IPA and the Village Bridge

So this week, I tried to ask people I encountered about what makes them angry. The answers were pretty funny, ranging from:
“A really ugly mug with holes so you can’t drink out of it”
“A block of concrete would make me so mad”
“Beebop music”

One thing that’s always made me a bit mad is the USC village. Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful and I love spending time there, but I think it falls a bit short of perfect, especially when you’re looking at the bridge. The bridge between McCarthy tower and Illium is a prime architectural feature that is visible from many parts of the village. However, it is a fake bridge. You cannot actually cross into Illium from the bridge. The fraudulent nature of this bridge isn’t the only thing making me angry. One would think that even if they just made it for the outer aesthetics, they would at least design it to look like an operable bridge. Spoiler alert: they did not. The bridge meets Illium at HALF A FLOOR. Not the 1st floor, nor the 2nd, the bridge meets at a point in the middle of the two. I wonder what strange lapse in planning resulted in this feature in a $700 Million construction project being created this way. Or worse, if it were intentional.

Afternoon View of the Beautiful Freeberg Bridge of USC Village Editorial Stock Photo - Image of famous, bridge: 101528383

One other event I wanted to talk about was my friends arguing about phonetics as I was writing this journal post. Attached is a video of Reuben getting very very worked up about /I/ (IPA ɪ). He used his laptop to record himself saying words to prove that the sound doesn’t really exist. We figured out it was just because he was saying these words in his New York accent. Videos linked below:

Video One: ɪ

Video Two: angor