Monthly Archives: May 2011

Gymanst Grips

Nationality: German-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student at USC
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: April 20th, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Gymnasts use grips which go on your hands for when you do bar work.  Do not touch someone else’s grips, it is very bad luck if you touched or used someone else’s grips.  They are molded to your hand so you don’t want to mess up the shape. Sometimes you write yourself a message on your grips for good luck.  I once wrote “go for it” on the grips.  Most grips are leather which gets supple and bendy.”

She thinks the grips are so vital to gymnast performance that it makes sense not to interfere with another person’s grips.  Touching really will mess up the shape so she believes this superstition is still around because of its practical purpose, keeping your grips in their original form.

Since gymnastics is a very individual sport, it makes sense that people are even more competitive over different aspects of the sport.  You can only rely on yourself, so you might be even more particular about anyone sabotaging you.  Thus it seems like a logical transition to make even touching other people’s items taboo since it discourages people from even coming near your items.

Winchester Mystery House Story

Nationality: German-American
Age: 19
Occupation: student at USC
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: April 20th, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“When I was in San Jose I heard about the Winchester Mystery House.  The place is famous and even has tours.  One friend wanted to go on to the house. The superstition is that the place has staircases that lead no where.  There also windows the look to no where. The widow who owns the house has a rifle fortune from her late husband.  She kept constructing on the house and thought it would ward off death. She was a very rich person.  People say you can see her ghost in the windows that lead to no where.”

She thinks this is a scary house that should be avoided.  She thinks its ironic that the widow is a rifle heir since rifles are used to kill and she tries to cheat death.

I believe this house may have been built for a legacy purpose, not just to ward off death.  Perhaps people in San Jose fear death more. Since San Jose is not the biggest city, people also need more attractions and landmarks, so perhaps people built up this story to give the place more significance.  If there were lots of historic buildings already in the town, people probably would not have singled out this old widow’s home and made it into a tourist attraction.

Dance of the lemons

Occupation: writer
Performance Date: April 23rd, 2011

“In Milwaukee, the so-called “dance of the lemons” occurs, where bad teachers are passed along from school to school in the hopes of minimizing their damage.”

The dance of the lemons is an analogy for passing off a bitter partner.  However, only lemons are dancing, so one is guaranteed to end up with another bitter partner.  Although Milwaukee is not known for producing lemons, it is a common fruit known for its bitter taste.  Perhaps this phrase implies that Milwaukee may have more than a few bad teachers.  Although many states have some poor teachers, it is bad sign that so bad teachers needed to be traded that people started naming the practice.

This quote is published on the following website and the article was written by Blake Neff

http://dartreview.com/dartlog/2011/4/23/the-superman-cometh.html

Names

Occupation: student at USC
Performance Date: April 3rd, 2011

“Students flooded Hospitality with emails to protest the reduced hours at TroGro, and Hospitality responded favorably within a week.

Kris Klinger, director of USC Hospitality, promised to hold discussions with students and administrators to determine whether or not TroGro will continue its 24/7 operations next year.”

By Rebecca Gao through the Daily Trojan

Student input is a healthy ingredient

Although the official name is for the 24 hour snack stop at USC is called Trojan Grounds, everyone at USC refers to the place affectionately as “TroGro.”  Like many things on college campuses, this name got abbreviated.  Students commonly abbreviate because our life styles are so fast paced and they are ready for things to happen immediately.  Being the internet generation, students instant message and text message their friends in short hand.  For example, people will type “brb” instead of be right back.  This slang is so common that it is expected for people to understand.  Thus, shortening names of popular locations is a natural next step.

Slovenian Chalk

Nationality: Mexican-Slovian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: student at usc
Residence: Arlington, Virginia
Performance Date: April 20th, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: some french

“My mother told me if I have an upset stomach I should eat writing chalk.”

The informant thought that her mother thought calcium is like the drug “tums” so same it is the same idea.  Her mother is Slovenian.  She though the chalk would be impure and gross so she never tried the chalk.

Slovenia is known to have many natural chalk streams in the country.  All the natural chalk must be in abundance so the people must utilize it as common resource.  Because of its availability, some people might have used the chalk as a calcium supplement.  I am not sure however, how calcium is supposed to make someone’s stomach feel better.