phantom stripper

I've been thinking a lot about language lately, probably because I spend such a huge amount of time doing German homework, and also because one of my history professors brought something to my attention: dictionaries don't instruct us on how to use language, they catalogue and describe how we use language from other preexisting examples. This began to bother me a lot when I was studying for the GRE because they ask you to identify a lot of little nuances associated with certain words, but that implies that words have concrete and permanent definitions, and I don't think that's true.

Additionally, I was talking with one of my coworkers about grammar and which grammatical errors people use all the time bother us the most. In thinking about it later, though, how do languages evolve other than through the changing grammar and word use patterns of their users? So I say maybe we should be a little less resistant to change, especially if change lets us express ourselves more clearly.

Also: the GRE is over, but I'm not really sure how to interpret my scores. Anyway, that's one small step toward completing my grad school applications, and that's a bit of a relief.

On a personal note: assuming the person I'm dating is dating multiple people (which I assume is true) is it a promotion or a demotion to have been moved from Saturday to Friday this week? I don't know.

Lesson learned

I thought I was supposed to take the GRE on Saturday, but it turns out my registration didn't go through, so I had to reschedule for next Thursday. At least that means I have a few extra days in which not to study.

Today is the first meeting of my honors thesis class, which I suppose basically means milling around with some assholes and trying to convince the honors program director to let me go to faculty recitals instead of lectures.

Something I've been thinking about a little:

Was there any kind of music being produced in colonial Latin America? I mean, of course there must have been, but I would like to know what it was like and how it related to the contemporary classical music being produced in Europe and how it evolved and presumably diverged from European music.