitalization and other sorts of punctuation errors. Alex commented, "Charlotte, if they had you working for them, they'd avoid people like you." So true, so true.


We headed home from the zoo about 5:30, dropped Emily at her house in Salt Lake, and stopped by Chipotle for dinner. I dozed on the way home, and then when we got back to Provo, we got our blankets and pillows and headed up to campus for the Indoor-Outdoor movie in the Wilkinson Center ballroom. The picture below features Katelyn and I waiting for the movie to start. (The people at the desk told me when I bought the tickets that the movie started at 7, when really the doors opened at 7 and the movie started at 8. Oh well.) This year they showed "The Lion King," (hence the Safari Day--this was all inspired by this movie showing). Tickets were only a dollar, and we brought our blankets and pillows to make ourselves comfortable on the ballroom floor. They had free pizza and popcorn, and we saw a bunch of new movie previews (including "Walle," "Indiana Jones," and--my most looked forward to--"Twilight"), and then they turned down the house lights, turned up the volume really loud, and the "Ahhhhhhhh sven yaaaaaa wada heeeee seda mohhhhh" began "The Lion King," one of my favorite Disney movies. It was so much fun to see that movie again and to laugh at all the clever Disney wit (hahahahaha). I laughed the whole time, plus I could easily quote most of the script and could sing along with all the songs--it was amazing.


So, Safari Day was a huge success. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon and evening, what more relaxing, enjoyable, and nostalgic experience could you have?? You should have a Safari Day sometime--it's just great!

you're killin' me Smalls!

So, if you've seen "The Sandlot," you know it's pretty much a kids' classic, and last Saturday (I know I'm posting about this a week late . . . ) my apartment went to the baseball field where they were showing "The Sandlot" on a screen on the field. It was so much fun! It's always funny and I think every girl who's seen that movie has a crush on Benny.

ps--the two girls besides Katelyn and me are our new, socially ept roommates, Emily and Jenica. from left to right: Emily, me, Katelyn, Jenica.

PSA: Chimpanzees

Next time you're out in your backyard playing with your children, just keep an eye out for unseen chimpanzees in your trees (especially if your home happens to be in Uganda or Tanzania). Chimpanzees are fast and they are heartless. Don't underestimate their blood-thirst. They may be cute in a creepy kind of way, but just say no. And run really fast.

I didn't believe it until I read it. See for yourself.

They're taking the offensive. Could this be a true battle for survival of the fittest??

peeve

I hate it when people don't bring their books to class, and then you, who lugged your required texts down to the basement of the JFSB, have to share with the people who didn't bring anything. One of the whole reasons I bring my textbooks to class is so I won't have to share with anyone else. It's awkward having to tilt the book just right and make sure that the slacker over there can read. Why can't students just bring the books they're supposed to bring? I just don't understand. I bring my Chicago Manual of Style every day to class--why can't you?

something just doesn't belong

Is this what May should look like? Probably not. On my way up to campus this morning, I could see my breath and there was frost on the grass. News flash: it's May 1.