dunhaven; ic community.

( Picture - cut for size. )

Impulse buy by me for $45 and a free tire rotation and oil change.

Me: Last semester of grad school, woo!
Also me: lol free time 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

if you know me, you know that i am not an all caps kind of person all of the time. i don't even use them for i's and names and starts of sentences. so please know that i do not use them lightly. but

OH MY GOD IDK WHO SENT ME THINGS TODAY BUT YOU'RE THE BEST IN THE WORLD AND FKSDNKJFS

brb not leaving my room for days. i have shiny things to paint and a rose to blush about.

I understand that Valentine's Day tends to inspire strong feelings, one way or another, but I always found its history fascinating. The Romans celebrated Lupercalia (yes, those etymologists among you might notice the 'luper' prefix, and yes, this is tied with a cultural perception of a roving, ungentlemanly man being referred to as a wolf) on February 13-15th. This festival kicked off with a ritual sacrifice of a goat and a dog, and once the animals had been skinned, eligible Roman women lined up to be hit with the hides by eligible men.

So, just like modern day dating, really.

Once the fifth century came around, things got a lot less fun: Pope Gelasius I combined a day meant to honor a martyred Saint with Lupercalia in a bid to clamp down on those pesky pagan practices, and a holiday mostly about sex became a holiday about romantic love. Shakespeare and Chaucer popularized the holiday in their works. A brief attempt was made to make the holiday embrace platonic love between friends during the Victorian period to soothe the hearts of unloved spinsters, but that doesn't sell chocolate and cards, and the holiday slowly evolved into what we know it to be today.

I'm ambivalent about Valentine's Day, one way or another. It's fun when celebrated with the right person, and it's just as fun not having to share chocolate. If you try to pass love notes in my class, go right ahead - I'm thrilled you're doing it the old-fashioned way, and not over text message.

[ Filtered to Family + Friends; feel free to assume ]

Sexist Hogwarts. Ring any bells, pop culturally speaking?

Because I'm a romantic, we've got a BOGO on oil changes right now at the garage, so why not bring your sweetheart's car in for a tune up?

(I'm very much just kidding. Please don't get your significant other an oil change for Valentine's Day, unless they're into that kind of thing or asked for it. But do bring your car in, before we get another winter storm or god knows what else.)

NADIA

I have a job for you, if you choose to accept it.

( Instagram Post! )

HANNAH, MO, CERYS AND JANE

I hate as I got back from work and a pipe had burst in my apartment at some point this afternoon. Water is turned off now and the church got someone out here but there's an inch of water in my apartment.


I could use some help? Cleaning things up? If you're busy, it's no big deal.

WHO: Alexis Parsons | Adam Parrish
WHEN: January 17, evening
WHERE: K Auto & Boyd’s.
SUMMARY: Alexis is working late and has an Adam memory. (BLLB memory, no recent spoilers)
WARNINGS: PG, some swearing, a little darkness. Nothing too graphic.

( He could breathe again. )

For those at the University of Dunhaven trapped in waitlist purgatory, my current available courses are as follows:

Linguistics 101 - an introduction to the scientific study of language with specific focus on the core areas of morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics and phonology.
M, W, F: 8:00am - 9:00am

Linguistics 210 - Introduction to cross-linguistic phenomena and methods of analysis in phonology, including phonological categories, features, alternations, and phonological models for capturing related generalizations; as well as syllable structure, tone and stress, and morphologically conditioned phonology.
T, TH: 1:00pm - 2:15pm

Linguistics 232 - Examines different languages in terms of their historical origin and their cognitive properties with a particular focus on "dead" and endangered languages. What causes language endangerment and death, and why does it matter? Can dying languages be revitalized? How are thought, identity, and culture influenced by language, and vice versa?
F: 5:30pm-7:30pm (I'm as thrilled about this as you undoubtedly are.)

As a reminder to my (current) students, the last day that you can drop the spring semester without penalty is February 29th.

To everyone else - hi, I'm Theo Salazar. Teacher, obviously, relatively new in town and still trapped by cardboard boxes. I'm likely to die in here. You have my niece to thank for getting me online.

( instagram post! )

( Instagram Post! )

There is nothing better after an impromptu trip than coming home to my favorite pizza and my favorite people. It's one way to make sure I always come back home.