The Haggard Herald

Today's been an eventful day. To begin with, I donated blood at a Red Cross blood drive on campus. They got more than they bargained for though; in addition to my blood I gave them about 10 seconds of my consciousness and my lunch from an hour before. Not a good experience. I managed to make it to the snack table before the sequence of events unfolded. There's no major damage, I was bothered more by the awkwardness of the situation when I woke up and then got sick than I was about actually passing out or getting sick. I guess humility can come in a variety of ways. Next, I've been reading Keith Hennessey's blog over the past couple of days in order to learn more about health care reform (Joseph I hope you are proud of me). My new interest on the subject was spurred by hearing something in the news over the weekend about a reconciliation bill; I didn't know what that meant and so I decided I should learn. I don't have any new ideas to contribute to the t...

Last week I wrote a choral piece. (It was more like an exercise to see how well I'm understanding my speech science class actually.) My music class performed it today and I think it was pretty successful. Here's what I did: Background information first: So when you record your voice and look at it in an analysis program you discover that there's a ton a frequencies all combined together. There's obviously the fundamental frequency (the loudest and most noticeable one that is the actual frequency your vocal folds are resonating at) and the harmonics of the fundamental frequency are more prominent too. But then when all of that sound moves through your vocal tract some frequencies are amplified and others are attenuated. The ones that are made big are called formants. (more background info)Formants are very important. They carry the information that allows us to distinguish an /a/ from /u/. Trust me, its important. So I looked at the fundamental frequ...

Two of my roommates and I eat dinner together several times a week. All six of us used to do it but we had a change in two of our roommates between semesters and the other is home more than she is at our apartment. Anyways, Jamie and Ellen and I were eating dinner last night and one of our new roommates, Olya, was in the living room laughing about something or other with her boyfriend; the laughter lasted at least 5 minutes. We weren't sure what was so funny but Ellen suggested we join in on the laughter. I said "okay I'll start" and then immediately started the most convincing fake laugh of my life. It was so surprisingly realistic that all three of us had a nice long legitimate laugh to follow. :) Ah, college life--there's always something interesting to keep you going.

Some people say the darnedest things. My speech science teacher is one of them. He tends to think that most students in my major don't like the sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy & physiology, etc. That may be true. Many of my classmates prefer learning how kids learn to talk, how communication happens, sending/receiving information if you will. That's cool, but science is really where the fun is at. Dr. Dromey has at least one fan in speech science and that's me. Hopefully some of the quotes I've written down over the past month can give you an idea of just how funny this guy is. "Computers can be devious little things... you just have to act relaxed around it." -Dr. Dromey "It's alright I don't bite audiologists... unless provoked." -Dr. Dromey (in communication disorders all potential audiologists get put with all of us potential speech pathologists... they are sort of related but really entirely different fields......

I know you are so curious about what I'm learning in school and how I'm putting Mom and Dad's generous tuition payments to use. I know you all are anxious to learn and broaden your horizons also. Well this post is just for you--it's in the form of Q&A about some of the things I've learned and want to share with you. Q&A regarding the science of speech: What is pitch? It's how high or low a sound is (e.g. different notes on a keyboard represent different pitches) What is frequency? The same thing as pitch. It's measured in Hertz (Hz). (e.g. A above middle C on a keyboard is 440 Hz) How do you measure how loud something is? by it's intensity, in decibels (dB) What causes sound? movement, something has to create an vibration. that's what sound waves are... vibrations What makes speech sound? people's vocal chords. little muscles in your voice box make the vocal chords stretch so that when air gets blown through your wind pipe the ...

I tend to like the commercials during the Olympics. Some are inspiring and others are humorous (the two best kinds). Below is my favorite commercial from the opening ceremonies last night. Hope you like it!

This semester I'm living with two girls from Russia, Olya and Zhenya. I've actually been their visiting teacher at different times over the past few years and so we've gotten to know each other pretty well already. Zhenya is studying organ performance and she promised to take me to play the bells in the bell tower on campus. I'm looking forward to it! Olya is teaching English at the ESL center. She's usually busy making lesson plans and grading. They make great food. I should get some of their recipes and post them on yumbb. Julie and Sarah, maybe we can make Russian/Ukrainian food together next time I'm home. :) Zhenya is teaching me Russian. Today I learned most of the alphabet so that I can read and write. She wrote down some words that she already taught me to speak; I like it! She also wrote down English words using the Russian alphabet which was a fun practice as well. At the end she left me an encrypted message (Russian alphabet but English ...