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one week down Driving to the east side of Milwaukee in summer is a definite change of pace from the other three seasons. First of all, there are more people outside doing things, which has an up and a down side to it. I like looking at the people as I drive by, but at the same time the speed limit has been lowered by ten miles per hour and that makes the drive take that much longer with or without people to watch. I keep wondering if the speed limit will change in time for the fall semester. Now that I think about it some more, it must change sometime soon, because I don't remember it being that low last October when I first started taking that route. ... This afternoon my professor gave what I thought was a great theory as to why very few Americans bother to learn another language. Since his field is linguistics I think that his opinion has some weight to it. He started by saying that as a whole the American people lack a cultural identity. About the only thing that they as a people share is the English language or to be more precise the flavor of it that we speak. By no means do the British speak the same version that we do and I am sure that some of them look down on us because of it. Now if every American speaks English then there is something that brings them together. They have something in common that can unite them. Of course English is not the official language of the country, but people start to get nervous when bilingual laws are made or other factors seem to threaten English as the dominant language. This may not be the most rational way to see things, but from what I have seen in my day to day life it is very true. He then went on to say that there are certain things that a person is expected to do to meet the role of middle class American citizen and being able to speak more than one language is not one of them. It isn't expected of them nor is it really encouraged. A good model American speaks English without a hint of an accent and that is certainly passed on to recent immigrants. A new citizen wants their children to be accepted as Americans and not to be seen as foreigners. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that this might be a generalization, but I think that there is some truth to it. Even when people do speak a second language, they tend to do so within the privacy of their home. My professor also said that as people get older they become more inhibited and less open to new ideas and that also plays a factor in people not trying to learn a new language. A small child has no problems making funny noises, but an adult is less likely to enjoy hours spent making what to them sounds like gibberish. ... Since my class ends late in the afternoon, I get the pleasure of experiencing rush hour traffic four days a week. For some people this is an accepted part of their lives, but since I work third shift it usually has little effect on me. With this week all of that has changed and I am surprised that I am taking it as well as I have these past four days.
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