I tots love to laugh.

Last summer when I came home from college, my brothers told me my laugh had changed. I didn't quite know what to make of their comment. I thought back to my roommates and wondered if some of their laughter could have rubbed off on mine. In the end, I decided I had simply acquired a new laugh. Because after all, don't we all have multiple laughs? A happy laugh. A silent laugh. A that's-not-really-that-funny laugh. A i'm-really-stressed-right-now-but-somehow-still-laughing laugh. A rolling-on-the-floor-dying-of-laughter laugh. Every time I laugh this hard, I remind myself of the exercise video I'm going to make based solely on laughing. It will be the best abs work out ever. Think of that part in Mary Poppins when that old guy can't stop laughing and he floats up to the ceiling and they sing that song "I love to laugh." That's the kind of laughter I'm talking about.

Anyway, this laugh story is really just background to the epiphany I had a couple of days ago. I feel like every time we change living situations, i.e. moving in to a new apartment with new roommates, we pick up the same mannerisms/ phrases/ rhetoric of the people we are constantly around. This explains my change in laugh a year ago. And here at the Jerusalem Center, surrounded by the same 90 or so people every day, it explains the phrases I have suddenly found in my rhetoric.

For example:

Tots. Sups. Probs. Awk. I have Danielle and Nicole to thank for these words. Basically, shortening words to the first syllable.
Clearly. I'm not sure where I picked this up, maybe my roommate Taylor.
What I am trying to say, my friends, is..., i.e., obviously, this is problematic, reductionist, and dangerous. These all come from my Islam teacher, Bashir Bashir. Yes, his first name is his last name. These are his classic phrases.

How long will these words continue in my language, post-Jerusalem? Probs until some of my peeps start giving me strange looks.