dunhaven; ic community.

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?

PRESTON & PHOEBE

So. It happened again? The levitating thing. Potentially unrelated, I need new plates? Okay, no, not unrelated. Totally, completely related. I levitated plates. Or they levitated around me. They levitated and I didn't imagine it.

January term ends on the 29th. In theory, this should be no surprise if you've been studying for your final.

Someone a great deal cooler than me informed me that a lot of you use Instagram to communicate. As someone with a perpetual allergy to social media of any kind (read: snobbery), what will having an Instagram account provide me that having a social media "journal" on this platform can't?

More specifically, I left Facebook due to my inability to keep myself from making acquaintances' great aunts cry over their terrible political opinions. Am I going to have to fight any of you on Instagram? Am I going to be approached by someone working from home who thinks I'd be a great fit for the bottom segment of a pyramid scheme? How are the privacy settings? For those of you still in school: is Instagram sufficiently uncool enough that none of my students are on it?

Thank you for any information you can provide.

January 22nd

PRESTON + THEO SALAZAR
PG | COMPLETE

( ’Theo, have you ever felt a little green?’ )

( instagram post! )

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.

Hello, friends! With it being two weeks into 2020, I've been working pretty steadily on my planner and getting all of my exciting dates for the new year sorted out. I like having things to look forward to, especially since I'm packing my last semester of undergrad full of credits, and one of those things I'm looking forward to is this five year anniversary that I will be celebrating in March. Thinking about it has me all full of warm fuzzies and since it's been a while since I did one of these open forum sort of things, now seems like a good time.

So, here's my question! What is your meet cute? AKA how did you meet your partner? Give me all of the heart eyes with your stories, please and thank you.

note to self: when you run around the park with your dog for four hours, he's going to be totally useless for the rest of the day. i'm pretty sure he hasn't woken up since we got home.

SORA

HEY. would you maybe want to hang out?

What's that? Am I freaking out that I lost two days of last minute getting stuff together in the shop before we open in less than a week? HAHA no definitely not why would you think that lololol

😬😬😬😬

That being said, Roll of the Die officially reopens on Monday! You should stop by. I promise I won't be frazzled.

Henry is living his best life in this weather.

( cut for photo )

Roads are bad so if anyone is in desperate need of a rescue, shout out - my jeep's basically made for bad terrain. At least before it gets TOO bad.

( Instagram Post! )

[Roller Derby Team + Boot Camp Attendees]

Happy new year, Derby Dames! Tonight is Week Five of Boot Camp, and I invite all Dames to come on out, even if you haven't attended other Boot Camp sessions because it's everyone's favorite... 🧦SOCK SCRIMMAGES🧦!

That means we'll be running through bout scenarios on the track- yes, the track tape is laid out, finally- and doing practice jams in socks for most of the night.

Not that anyone needs the reminder, but- no hard hits in sock scrimmages, of course. Fresh meat haven't officially passed their skills test, so we've still got to be gentle.

If you did get new gear over the holidays- looking at you, freshies- you're still welcome to bring it. We'll be on skates for a bit to warm up.

Two nights left after this one. Skills review and then tryouts. Start thinking about your Derby names! 🙌

TEXT TO PRESTON

-- I need to talk to you.

( Instagram Post! )

TEXTS TO ELI

-- I know she's young enough that you're probably like "lol no" but I got off work early and I'm available if you and Caty want to get out for a few hours tonight and need a sitter.
-- If no, can I at least come over for some baby cuddles for like 15 minutes? 🥰

TEXTS TO EFFIE

-- Released early on NYE, it's slower than anticipated and they over scheduled.
-- You doing the party?
-- if not, wanna hang? Was going for something chill tonight, but if you suddenly became an extrovert, lmk 😏

Can you get jetlag when you were only one timezone away? Because I'm pretty sure I am jetlagged and was only one timezone away.

HELLO and happy belated Christmas or holidays, though I suppose the second isn't over yet so I don't have to use belated if I go that way. It feels as though I've been gone for a year, instead of just a month. Is it really 2020 in only a couple days? That seems impossible. Pretty sure it was just March.

We're still in the midst of the holidays, so I want to know: what is your favorite holiday tradition that you partake in on your own or with loved ones?

CHASE

I'm really sorry to even ask this, but are you able to cast Mending, by any chance?

[...] Actually, I'm not really sure if that's going to help in this case, even if you can.

GABE

I accidentally destroyed my dresser. I sort of hid it under a blanket in my room and it's entirely not subtle, so if we could sort of steer Mom away from there for the remainder of the time she's here, that would be ideal. I don't really want to have to explain how it got that way to her.

( Instagram Post! )

[posted around midnight]

FRIENDS & FAMILY OF ELI & CATY

I was going to text various people, but there's a lot of you so just sending this in one group like this seems quickest when I had a moment. Sorry that this is coming out to you so late, but holy shit we're having a baby. It'll be a while yet and I'll keep you guys updated, but I just wanted to give you all a head's up.