I Thought You Were a Yankee

apparently, folks, i articulate too well to be from the south. at least, that's what i was told by a student yesterday on the boat. for some reason, a discussion was started about florida not really being The South, and i disagreed. until you get to extreme south florida (where it becomes largely hispanic), the state is just as southern as its neighbors. i think that most people who grew up in almost any part of florida, as opposed to migrating there from another (northern) state, sound just as southern as people who grew up in alabama or georgia. really, i was a little surprised when i discovered this. but just listen to the people reporters interview after a hurricane in florida - the southern accents abound, folks. i had one person agree with me. she's from california but has lived pretty much all over the U.S., and she agrees that a large proportion of floridians have southern accents. and then someone asked where i'm from. so, i gave them the whole "born in tennesee, moved to pensacola before i could walk, went to high school in alabama" spiel. then came the "wow, i thought you were a yankee" comment from one of the guys in my class. i guess my raised eyebrows invited further explanation because the student felt the need to explain himself with, "you articulate too much, um, er... you just don't sound like you're from the south." this was after he'd made some comments about speaking "american," after which i just said, "american, huh?"

the whole yankee thing sort of caught me off guard. a couple of years ago when i went to a conference at georgia tech, i was checking in, and i was wearing a university of south alabama t-shirt, and the girl who gave me my meeting agenda, abstract book, name tag, etc. said, "you sound like you're from south alabama." at the time, that sort of caught me off guard, too. but i accepted the fact that, since i've lived in the south (really the extreme south - if i lived much further south, i'd be in the gulf of mexico) my entire life, i probably do have a southern accent. but anyway, some of you can't really make a judgement on that, since my accent (whatever it may be) can't really come through on a blog.

yesterday's full day out on the boat was really quite interesting. many fish were killed (which bothered some), much fishing (like, with a rod and reel) was done (and this one jack crevalle was pulling three boys around and around the boat, like, they were doing laps trying to reel the thing in, and they eventually had to cut it loose), and i was able to offer much assistance with the critter identification. many people were reading harry potter and the half-blood prince (including moi), and i was able to finish the book yesterday. oh my god, i just couldn't believe it. i knew that someone major would die, but i didn't think it would be... the person who kicked the bucket. in that respect, i totally agree with deva. but, unlike her, i think that everything can be and should be wrapped up in one final book. i refrained from making any assumptions at all while i was reading (that's not to say i didn't imagine several possibilities - i just didn't think that any of my ideas seemed any more likely than any of the others). how much does it suck that we'll have to wait two years to find out how it all ends?