So I’ve realized how useless I become when I’m not in school. I must get into grad school! I must! I do best when I’m busy and have a full curriculum set up for me. I’ve been so idle these past two months that I’ve become depressed and very lazy. I had to move my GRE back until the day before I leave for Spain in September. My dad wondered if I’d be way too stressed to take it, but I’m not stressed out about Spain at all really. I actually got just like this before I went to France last year. I got all sloth-like and depressed and didn’t feel like doing anything! Well, I need to stop that! That is over! I’m going to sit down tomorrow and write out a draft statement of purpose! I’m going to make a list of the things I want to accomplish in grad school and in the future in the field of linguistics, a list of my weaknesses, followed by a list of my strengths, as well as what I can contribute to the programs to which I will be applying. All of the deadlines to apply are in January and I plan on getting everything finished well before then this fall! I want to be one of the first applications that ling departments receive for admissions for fall of 2010!

I’ve also changed my mind on which schools to which I will officially apply. They are:

University of Hawai’i at Manoa

University of British Columbia

University of California at Berkeley

University of Texas at Austin

University of Utah

Other than being lazy these past weeks, I’ve got to spend some time with Joan and Tom, some. I went with Joan and Megan (a mutual friend) to go to Baja Sol near campus where my friend Tom works a bar tender. Joan and I ended up seeing “The Hangover” after eating dinner and drinking margaritas. It was one of the funniest films I have seen in a VERY long time! I would have, however, rated the film NC-17 as it is pretty raunchy and inappropriate definitely for the two 12 year old boys that were there with their parents. I recommend seeing it if you aren’t too offended by some extremely outlandish things and male frontal nudity!

Last night we celebrated Joan’s 26th birthday at Brazenhead on 5th Ave. in Grandview. After I went to stay all night at Joan’s but ended up coming home early in the morning.

My niece, nephew, sister, and bro-in-law were here from Sunday night until yesterday! It is always so much fun to have them around! We went swimming on Monday and just wrestled and played around the majority of the time. I’m going to miss them again when I leave this year.  It is hard to believe that sometime I’m going to be leaving for a very long time and not get to see them! We will have to get a lot of use out of the webcam and my sister and brother-in-law will have to learn to start taking a lot more pictures and taking video of things I’m going to miss!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Depsressed, GRE, Joan Berning, Lazy, Made in Spain, Tommy Smiley, University of British Columbia, University of California at Berkeley, University of Hawai'i, University of Texas at Austin, University of Utah

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So, I’ve had no luck finding a job after applying at multiple places! I’ve come to realize that I will not be making any extra money this summer and that this coming year I will only be able to travel during my two small vacations and no more than that. I’m expecting to spend a huge part of what I have saved when I first arrive as I heard we don’t get paid for while after arriving in Spain. Somewhere around the end of November, maybe even December. I only have around 550€ in my French bank account so I really will need to depend on my parents to help me with buy some necessities before going.

With not having a job, I’ve been EXTREMELY lazy and tired. I haven’t felt like doing anything and that is exactly what I’ve been doing, nothing. This past weekend, though, my sister and brother-in-law got me hooked on this Facebook flash game called “Farm Town”. I’ve basically been playing it non-stop this whole week. Yesterday I started getting bored with it and today I’ve hardly played at all. The concept of the game is you are given a little bit of land and some money and you are suppose to try to grow and expand your farm by planting crops. Each crop takes a certain amount of time, anywhere between 2 hrs (for raspberries) and 4 days for pumpkins. Each crop is bought for a certain price and can be directly sold for a price, harvested by you and stored for a higher price, and even better, once you are at a higher level you can hire others to harvest it for you, store it, and it is sold for an even BETTER price! You obviously earn money when selling your crop and lose it when plowing and planting crops. You can also spend money by buying things for you farm like, fencing, paths, houses. Much of the things that can be purchased can only be purchased at a certain level. To move up a level, one must earn experience points and you do this buy planting, plowing, harvesting, and buying things at the store. The higher level you are the more money you can make and the better you can expand and build your farm. The game is overly addictive and I’m not one to become addicted to things very easily! Anyway, if you have a bit of time you may want to check the game out and see what it is all about.

I’ve decided that I can’t waste anymore time and that I need to prepare the things I’ve been saying I’ve been needing to do for the past few months. I’m going to begin my grad school applications and study Catalan and Spanish. I also scheduled my GRE exam date for the 26th of August so I’m going to devote 4 hours of study to that a day. I really need to be busy for my life to function correctly. When I’m not busy I become lazy and useless and I can’t reach my goals. I sleep to much and don’t go to bed when I can. I’m happiest when I’m studying at school and I miss school so much and can’t wait to get this year in Spain over with so I can go back and start saving languages. I’m currently reading “Language Death” by David Crystal and a thought came to my mind. If 25% of the world’s dying languages are found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, I should start learning Tok Pisin and Bahasa Indonesia, don’t you think?

Anyway, until the next time I get the urge to blog!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Bahasa Indonesia, Catalan, Facebook, Farm Town, GRE, Jobs, Language Death, Made in Spain, Money, Spanish, Tok Pisin

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So I’ve been home in the US for about two and a half weeks now. So far I’ve visited with my grandma and my niece and nephew a lot, gone to Chicago to apply for my visa, and had a family reunion.

I had originally planned on going to Chicago by Mega Bus last Sunday night. I would have arrived in the early morning, applied for my visa and then headed home late morning. The only problem was that I was so tired from traveling home from Europe I just couldn’t fathom spending hours upon hours on an overnight bus. I can’t sleep on buses. I decided I would drive as my parents are renting me a car for the two months I’m home and I have unlimited miles on it. I ended up asking a friend I made in France, Allison Walton, who is working Chicago currently if she had a place I could crash at. She ended up being able to offer me a guest bedroom which is ten times better than a bus seat or any couch or floor. I made my way up to Chicago last Sunday afternoon and arrived at Allison’s in the early evening. We talked a bit and I finished reading “The Kite Runner” and finally went to sleep. I woke up and drove to downtown Chicago and ended up being an hour early for my 9:00am appointment. Lucky me I was let in early and the whole ordeal took only about 15 minutes. They ended up not needing my French background check and a lot of the documents I had brought with me. After the appointment I made my way home.

I’ve been applying for jobs locally and some not so local. I haven’t had any luck finding any jobs as Ohio is one of the most unemployed states in the US at the moment. I’ve been extremely lazy and not felt motivated to do anything. I really need to get my butt into gear and start practicing my Spanish and Catalan. I need to write to my schools and find out where the heck I’m going to be living. I also need to study for my GRE and sign up to take the test really soon! I promise that tomorrow I will post a daily schedule that I’m going to make myself stick to for the rest of the summer or at least until I find a job (if I do find a job)!

This past Friday my brother-in-law had to work in Circleville so he brought Brady, my nephew, with him and dropped him off at my grandma’s. I went over around lunch time and we ended up meeting my mom at Pizza Hut. After, we dropped my grandma off at her house and I took Brady to go swimming at Dave and Bev’s. We had fun swimming with Dave and ended up going home and taking a long afternoon nap. This past weekend was the Borders’ family reunion. I will someday blog my family tree in great detail and you will be able to understand the mess that is my family (not that my family is a mess but there are a lot of us!). As has been the tradition for the past few years, the Borders’ family reunion is a one big camping weekend where one day we have one big potluck dinner. My sister and brother-in-law were not camping but my parents decided that we would take Brady with us to camp on Friday night. The location of this year’s reunion was at Thousand Trails park near Wilmington, Ohio. My parents had rented out a camper for two nights. We ended up going to Wendy’s for dinner and then getting to the park around 7:45. The camper was old but still quite nice. Not all of my family camps so not everyone was there on Friday night. The potluck dinner was held on Saturday evening. All 6 of my dad’s brothers and sisters were there even though not all of my cousins were there. Overall the weather was a lot cooler than last year and the weekend was great. It was a great time had by all and it was really great to see everyone even though a lot of them I don’t really see that much throughout the year anyway, even when I’m living in the US!

I don’t really have any more big plans for this summer except maybe going to Put-in-Bay on Thursday and there is a Rotary “Rebound” meeting in August sometime. We will see how it all pans out!

For now, this is your Midsummer Update from The Glossophile!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Allison Walton, Camping, Catalan, Chicago, Circleville, Family Reunion, GRE, Mega Bus, Put-in-Bay, Sanish, The Kite Runner, Thousand Trails, Wilmington Ohio

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So, tomorrow will mark one week since I’ve been home. I’ve actually accomplished a lot since being home. Sunday I have to drive to Chicago to get my visa on Monday. I was going to take the Megabus from Columbus to Chicago but I would have had to leave at 10:20pm on Sunday evening and I wouldn’t arrive in Chicago until about 6:30am. I just can’t imagine doing all the traveling so soon so I asked a friend I had met back in France who was an assistant who also lives in Chicago if I could crash on her couch Sunday evening. I’m still waiting to hear her official word on whether her roommates said it was ok or not. My appointment to get my visa is on Monday at 9:00am at the Consulate General of Spain at 108 N Michigan Ave. I plan on getting up early and going and turning in my application and then heading home right after.

This week, I’ve had to make the final preparations to apply for the visa. On Monday, I had to go to the doctor to get checked out to have a note saying that I could travel and teach in Spain for 8 months. Before I could do that I had to renew my driver’s license and my library card. I picked up a book on Romance Languages and also “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, which has been a pretty good read so far! On, Tuesday I went and applied for a background check. I met my best friends, Joan and Tommy up in Hilliard at Red Robin and then hung out with them on Tuesday night. I had been asked to give a presentation on foreign languages for a friend at her work at JCPenny on Wednesday, so I got up and did that and then came back to Circleville and hung out with my niece and nephew in the afternoon. Yesterday I picked up my police background check and pretty much worked on updating and recovering my external hard drive that had crashed. Today I went and applied for two jobs, one as a security guard at a company called Forward Air and the second at Verizon Wireless behind our house! I do hope I get a job soon as I’m quickly running out of money!

Tomorrow, I’m going with my parents to my cousins’ joint graduation party down in Cincinnati and next week we have a family reunion! I’ve made a goal to finish “The Kite Runner” and then read “The Simarillion” and “The History of Middle Earth” this summer before I leave for Spain. I also need to practice my Spanish and continue with my lessons in Catalan. I need to study for the GRE and take it mid August and work on getting my statement of purposes ready and e-mail some professors and ask if they would be willing to write recommendation letters for me for grad school!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Catalan, Chicago, Forward Air, Grad School, GRE, Joan Berning, Made in Spain, Megabus, Spanish, The History of Middle Earth, The Kite Runner, The Simarillion, Thomas Smiley, Verizon Wireless, Visa

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My plane from Chicago to Columbus ended up being delayed another three hours (two hours + one more after getting on the plan). I ended up arriving in Columbus at 12:40am. When I arrived my parents and my nephew, Brady, were there waiting for me. I was so gross and tired. We went and got my luggage and headed home. I told my nephew that if he didn’t fall asleep in the car on the way home I’d give him all the Euros that I had left over, which was €9.90. The reason I told him this was that he looked SO tired and I told him that he would definitely fall asleep on the way home and he told me that he wouldn’t…so I made him a bet.

Today I woke up around noon to my nephew telling me that I had to get up and eat lunch! We had three-ways (a Greek style chili dish with spaghetti and cheddar cheese) with cheese coneys! It is one of my family’s favorite things to eat, we have it like once a week, usually. Since my nephew came to meet me at the airport we had to take him back home. After lunch we went and picked up my grandma and then drove the hour and a half to Christiansburg where I got to see my sister, brother-in-law, and my niece, Rylee. It was so fun to play with my niece and nephew all day. It was like nothing had changed and that I had not been gone for the past 9 months. We had dinner at Frisch’s and then we headed home back to Circleville. I went over to our family friends Bev and Dave’s to visit them and Nicole, their daughter.

I love being home and like the last time I left, nothing here has really changed and this time it was a lot easier to just come home and feel RIGHT at home!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders



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Hey! So, I’m now back on American soil! I’m sitting in Chicago O’Hare Airport at the moment. I decided that since I have a good two hours before I leave that I will update my blog now as I don’t know when I’ll find time to do it once I’m home back in Circleville. The day started out at 5:30 am (11:30 PM EST 7/3/09) in my hostel in Paris. I had reserved a taxi online to come and pick me up at my hostel and take me to Charles de Gualle Airport. The meter was already at 15€ when the dude arrived (this after two taxis passed me empty before my reserved one arrived). I should have ditched my taxi date and started with a fresh 0€ from a passing taxi!

Anyway, I arrived at CDG at 7:00am and went and found where I had to check in. I waited for a good hour and then got in line once check-in started. My bags ended up being 12 kilo overweight. I was flying with Aer Lingus who let’s you have two bags equaling up to 36 kilo together. They failed to tell me that if I had removed 2 kilo from my bags and put it in my carry-on that I would be charged 40€ less than the €80 that I ended up paying for 12 lousy kilos (really 40€ for TWO lousy kilos!)

Anyway, the check-in desk people were just really disorganized and I think one of the girls was new as it was taking up to 20 minutes per passenger at times. I boarded the plan and sat there for an hour an a half. Our flight ended up leaving and hour and a half late because the check-in was so badly done and people were being held up at customs. Luckily my connection flight in Dublin was three hours after my first flight was supposed to arrive.

So we finally departed from CDG, Paris and flew into Dublin where it was raining and chilly. I had to go through the US Customs there in Dublin as they have their own special “US territory” within in the airport. It was pretty nuts. I was unaware that they did this. It made it tons easier upon arriving in Chicago. I was seated in the VERY VERY back of the plane from Dublin to Chicago. I ended up moving a few rows up into an empty pair of seats. This was great as I had the two seats to myself the whole 8 hour and 20 minute flight! Aer Lingus is an exceptional airline and their in-flight accommodations and entertainment was amazing! They have these remote controls with game controls built into them so you can sit and play games. I played Sudoku, Battleship, Who wants to be a Millionaire? (although it was the British version and they kept asking British questions and I never made it to $32,000!)

Anyway, it was crazy when I arrived to O’Hare, it was a mad rush to get my bags and to check them into my next flight to Columubs. I’ll be arrive in Columbus around 10:23pm EST (4:30am France time). It has been a long day! My parents were going to surprise me by bringing Brady with them to the airport but I actually called them on skype and my mom goofed by talking to Brady and I could hear him in the background! I can’t wait to get home!

I can’t wait to see you all either! Hit me up on my phone! (tomorrow as the voicemail is still set!) The cell number is on Facebook!

P.S. NOTICE this post is categorized under “made in the USA” for the first time in 9 months!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Aer Lingus, Battleship, Brady, Charles de Gaulle, Chicago, Chicago O'Hare, Dublin, Facebook, Paris, Sudoku, Who wants to be a Millionaire?

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Wow! The internet is really really scary! By putting my name into google search I found two old blogs! One was going to be a Basque Tutorial blog but I deleted it and the other I’m working on trying to get rid of, but I need to figure out what e-mail I used to create it! The funny thing is some of the posts that I wrote on there. I wanted to copy and paste one particular post, Titled, “One year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds “.

”

Well, it has been one year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds (roughly) since I arrived home from the most amazing experience of my life. A lot of people were able to come home and forget Belgium ever happened. Some were able to hold it in their memory and move on with life. Some of them, like me, have thought about Belgium almost everyday of their life since coming home. How can I not? What has happened in the past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds to make Belgium only seem like a memroy? Nothing. When I got back from Belgium I had to start looking for a job. My third host sister came and stayed with us for a week and then went home. I found a job in a plastic molding factory where I worked about 6 weeks until I started school at Columbus State Community College. I got a job working at Abercrombie and Fitch Customer service and I lived about an hour away from both job and school. I have lived with my parents for the past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds. All of my highschool friends are gone at school and I lost touch with them while I was in Belgium. Life has not been so exciting this past year 6 months 12 days 21 hours 18 minutes and 9 seconds. A lot has happened really. My parents and I have grown closer over the past few weeks and I lost my job at A&F two weeks ago. So now I am just sitting at home doing nothing with no real friends to do anything. I did get accepted to OSU which I knew I would and will be starting at the end of next month. On Tuesday I have to go to orientation and meet with and advisor and take my French and Spanish entry exams. The thing that is such a pain in the a** is that I am pretty sure I will test out of the prerequisite courses for both French and Spanish. So I will not really be able to schedule on Tuesday because I will still have to meet with both individual departments and apply for Majors. Then I will have to take the EM credit exams to get credit for the courses that I pass up! I am glad I am doing this now instead of waiting next fall to start with all the incoming Freshman. I need to find a job here quick because I cannot pay bills with my savings. I am definitely going to work at my dads factory this summer and will make a butt load of money there. I need it. It is going to get rough over the next few years paying for OSU. Plus I want to live on campus. I want to experience the REAL college dorm life. I mean come on. I have hardly any friends that I can actually do anything with on a regular basis. All of my friends live at least 45 minutes away and if I want to do anything it ends up costing a lot more than it has to. Maybe I am just going through a depression period and I suppose it feels good to write. I miss my Belgian mates. I miss Diana, Aaron, Katie, Drew, Heather, Mary, Karla, Victor, Caitlyn, Kate….I miss all ove them SO much especially Diana! Sorry guys…but Diana and I are soul mates! lol I really beleive that. I was reading my journal today and I was reading about how Diana and I wanted to learn Swedish and we went to Charleroi to look for a Teach Yourself Swedish book, what dorks! The thing I am really struggling with I cannot really discuss on a public blog that just anyone could read! It just would not be right! I am sure everything will work out fine I am just stressing a little because of school, because of this issue I am having with my parents, and plus being lonely!

Bueno voy a escribir un poco en español. Hace dos trimestres que comienzo a aprender el español. Es facil para me por que es como el francés. Ahora estoy tratando de estudiar el portugues que es como es español. Tengo que practicar mi francés, por que haces un año 6 meses 12 días 21 horas 18 minutos y 9 secundos que lo hablo courammente en una situación de todos los días!

Ben aujourd’hui on a fêté l’anniversaire de ma soeur. Mes granparents, mon nieve, mon beau frère et mes parents ont mangé du jambon avec des pommes de terres au fromage, des haricots, et du pain. Après on a pris du gâteau à la glace de Dairy Queen. Il fondait mais ça va on l’a tout mangé quand même. Putain, je travaille toujours sur mon livre des memoires de la Belgique. Je fais seulement les pages de ma première visite de Liège. J’ai encore 8 mois à faire! Je me suis dit que je l’aurai fini par le fin de mars!

Speaking of March I turn 21!! Yay I will be a real legal adult here in the US! I need to find some friends before then to go celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate dance to the music! Well anyway that is all for now.”

This post is stored in the category of Made in France, Made in USA, Personal Post, Written in English, Written in French, Written in Spanish and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Basque, Belgium, Diana Barger, Nostalgia, Old Blog, OSU, Spanish

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