The Film Noir Experience

Its 8 o'clock and I've been up for awhile. (Not the while I'd intended, thanks to the invention of the snooze button.) I have some stuff to read and some sounds to edit and I had to type up my homework from Syntax. You know, the usual stuff that you do at 7 in the morning on a Wednesday. (I also have to frost cupcakes for today's Speech Perception Lab.)

We've been discussing this homework between classes now for about two days (it was circulated via email over the weekend) and the second part of it seems to be bothering a number of us. (It is the sort of exercise where we have a rule, we have some sentences and we can either argue for the rule or against it.) I didn't find that part particularly troubling. The rule generates the sentences fine, that is no problem, but it doesn't also generate sentences in which modifiers can be added to a certain thing, and I find that inadequate because a certain tweak to how things are set up and another rule could handle it all just fine.

Not that I'm a syntactic genius. Quite the opposite, in fact. I suppose to balance things out, I did have some trouble with the (syntactic) trees we had to draw. (Oh, why is it that we're not just allowed to sketch sycamores?) In case you were wondering, down has many uses, including uses as both a preposition and an adverb. Fun. Regardless, I am still a little concerned about what I'm missing about the argument section.

Posted by Kate at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brain: Pinky, Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Yes, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the Paella?

--Pinky and the Brain

This is where I am right now. I have been having *the worst* focus problems. While, it has been awful, it has at least been entertaining.

For example, today I was reading about one of the many ways one can go about classifying/describing/theorizing semantic information. (There are many, don't look so surprised.) And, I kept getting to the end of a paragraph and having to go back to the beginning because I would get to the bottom and realize that I hadn't absorbed one iota of information about semantic theory because while I was reading I was really thinking about tacos.

Yes, tacos. (Which is a shame, because I'm not sure there are any good Mexican restaurants in town.)

This has been going on for some time now and its starting to be a worry. How is one supposed to write a book review or classify Dutch vowels when one is constantly being distracted like a magpie by a gum wrapper?

Posted by Kate at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, Tuesday I get up and go to school and its frighteningly cold. It would have been unfair, but hey, this is Buffalo and it is nearly November. While I was walking in the cold and the damp with some of my fellow students from one building to another we saw the first snowflake dance from the grey October sky to the ground.

Great.

I took an inventory of cold weather clothes when I got home and realized the following: I have no hats, gloves or scarves. Somehow, all of those things got left in Iowa.

Good thing I'm a knitter who just finished spinning the wool for my very own (although not in those colors) Jayne Cobb's big damn hat. *Sigh* Good thing its nearly November and I'm nearing the end of my first semester as a PhD student.

I figured the easiest thing that could be sorted out was the scarf. So, yesterday after Semantics I collected my friend Lena and we were off to the A.C. Moore (which is no Hobby Lobby) to look for yarn. I picked a skein of Patons Bohemian in Wandering Wines. (Its name is much better in French: Vins Errant. I'm using my 10 mm (US 15) sized needles, hoping that I'll just tear through it. I very well may. I also might have to go back to the store and pick up another skein.

I also picked up a couple of skeins of their new stretch sock yarn. I don't have a problem. I can quit any time I want.

Posted by Kate at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday morning, I get up, shower, enjoy a yummy breakfast of Penguin Puffs and coffee, looked over my Semantics homework, packed my lunch and the headed to school.

There's something special about my car. It would seem, if you don't disengage the alarm, even if you key into it and put the key in the ignition and turn it, you can't start the car. Knowing this, you can imagine my dismay when I parked, got my stuff out the pack and hit the button and nothing happened.

I hit it again.

Nothing happened. I smacked it against the back of my hand which sometimes helps and I hit it again.

Nothing happened.

Then, something happened. The car had been idle long enough that it set the alarm itself. Fuck. Only one thing to do now, lock it with the key and worry about it after Semantic Typology and Syntax. So, that's what I did.

Now, this was not without pretext. As I've said, sometimes its helpful to smack against the back of my hand. But, I thought it was just temperamental. And, the light was coming on when you pushed buttons, indicating that the battery wasn't, at least, all the way dead.

After class, I went out to the car to try to get into it. I set the alarm off. Twice. Fuck. So, I walked back out of the parking lot, thinking I could take the bus to the student housing nearest me and then walk to my place, pick up my spare keys and walk back. Walking back I came across Dora. Thank Goddess for Dora. She offered to drive me to my place and bring me back to campus. So, we walked. And, talked about Halloween (she invited me to her Halloween party, which is awesome, because I think this year only classicists will understand/appreciate my costume.) But, first, you troll the drug and electronic stores on campus to see if they have any batteries.

They have many batteries. None of them are the right size.

We get to her car. I get my keys. We get back to campus. Presto, I'm back in my car. Thank Goddess for sister's who remember to return your spare set when they're visiting. So, it has to be the battery, right? And, where do you get new batteries for this sort of thing? Best Buy, right? They install stereos and alarms and things on cars, right?

Not right.

Best Buy has one battery kiosk that advertises all sizes of batteries, including wee ones. But, not the wee size I needed. So, I had to find the radio shack. They did have what I was looking for. So, I took apart the keyless entry remote, replaced the battery and hoped for the best.

It worked. Now, if I could only remember what I did with the pieces I removed so that I could get to the battery.

Posted by Kate at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember when I used to do those fun Welsh updates? Ah, those were the good ole days when I only had to worry about which form of the preposition went with which pronoun or which mutation I should be using.

Now, things are much, much more complicated. I have five pages to read on Belgian Dutch vowels before I can return to my before-bed world of Robin McKinley's Sunshine. (Book group has apparently failed to wheedle a selection out of Jess, so until such time as I am informed of a new book, I am having to make do with borrowings from the E...because heaven forbid I go near the The booklist.. )

Just five pages on vowels...and I love sounds. Sounds are so fun and categorical and interesting if not necessarily easy to describe. Five pages and what am I doing? I'm trying to talk myself out of spending sixty bucks on The Breast Cancer Site. Are you familiar with this site? You should be. It is awesome. The breast cancer site has a button that you can click every day. It logs IPs. And, for every click they get, their sponsors donate money to help women who need mammograms get them. And, then they have a store that where they sell many wonderful things (like recycled silk yarn and banana fiber yarn) and the bracelet I'm currently trying to talk myself out of. It is for a good cause. But, its money I should be saving for things like food and rent. But, its a good cause. You see my dilemma.

They are part of a network of sites, including The Literacy Site whose orange bracelet I have long worn. (Open Books, Open Minds, yo.) I recommend that you should check it out.

Posted by Kate at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know when you have a dream and you wake up feeling completely transformed? Well, I'm not having that moment. I'm having a I woke up feeling great, made myself a great breakfast, was drinking a great cup of coffee and then, I read something and it occurred to me just what sort of implications the current financial crush may have for me, the lowly graduate student in Linguistics. And, I'm trying not to panic.

Then, to add insult to injury my iPod (which I use for extra storage because it is so big) has apparently decided it doesn't want to play nice with Windows. Oh, and its frozen and refuses to respond to any and all commands to turn itself off or unfreeze. I have to wait for it to run out of batteries and then plug it in and hope it doesn't fuck up again. The reformatting is fine. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything on the iPod that isn't someplace else as well, I'd just like to check before I tell my computer to fix the problem.

However, it has inspired me to do something that I've been meaning to do. My laptop is old, and I am trying my best to not have to buy a new one. This, of course means that I have to take really good care of the one that I have. Something I've been considering doing for a good two months now is buying an external hard drive so that I can move some of the non-essential stuff off of my computer and put it someplace else. This would free up space on my hard drive and would I'm sure, improve the quality of its running. I haven't yet because I've been shopping around. (I'm trying to be frugal. I'm not very good at it.) I think I finally found a good price from a website I trust. (Plus, its the exact same product I scoped out at Best Buy for a silly amount of money less expensive.) So, I hope this works out.

Posted by Kate at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been learning to spin. The idea of it was first brought to my attention by E. One can micromanage a project, getting all the entertainment one's air element would desire...one can pick out the fleece, pick out the dye, wash, card, dye, card, spin, ply and knit a project...all while compulsively feeling fiber.

I bought a drop spindle at the Knox Farm Fiber Festival and what I thought was going to be enough wool to make a pair of socks. I'm not sure at the moment if socks are what is going to come of my first attempt at spinning. It seems a little lumpy and inconsistent (read: designer) to make for a comfy pair of socks.

However, it may just make a nice Jayne Cobb Hat. (Although, not in those colors. I was intending to make socks, remember.)

I didn't buy the fleece, I bought roving, which is wool that is all cleaned and combed in the same direction and set to spin. I have this fantastic navy cashgora roving (its a kind of goat. I know this, not only because I looked it up, but because there was a picture of a goat on the bundle.) Previously, I had been spinning this fantastic shetland wool that was naturally grey and white.

My reward for being a good little worker bee yesterday was ending the evening by watching a couple more episodes of Spooks. Not only did I get to enjoy fantastic spy drama, but I also made it half way through the cashgora, which means I'm getting closer to learning how to knit a hat!

Posted by Kate at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is Yom Kippur and I do not have class tomorrow. I had a fabulous plan for this evening. After Speech Perception Lab and UB Knitters, I was off to the grocery store to get a frozen pizza, some mozzarella, and some mushrooms. I was going to tart up the pizza (with the mushrooms and mozzarella) more myself a glass of wine and watch me some Spooks. (Its on Netflix under MI-5). But, I can't just buy one meal whilst at the shop. I have to get meals for at least three days. So, I did. And, when I grabbed the bags out of the car, the bag with the eggs in it slid out of my hand and introduced itself to the ground.

Swell.

Now, this really isn't that big a deal. I bought the eggs so that I could use the leftover mushrooms to make a tasty egg omelette. I just wasn't planning on doing it tonight. Or, doing it on a nine-egg scale. That's right, I bought a dozen eggs and had to cook three-quarters of them tonight because they were already broken inside their lovely little insulated case.

The good news, I suppose, is that I got to watch the Spooks episode from the first season with Hugh Laurie in it.

Posted by Kate at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, my sister is up from Brooklyn. We've had two exciting days of fun. Yesterday, we went to the Aquarium in Niagara and then we had lunch in Canada overlooking the Falls. It was very nice.

Friday, after I'd picked her up from the airport and we'd settled in, we decided that we should go to see a movie. And, I had a moment of genius. We looked up the local drive-ins to see what was playing. We packed a little snack bag and we headed out to the theater.

Drive-ins are excellent. You get to sit in the car. You can MST3K a film if its awful and the only people that can hear you are friends. Also, this drive-in shows double features. So, for more or less the cost of one film at the theater near my house, we got to see two movies. We saw Eagle Eye and The Dark Knight. But, that's not what I want to talk about.

I have a well-documented topic-maintenance problem. I work really hard on it. Its just that its really easy to "magpie" me by showing me a shiny quarter and then we're talking about cheeseburgers or Rome or what kind of dye you should use when you dye the Shetland fleece you just bought instead of talking about who's turn it is to do the dishes. It is worse than that, though. I do it to myself. As it turns out, I made mad connections in my head so you say, "Ground hog" and the neural network that activated in my head includes animals and Bill Murray and romaine lettuce and the lettuce reminds me of something you said forty-five minutes earlier so instead of going with the "animal" or "Bill Murray" I go with lettuce.

I have always been thus.

On the way to the Drive-in, we were listening to a mix CD. On the CD was Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London. Beth and I sing along. And, then she says, "You know, this song makes me think of you." Qua? Beth? What? "Ya, well, I saw a werewolf walking down the street with a Chinese menu in his hand....He'll rip your lungs out, I'd like to meet his tailor...His hair was perfect." Apparently, Zevon's lyrics remind her of my inability to follow the normal chain of thought. I'm told this was a compliment. Now, when I hear the song, I have to giggle.

Posted by Kate at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That is right, today is the Indian National Holiday, Gandhi Jayanti. And, you should celebrate because Gandhi was an awesome man who had some really neat ideas. Also, he worked up Winston Churchill with such regularity that it is said that Churchill called him the "Stick Insect" and once even asked while Gandhi was on hunger strike, "Is the Stick Insect dead yet?" (That's right, I deal in hearsay and gossip. What can I say? I'm not a historian, I'm an Apprentice Linguist.)

Now, that's saying something since Mr. Churchill is the archetypal (British) Statesman. (And would obviously never stoop to such levels of uncouthness unless really, really bothered.)

Some suggestions for things to do:

1. Read some Gandhi. (Hind Swaraj, My Experiments in Truth, Any number of his letters or speeches.)

2. Be civilly disobedient. Host a sit-in protesting something that is ridiculously abhorrent that should no longer exist. Or, stop going to work for that reason.

3. Experiment in Truth yourself. I'm not really sure what this one means. Perhaps, you could come up with an empirical question based on the notion of "truth" and then conduct experiments to test the validity of the notion based on your question.

4. Create your own Homespun garment. Or, just spin. As a way to encourage more economic independence and to further upset the British machine by not purchasing British textiles, Gandhi started a homespun movement, even spinning himself. There are many a picture of Gandhi (and Nehru and much of the Congress Party) in Homespun attire.

5. Eat a bacon cheeseburger. Okay, this is absolutely inappropriate. It is fun, nonetheless.

Posted by Kate at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It occurs to me that in the next twenty-four hours my apartment will once again be clean. (Not that its dirty right now, its just messy.) If I am going to do general tidying, its really not that much more effort to break out the vacuum, the swiffer and the other various cleaning implements, solutions and accessories and give the place a good once over. Why will it be clean? Because my sister will be here this weekend!

That's right, I get to see my awesome sister and you do not (unless you will also be here this weekend, as in, you already live in town.)

Some of the things that may (or may not) be on the agenda for the weekend:

-Going to see the huge-ass waterfall in my backyard.
-Having Scottish Egg and British Film Night.
-Wine-Country visiting
-Fruit Picking
-General Good-time having.

Now, I could get just a little further in my reading of Daniel Dennett's The Intentional Stance, but I've been pretty busy today, so instead I'm going to drink some tea, do some drop spinning (more on this to come) and watch a film (Thank you, NetFlix for providing me with a revolving door of entertainment for a small, monthly fee.)

Posted by Kate at 08:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)