My computer contracted a virus yesterday that blocks me from booting up in safe mode, so I have not been able to get rid of it.
Also, its been randomly turning itself off. I may have actually killed this machine. And, I only really needed it to work for 6 more weeks. Life just took an unpleasant turn.
My computer contracted a virus yesterday that blocks me from booting up in safe mode, so I have not been able to get rid of it.
Also, its been randomly turning itself off. I may have actually killed this machine. And, I only really needed it to work for 6 more weeks. Life just took an unpleasant turn.
So, I don't always get a lot done when I study with the TV on because I get sucked into yelling a Fox News or cheering on the Phillies or looking things up about pulsars and quasars on the internet after watching a special on The History Channel.
I justify this by telling myself where you never know where you'll find inspiration. Or, what you'll learn. Like, the Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. Or, that pulsars hum. Well, really its that they put out radio waves which come straight through space and dust and time.
47 Tucanae has 22 pulsars. Its like a celestial choir.
So, my school books have been trickling in, slowly, as I've bought them from the internet. One of the classes I'm taking is a Corpus Linguistics class (I'm learning Perl!) For the class, there was one absolutely optional books. Two books who are optional if you've worked with UNIX or Perl before (I bought them) and one required book. Guess which order I've received them in? Yup, that's right. In the exact opposite order in which they would have been useful.
Today, I signed in to see the status of my books that I've not received, so I'd know when to expect them. Apparently, I Didn't even order that last one. The one that was required. The one I should already be three chapters into. Thankfully, I have friends and know how to look sad and pathetic and have been able to keep up with the reading. Further good news, thanks to the internet, I can expect said book in 4-7 days. Hooray!
So, I have come into the possession of a bicycle and have decided that since I do not live all that far from campus I should start riding my new (to me) bicycle to school. (Its nice that school has started so that I'm not just on campus tooling around the library coming up with things for myself to do or read. Although, I did really enjoy my Summer of Proust.)
The day before school started, I went out and bought my school supplies, which this year included a helmet, lock, and pump so that I could inflate my tires to the proper pressure. (I would also like to acquire a basket, so that I could stop carrying the old backpack I've had since undergrad and instead carry, full-time, my new fancy-pants school bag I got when I was back in Iowa. I'm still on the look out for a nice one.) And, then when I got home from work I took myself for a little ride. And, while I was riding, it occurred to me that I probably haven't ridden a bike (that wasn't stationary) since I lived outside of Kansas City. (For those of you at home keeping score, that's eleventy-thousand years because I am Methuselah.) Lucky for me, "its like riding a bike" is an adage for a reason.
Monday, I had to be on campus by 9, so I left around 8:15 because I didn't know exactly how long it would take and I was shocked at how quickly it took me to get on campus. I also became aware of a hill that I previously had been unaware of. (Nothing like the Pentacrest, for the Iowa City folks out there, but enough for this little fatty to being huffing and puffing after it.) Tuesday, I went in early to get myself situated. It was great. I biked 3 of the 5 days (the other two days I didn't because of assorted off-campus errands that needed to be run prior to my appearance on campus.)
Did I mention it was great?
So, I took myself on a little recreational bike ride this evening. It was also great. I explored the little residential neighborhood behind my complex. It was nice. And, it reminded me of this book I read awhile back. is a book about an overweight guy who keeps to himself who, after a family tragedy, ends up riding his bike across the country to identify his sister's body. I enjoyed it.
I am finished with the coursework for this semester (I don't know if any of it was any good, but I'm done with it and that's what matters!) My second semester as a PhD student is done and dusted. Earlier today, I was feeling a little like a Rock Star. I'd finished everything. I'd printed the last of it out and was all ready to go hand it in. I'd showered and my hair was up in a twist with pencils sticking out of it. I put on some makeup. Really, a rock star. Or, at least as close to a Rock Star as a PhD student can get.
So, I pack everything up and head to campus, I go to submit the last of my final papers and as I'm reaching to put them into my Professor's mailbox I have this feeling I've done something terribly, terribly wrong. I stop. I think about it. I look over everything again and it hits me. I'm about it hand something in that doesn't have my name on it anywhere. A title. A date. No name. Great. So, I have to run back down to the library and hop on a computer so that I can print out a new title page so that the work can correctly be identified as mine. That pretty much killed the Rock Star vibe.
In celebration of being done, I'm going to a Lab Party tonight. It should be pretty fun.
But, the best news of all: Now that I'm done with the semester, I can reacquaint myself with Booklist '09. I started The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber in January. I have no good excuse for why I am just now getting back to it. Maybe all that Sookie Stackhouse nonsense I read? Or, maybe it was trying to keep up with the reading in three seminars and two labs? I don't know. What I do know is that it is really cleverly written in the first person and my bookmark indicates I only got about 31 pages into it. I think I'm just going to start over. I'm very excited about it.
Also, Happy Mercury Retrograde!
You don't ask the right question, every answer feels wrong. --"Hell Yeah" by Ani DiFranco
Let's think of ideas as dominoes. You have a bunch of them. They're not particularly related, or at least, they are not related in a way that is immediately apparent. But, they are all interesting, so you set them up one by one. Once they are all set up, you hit the right one and everything falls into place. You follow each domino in the chain and the picture that you were setting up begins to emerge. And, its pretty wild. Pretty amazing. You think, "Why didn't I see it before?"
I just had that moment. You ask the right question, you get the right answer. I can still only see part of the picture, but the part that I can see is worth looking at. (Its also worth investing in some more dominoes.)
This lovely tree diagramming a sentence that means "Elizabeth read a lot in Welsh." is brought you by these lovely people. I won't tell you the embarrassing story that involves someone telling me about the site, I'll just sum it up in the sentence: I just did a lot of stupid things all in the same PDF file.
I have a job interview today. I'm pretty excited about it.
So, about a month ago, I had the opportunity to first watch a referential communication task and then to participate in one. The task was adopted for use in linguistic studies from a social psychology task called the Krause task. More or less, one person describes something to the another person so that the other person can pick the right card or photograph or novel object or what have you. In the morning, I watched a psychologist describe tangrams to a linguist while a student of Communication disorders listened in and tried to identify the same tangrams. It turns out, we do better at things when we can ask questions and in general participate in the "naming" of novel things. (The linguist and the psychologist were allowed to discuss the figures.) Later in the day, I described a set of photographs to someone who had to match their set to mine. We weren't allowed to discuss this time, I just had to describe the photo in as much detail as I thought necessary so that the other participant could pick the right photograph. We got them all right. It turns out, in pretty much line with hypotheses about English speakers, that I mostly use intrinsic and relative frames of reference when I'm describing the orientation of objects. (Intrinsic in that the object is the thing that the orientation is projected from and Relative in that I was the thing that the orientation was projected from.)
Now, why would anyone want to make people play these little games? Lots of reasons. Its easier to get people to want to participate (and to do well) if your task is fun. If you want to study discourse, you need to get people to talk. If you want to look at, say, spatial frames of reference, you need to get people to talk about things that are oriented in specific ways in space. Or, if you want to study something else that can be done in the form of a matching game.
So, I don't really have anything to say. I've been reading and working on coursework, preparing for my last week of classes and the deadlines that will follow hot on the heels of those last classes. Things are winding down. Dad and I have been hanging out today, working on various things and watching football and various other holiday programming.
Later this evening, we are going to meet Beth for dinner. She's taking us to a Cajun/Italian restaurant near her store called Two Boots. Apparently, its a place where there is sometimes live music, and the website is pretty cool. And, check out that menu: Cajun fish and chips, fried chicken, pasta and pizza? At the very least, it will be interesting.
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.
Brain: Pinky, Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Yes, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the Paella?
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?
I have discovered that taking a number of snacks with you is advantageous if you are going to be gone all day. It doesn't matter where you are going, it is just a good idea to go prepared. And, one of my favorite things to snack on is fresh fruit. After you've eaten the piece of fruit you get a little sugar buzz, you're ready to go. (Plus, you're getting a whole mess of fiber and phytochemicals.) While there are some fruits that I find to be good a little under ripe, I've noticed that most fruit has about a forty-eight hour window in which it is perfectly ripe and entirely delectable.
However, this is problematic.
Traveling anywhere, even just to school, with a piece of perfectly ripe fruit is a recipe for disaster. Take the pear I had for lunch today. It was fine in the morning, lovely and firm and green with that lovely pear aroma wafting off of it. And, by lunch, it was a little bruised. Just imagine how it would have looked if I had kept it for a mid-afternoon snack. Its skin probably would have started to peel off where it had been bruised and that would have caused a sticky mess. I hate having to clean up sticky messes in my backpack.
So, while I was eating my pear today I brainstormed of ways to keep this from happening. The way that seems to be the easiest would be to put all future pieces of fresh fruit in its own tupperware container. But, that means that I'd have to carry around extra plastic all day. Perhaps I will try wrapping it in foil. While this won't stop the bruising, it will certainly help with the mess.
So, I'm sitting down after dinner to turn a few rounds on my sock before settling in to see how much reading I can get done while watching Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal make tennis look easy and there is just something wrong with the sock.
First off, I have to have cast on one too many stitches, so there is an irregularity in the pattern at the end. Secondly, they just look enormous. At first, this is normal. When you cast on sixty-four stitches in the round, I have discovered that I feel like I've done something wrong for the first twenty rounds or so because it seems huge and amorphous. This is because at the beginning it doesn't have a shape; you are making the shape. Eventually, you settle into the rhythm of the pattern and it settles into its shape and everything goes smoothly.
But, this just wasn't happening with my Wasp Woman sock. Instead of settling into a familiar sock-y shape, it seemed to be growing. So, I counted the number of stitches I'd cast on again. Then, I counted them once more for verification. If its not the stitches, I reasoned, because I had just verified that I had the correct number of stitches (plus the goofy one messing up the pattern) and it wasn't the gauge because my knitting is tight and consistent (since this is my fourth sock since moving to Buffalo, it should be pretty consistent by now.) It had to be the yarn. So, I grabbed the sleeve and I looked at it again.
100% cotton. Check.
4-Ply. So far, good.
Worsted Weight. .........
Oh, I'm an idiot. In my haste to find a color that I liked and that would be appropriate, I picked up a whole ton of cotton yarn that I'm not going to be able to use for its intended purpose. Gah. (Unless I decide to start knitting socks for giants.) No wonder it seemed so stiff and so bulky while I was casting on!
The good news is, I believe there is something further down in my Ravelry queue that I can make in Wasp Woman yellow instead of lime green.
Sometimes, I think you can feel bad news coming. Like, its just over the horizon and it casts a shadow and although you can't really see it, you know its there.
I have been joking for awhile now that I'm waiting for a rejection letter. The good thing about joking is that you get the opportunity to consider things that are too scary or too sad or just absolutely inappropriate and that it wouldn't do to consider in a serious fashion.
So, I didn't get the scholarship at Cardiff for which I applied. Since that's the only thing I've interviewed for this summer, I'm pretty sure that means that I'm not actually up for anything else. So, now I'm back to the beginning, applying for grad schools all over again.
One of my favorite films is the Princess Bride. Its funny. Its quotable. It has call-backs. These things make it great. One of my favorite bits is The Scillian with his, "Inconceivable!"; particularly when Inigo Montoya says, "I don't think that means what you think that means."
This happens alot in the world, by the way, at least to me. Frequently, someone will jump into a conversation, or someone will misspeak, or it will turn out that Americans just don't use that word that way and bam! Miscommunication. I don't think that means what you think that means. Or, in the context of a conversation, I don't think I mean what you think I mean.
So, In honor of this hiccup of communication, I have found an online quiz about "doublespeak". Or, in the case, intentionally deceptive or ambiguous language used by businesses or government officials. Its an interesting little quiz, I recommend that you go and take it and then report back and let me know how you did. (If you don't want me to publish your score, just leave a note in the comment and I will screen it out.)
I missed one, who would have guessed that meant death? I think this is a good topic to become aware of, especially now in the run up the beginning of the American Election cycle.
Languages may be a skill set that you can be taught in a classroom. They may have phonological systems and phonetic sets and grammar. They may contain a series of tenses that have endings that you have to memorize.
But, that's not what they are.
I took myself for a walk this afternoon, and while I did it I was thinking about languages. About how they are joint efforts. They are community experiences. They are tools that we use to express our thoughts and feelings. Things we use to ask for stuff. They are a way that we express ourselves, how we identify with others or how we alienate others. And, all this takes place in contexts created by the language and by the situations and by us as individuals. We create communities. I was thinking about being little and how then communitites were provided for you. There were the kids in the neighborhood and school. There was church and choir and bible study and Girl Scouts and dance class. I think its amazing (considering how many people don't like church or school) that when we grow up we make an effort to create communities of our own. How cool is that? Sometimes, we even create communities so that we can speak something that we're not even sure how to speak.
I think the interview went well. I sat down and the Professor said that it was going to get hot in the room and I said, "Guess I'm literally in the hot seat then." and everyone laughed and we talked for about half an hour about all kinds of things. Of course, since then, I've had a lot of time to think about how I could have answered things better but I'm trying not to dwell on it and make myself more nervous. I really hope I get this; I think it would be incredibly rewarding to have an opportunity to study how people build and work together on things.
I have an interview next week for a scholarship I have applied for at Cardiff University.
Hooray!
Also, sorry for the lack of blogging. My computer has malfunctioned. I will hopefully fix it shortly.
Well, boys and girls. Everything is printed out. The relevant supporting documents are whizzing their way in the mail. As soon as I pop it into the mail tomorrow morning my scholarship application will officially be Not My Problem. This is a huge relief to me, as you can imagine. Now, I just have a day to round myself up, back myself up before I have to get on a plane to go see my family. Now all I can do is hope that I make the right impression (and that my right impression is better than everyone else's right impressions.) I am feeling pretty confident about this. However, if things do end up going a bit pear shaped (one of my favorite British colloquialisms, I might add), then it wasn't meant to be and I will simply have to apply to other universities again in the fall in search of a place to study (that isn't going to make me a serf indebted to a bank for the rest of my adult life.)
Hooray. Send me good juju, if you have some to send and you're up for it.
So, I've been sitting, staring at the computer for the better part of the afternoon staring at the necessary and desirable criteria for the scholarship I'm applying for in an effort to write a cover letter for my application. And, so far I've gotten two sentences or so written. Neither of them are very good and its driving me crazy.
I'm sure its one of those things that if I could just get myself started, I could bang it out and at least then I would have a first draft. I think my problem is that I just don't know where to begin. I'm wondering if that isn't true, but I'm trying to got not get bogged down in a self-psychoanalysis of whether or not I really want it or if its just something that I'm doing because it doesn't really matter. The process of begging for money is something that I will be doing as an academic for the rest of my life (outside funding for research is something that brings prestige to your institution as well as something that makes you look good so that when the people in charge say, "Who should we give tenure to?" your name pops to mind.)
So, right now I've decided to take a break, blog (obviously), flip through some stuff and listen to some tunes. Hopefully, I'll be able to empty out my skull and then I'll be able to focus on the task ahead.
I want to wake up in the morning and feel good about myself. I want to begin my day with peace and joy. I want to be happy. I want to see the beauty in the world around me and rejoice that I have the opportunity to take part in the world.
I don't want to skulk back to my parent's house feeling like a failure.
I want a job and to continue studying and to have friends that I see all the time and not just occasionally. I want to feel like I can speak my mind anywhere and everywhere and not fear reprisal or that petty self-obsessed people in my vicinity will attempt to "get even" with me for simply having my own opinion and for disagreeing with them.
I am tired of asking people over and over again to call me by my name. I am tired of being told, "Well, you shouldn't have pissed me off" as if I have control over the emotional responses of the people around me.
I want to be treated with respect. I want to be loved and cared for.
I'm having some problems right now; I'm not sure how to solve them.
In nine days, my sister will be here. She is coming for just a week, but what an action packed week it is going to be. It will start when I pick her up at Heathrow. We are then going to bum around London for the day before heading back to the comfort of my flat in Wales where we will prepare for Wales-England/St. Patrick's Day. We are planning on seeing the Roman Baths in Bath and we may go to the Dylan Thomas museum in London. It is hard to sit still being this excited about something. I sent her a tentative plan via email today and she responded saying it sounded great. I am so excited! My sister is going to be here! Of course, I still have to clean the flat and finish up the stuff I am going to send to Leeds. Speaking of which...
While I was walking to school today, I had a brilliant idea about my methodology that will add a whole new layer to what I plan on studying and will take my PhD a giant step beyond what I was doing with my Masters. I don't want to say here, but I'm very excited about the possibility of it.
Hooray.
Today, I got an email about a number of positions opening up in Bangor. And, just this morning I completely lost the faith and couldn't be moved from the sofa in order to go to Welsh.
I don't know why I have these moments, its certainly not Welsh. I like Welsh.
Bilingualism in Bangor I'm excited about it. I'm going to send off an informal inquiry about what they are looking for and when the deadline is. I hope that it is something that I am interested in and that I can apply for.
For those of you that don't know, Bangor is in North Wales, near Snowdonia. It is in a solidly Welsh speaking region of the country. I haven't been up there, but I've heard that its beautiful (and the pictures I've seen have supported this assessment.)
So, wish me luck.
I got an email with instructions from the secretary in charge of Postgraduates at Leeds and I have to put together a research proposal. Given that I've been feeling more than a little down the past few months, I was hoping to avoid writing such a proposal. But, since that doesn't seem to be an option I'm diving into it.
And, then today I got an email from The Lovely and Wonderful Dawn with a link in it to the University of Manchester, which is offering some funding for PhDs. They will probably want a research proposal, too. I can probably use the same one.
I am sick of listening to John complain about "his guts", which he has been having a problem with since August. (I have been telling him since August that he should see a doctor. I think that's why I'm tired of the complaining, because he could have done something about it six months ago.) Sorry for the digression.
I feel emails are a sign that I'm headed in the right direction. Not to get all weird and start talking about "being on the right path" and "reading signs"....well, it s a little late for that. I've been reading Fracine Prose's book, How to Read Like a Writer" and in the first chapter on Close Reading, Prose said something to the effect of, "Its good to read one word at a time because that's how we learn." Which is true, in certain respects, but not completely true. And, that got me started on some general thinking which led to some writing. This made me feel good. Its good to feel good.
So, Even though I'm still feeling down, I have to keep on going. I'm determined to get into a PhD program. I know it will happen. Oh, yes.
There are two ways of counting in Welsh. The newer system is based on ten and an older system that is based on twenty. You know, when you are singing an English translation of a Catalan Christmas Carol and you sing, "On December five and twenty" Or you're doing a bit of research on American history and read, "It was four score and seven years ago." Its that sort of thing. And, while the older system is on its way out in most daily actitivies, such as counting above twenty-nine, it is still very much entrenched in something all of us do at least once a day: tell the time.
So, to begin with, one needs to be able to count to twelve, which is simple enough: un (een), dau (dai), tri (tree), pedwar (pedwahr), pump (pimp), chewch (ch*ech), saith, wyth (oith), naw (now), deg (deig), un ar ddeg (een ahr dd**eig), deuddeg (deiddeg).
How cool is that, being able to count to twelve in Welsh?
Continuing on, for "after" or "past" you say "wedi" (wehdee). To say "to", you say "i" (ee).
"chawrter" (chahrter) means "quarter" and "hanner" (hahner) means half. So, to say quarter past 2 you say, "chawrter wedi dau". If you want to say half past eleven, you say, "hanner wedi un ar ddeg." (or, "hanner awr wedi un ar ddeg." in which "awr" which sounds like "hour" means, surprisingly "hour."). All of this is the cake walk. Its when you want to say twenty after, or twenty-five to, or what have you that things get hairy.
You see, in the ten system, you'd just say dau ddeg for twenty. Simple, two tens. In the old system, you say, ugain (eegain). Got it? un ar hugain, dau ar hugain, tri ar hugain...and up and onwards. Except when you are telling time. Then, before you said, "ar" (I know, your inner pirate is dying to tell time now) you say, "munud" (minid).
So, if someone asks you, "Faint o'r gloch ydy hi? (vaint or gloch yhdee hee?) And your watch is telling you 2:40, you would answer, "Mae hi'n hugain munud i tri" (my heen heegain minid ee tree). Its twenty minutes to three. Or, if it was 4:21 you would say, "Mae hi'n un munud ar hugain wedi bedwar."
Okay, so maybe time isn't all that bad.
Oh, one more thing, in the older system, everything up to 15 follows the pattern of "un ar ddeg" (except deuddeg). After fifteen, pymtheg, you add pymtheg instead of deg, so seventeen is "dau ar pymtheg". Think of it as roman numerals.
Well, then. You're set and ready to go with time.
It has occurred to me that even though I have gone over the past tense and talked about how to say, "I like", that I haven't really talked a lot about vocabulary. Well, today I'm going to remedy that!
Vocabulary learning has always been the hardest part of learning any language that I've tried to learn for me. Grammatical items and structure are all very good and important to creating an effective message and being understood. However, the bulk of that message comes from the content items, the lexical items of the language. Given that any language you are learning you are going to be semi-literate in to start, you have few opportunities to pick up vocabulary from reading. I don't know about you, but much of my vocabulary in my first language I've gleaned through years of literacy. In a new language, you rely less on context to put the pieces together because you're still working out what things mean and how they work together. You have to look things up frequently. And, going to the dictionary every other word is hardly what you do in your first language, so when you have to in a new language it is very easy to get very frustrated very quickly. Now, dear reader, I wouldn't want you to get frustrated with your limited expressive powers, so here is a list of words you may find of you (and, that I've recently put on flashcards in order to facilitate committing to memory.)
In the following you will find "ll" to represent the sound described here and "dd" to represent the sound described here. and "ch" to represent what is in IPA /x/. This sound is also discussed here..
llysiau (said: llusheeai): vegetables
Gwyliau (said: gwileeai): holidays (vacation)
ddoe: (said: ddoi) yesterday
creision: (said: crayshun) crisps (American: chips)
ardderchog (said: arrdderchog) Excellent
echnos: (said: echnohs) the night before last
dechrau: (said: dechrai) to start
brechdan: (said: brehchdahn) sandwich
dŵr: (said: doo or) water
cwrw: (said: cooroo) beer
sudd: (said: seedd) juice
cinio: (saidL ceeneeoh) dinner*
oren: (said: o rehn) orange
afal: (said: avahl) apple
Cael: (said kail) to have as in get or obtain or consume
tŷ: (said: tee) house.
So, Now you can say "I like apple juice" dw i'n hoffi sudd afal. Or, I'm having a sandwich. Dw i'n cael y frechdan**. If you are ever caught in the Welsh mystery story and someone asks you where you were the night before last, you can say, Bues i yn y tŷ echnos, "I was in the house the night before last." But, as is always true in stories (and, frequently in life as well) you will have been home alone with no one to verify your alibi and Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Mark Sloane or Matlock will have to prove your innocence after you're arrested wrongly. Or, you can say Dw i ddim yn hoffi llysiau, if you don't like vegetables.
* dinner is frequently used to describe the midday meal on the island. So, "cinio" can be used for either lunch or dinner.
** Welsh has what are known as "mutations" that effect certain sounds when preceded by vowels and certain grammatical words. They have, if you will, an instutionalized way of describing the phonological processes of speech like Sanskrit's samdhi rules. "Brechdan" is a feminine word and is effected by the change.
I have recently learned a new word. Although it looks like two words, we're going to pretend that it is only one. We're going to think of it as a string or a compound because both of these words work together to describe one single entity out in the world. There is much evidence to suggest that the basis of language is actually phraseological and not based on single words. I may have already told you that. I may be off on a tangent now. Oops.
The word is : Unol Daleithiau. I know what you're thinking, "But that isn't in English." I know, its Welsh. But, this will hopefully all make sense in a minute. If you wanted to say something like, "I'm from the States," this is a good word to know. You say: "Dw i'n dod o yr Unol Daleithiau." This is something I never would have said before I moved here. And, not just because it is in Welsh.
I'm sure this a rant I've been on before, but its one that I think is powerful and interesting. It is interesting how people describe themselves because it is indicative of how they see themselves. It is also indicative about how people in the immediate vicinity see them. Its not all internal; its not immutable. And, that to me is what makes it interesting.
I would have never identified myself as being, "from the States" before moving here for a number of reasons. First off, I've lived most of my life in the States. So, saying you're from there while you're still there is a bit redundant. Yes, honey. We know. Which state? Often more importantly, What city or township do you call home? Also, how often do you hear anyone say that when there are other ways to say it that are, I don't know, less phraseological and more succint like "I'm from America." or even, "I'm American."? Well, this might have to do with the cringe factor of being called "American". And, that just makes things so much more interesting.
I suppose at this point I should say something about how there is nothing wrong with being American. The United States is a lovely country full of helpful, charming people. Its an exciting democratic republic where occasionally portions of the population turn up at polls and allegedly elect the leadership and help to set and drive policy. I love my homeland. And, I miss it. But, these things aren't the point at the moment.
I personally shy away from the term "American" because it references the continent. I am not the citizen of a continent, but of a country on a continent. While this is a pointless distinction, it is one that I make nonetheless. I also shy away from the term "American" because in the past five years, at least inside the U.S., it has come to be used with much frequency by a certain subsection of the population and to describe that subsection. You know, "True Americans" . The people who are "real patriots". The ones that support the government 100% and had bumper stickers on the vehicles that said things like, "First Iraq, then Chirac." The ones thar are willing to give up a little bit of freedom and are okay with legislation like the Patriot Act that was voted on without reports from the House or Senate and with very little debate. (Which, by the way, is Congress not doing its job. We elect to pass effective legislation, which they aren't doing if they are hastily voting on things without conference reports or debate.) The ones that inspire music like Green Day's American Idiot. When I think about what home means to me and when I think that for most people, my home is America, I shudder to think that I am classed with these people.
Outside of the States, "American" doesn't necessarily have the political connontations that it may have at home. People who don't live in the States don't necessarily know about the bumper stickers or individual pieces of legislation. Although, they do know about our elections, which seem to get crazier and less verifiable every time they occur. My point is, that the further from the States you get, the more "American" seems to be a geographical marker first, and a political marker second. And, that is sometimes hard to reconcile with the notions built in your head from life inside the nation. And, that's where language as a marker of identity and language as a tool of communication don't gel. Do I say what will me the most accessible to my audience or do I say what I feel is more descriptive and truer representation of what I am? And, there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on the situation. It depends how well you're planning on getting to know the other speakers. It depends on your mood. It depends on a bunch of hard to pin down, non-linguistic factors. And, it goes both ways. In Welsh, I say I'm from the states, mostly because it is hard to say I will master it! But, in English I'm from the States. Or, I'm from Iowa City, Iowa. Or, even just Iowa. Sometimes, I'm even just from a city about three hours west of Chicago.
In Welsh, or Cymraeg (said: Kum-Raig) "w" is a vowel roughly equivalent to "oo" and "dd" is a consonant that sounds like "th" in the word "these" (in the IPA it would represented as eth, if that means anything to you.)
I have learned enough Welsh this week to say, with feeling, that I don't like ironing.
I also have learned the Welsh for "I'm tired." So, when my teachers ask me, at 8 in the fucking morning, how I'm feeling, I can answer, "I'm tired, thank you. How are you?"
Would you like to learn these sentences? Oh, I knew that you would!
I don't like ironing: dw i ddim yn hoffi smwddio. (Said: dwee thim in hoffey smoothio.)
I'm tired, thank you. How are you?: dw i'n wedi blino, diolch. Sut dych chi? (Said: dween wehdee bleeno, deeoch (said like German "ch"). Shut (rhymes with "put") deech chee?)
Also, one of the teachers taught in Indianola for a spell. I'm not sure if he taught at Simpson or not, but I do believe he taught Welsh wherever he was.
This Week in Welsh was brought to you by the letters "W" and "DD". Thank you for reading This Week in Welsh. Nos Da!
Firefly dialogue from episode 1 Joss Whedon
Tiger Woods Dan Bern
Hang 'Em High My Chemical Romance
I Am Mine Pearl Jam
Pachuca Sunrise Minus The Bear
Phrase That Pays (Nashville Version) The Academy Is...
WE WROTE THE WORLD Aunt Bee Overdrive
Should Have Known Bleed The Dream
Where's The Devil...When You Need Him? Th' Legendary Shack Shakers
Voodoo Man Voodoo Organist
Well Well Well Ben Harper & The Blind Boys Of Alabama
Workin' Man Blues Merle Haggard
Skips On The Record At The Drive-In
Today Is The Day Apollo Sunshine
I Do Believe You Are The Devil Aaron McMullan
That Was My Veil John Parish And Polly Jean Harvey
Shy Ani DiFranco
I Got My Mojo Working Muddy Waters
Toybox The Geraldine Fibbers
My Assassin The Bled
Killbot 2000 Murder By Death
When you're Dead The Blackfoot Brothers
The original thought behind this playlist was, well, to create some sort of cowboy themed mix for my mate Georgia's birthday (who is from Thesaloniki, hence the title.) It descended rather quickly into a bluegrass-y, alt.country-y mix. I've found it to be enjoyable; I haven't gotten to speak to Georgia yet so I don't know what she thinks of it. I'm pretty much in hermitville working on my thesis at the moment.
Although I have not yet managed to add anything to my word count today, I have set a goal for myself. My goal is 11,000 words. Now, you might think that is a huge number for it would mean that I'd be adding 2,000 words to the paper today. And, you would be correct. It is in fact an enormous number. But, I like to aim high.
But, I feel I am capable of accomplishing such a feat. Plus, I have no other plans for today, or for the rest of the weekend or indeed the rest of the week so I might as well put my shoulder to the grindstone and plow ahead. Wish me luck.
In 400 words, I will have over 9,000 of the 16,000 ish I have to write. In 400 words, I will hopefully be very near the end of a section currently named "Context based formulaic sequences" which includes a number of ridiculous and inane phrases like "Rockefeller Republican" (which, by the way, I had to look up because they truly don't exist anymore so I wasn't quite sure what they were. ) In 400 words, I'm going to give John a call. He is out with his mate Gavin. In 400 words, I will be going to meet them, assuming they're not in town. In 400 words, I will kick back and declare it Miller time. Although, In 400 words, I won't be drinking Miller. With all of these things, You'd think it'd be easy to press forward and write another 400 words. It's not. I am ready to give up now. But, I won't. I am going to make myself press on. After all, it is only 400 words.
Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen. Not only is The Nightmare before Christmas getting another theatrical release (this I have no problem with) and is now complete with 3-D effects but the soundtrack will be available as a double disc. The first disc will contain the original Danny Elfman music and the second disc will have covers of the Elfman tunes done by such bands as Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, Marilyn Manson, She Wants Revenge and Fiona Apple. Now, this could be interesting or it could be sheer and utter crap. I'm leaning towards crap.
More crap. More utter crap. I'm okay with people changing and growing and branching out to do different things. But, do it first in the privacy of your own recording studio. (Especially, if this is an option because you have your own recording studio.) Stop subjecting the world to your half-baked notions of what could be interesting or your lame attempts at sticking with the zeitgeist and being all hip and fresh. Actually, This applies to Madonna as well. Hey lady, with your limber disco dancing and continuing to draw the ire of the world's religions. Hey! You're stretchy! But you're music sucks, so stop "reinventing" yourself and, I don't know, have some tea.
I spent about two hours today sifting through recordings to make sure I had notes on all of my "discourse markers" which included, I kid you not, more than sixty occurences of the phrase "you know". As is common with such things, once you've heard one you've more or less heard them all. Of these more than sixty occurences, well over half of them have the exact same phonological output, which is just fancy talk for I listened to the same thing over and over and over again. I wish this would mean that I was thousands of words closer to my word limit. It does not. I still have a long way to go.
Although he was recently released, we held an Afghani man who needed a walker to leave the prison without charging him with a crime or even telling him why he was there. Apparently, the captive whose name is Haji Nasrat Khan is at least 71, although that's just an estimate because he himself didn't even know his exact age. I know that old people tend to be the last bastion of old school hatred and hellfire religion, but its my experience that what they do with that hatred and religion is sit around and make their kids and grandkids uncomfortable and angry by constantly nosing in on what they're doing and then telling them they're wrong and they'll burn for it. They are, in general, not the sort of people you find making explosives in airplane lavatories. Given that, I wonder what sort of intelligence value the man had for the military that they felt the need to keep him captive. To quote the recently released Khan, "How could I be an enemy combatant if I was not able to stand up?"
Well, that's it. I'm going back to listen to more formulaic sequences and to hopefully nibble away at my word count.
I can't believe I only have two weeks. And, then after that. What? What am I going to do? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Fuck. What? What? What? What? What happened to my fucking plans? And, why have an inordinate number of people in the last two weeks told me that I'm talented and that I need to not waste my talent. I am taking my thesis in to be bound on the 11th. It occurred to me today that on the fifth years anniversary of the towers falling I was going to handing over my dissertation to a publisher of sorts. I'm freaking out about all of this hardcore. Man.
Now, some photos from taken from my camera phone at the festival this weekend.
this is Bez from Happy Mondays.
Echo and the Bunnymen are onstage in this shot. Its hard to tell.
And, that is De La Soul. The guy whose face you can't see because of the glare is John's mate Glyn.
And this is De La Soul right before John made me ask them for a photo. I mean, a photo with them and me. More on all of this later.
You know how when you've just finished something big and you think you should have some sort of feeling as if you've accomplished something and then you don't? Well, I'm having one of those days. I'm done with the coursework for my Masters degree, now I just need to write my thesis. So, I've started reading for it, even though I can't officially start work on it until after the postgraduate board of studies in June. Then, I'll have until September 15th to complete and turn in my thesis. But, until I officially pass what they refer to as the "diploma" part of my degree I don't officially have anything that I'm supposed to be doing. Hopefully, next week I'll be going to see Stephy in London. We'll see, though. I'm excited about the unofficial time in that I have been doing reading I've wanted to do, but I'm a little weirded out by it, too. What can I say, I'm just not used to this operating in deadline-less time. Weird.
Okay, I have to go to John's now. We're making chilli and watching the Poseidon adventure, I think.
The guy who was sitting behind me in the computer lab got half way to the door before he remembered his disk in the disk drive. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is that sort of day. Its the sort of day when the sun is shining and the birds and singing and you really want to be elsewhere. Its the sort of day in which you plagiarize the paper you are working on in order to find a subject line.
Here is my question, boys and girls. how can you get over 3,000 words into to something that has a 4,000 word limit and not manage to include ANY "illustrative" examples?
So, I am writing a paper for my class on discourse and social interaction, which I keep calling in my head strategic interaction. I have been having a number of problems with the essay, most of them stemming from my overwhelming desire to write a good paper, something that I am proud of, something that I won't think about as embarrassing when I write this professor a letter after term is over to request letters of reference for the phD programs I am applying to. There is, of course, the added pressure that this is the only thing on which I will be graded for the class. For this paper, I am discussing the work of two sociologists and one linguist and, more or less, how applicable their concepts are to the field of discourse. The paper is supposed to be critical and here's the thing with that... people in the field tend not to be critical of the guys I'm writing on because, as my professor recenly said in a meeting with him, we're just so excited to apply the concepts and see them work. So, anyway, I'm trying to be critical and I'm writing my paper and so far, this monstrosity that isn't supposed to be more than 4,000 words is just under 3,000 and contains no illustrative examples. When I first started writing the paper, I collected a small data sample (about fifteen minutes in length) of John and I playing the children's game Guess Who?. I thought I could analyse the text showing how they would be analysed if I were coming at it from the three different approaches of the three different guys, but now I think that's just too much work. And, as has been pointed out to me, illustrative examples are meant to just clarify your point. They don't have to be ground breaking, they just have to support your argument.
A good example of what I mean by illustrative examples can be seen running through the work of Erving Goffman (for example, in Frame Analysis) Goffman is a freaking master of coming up with the anecdote to prove his point (in Frame Analysis he seems to draw heavily from newspaper articles). And, since is topic is the organization of experience, it is in fact quite exciting when you have examples of how experience that are organization in a Goffmanian way. So, I'm thinking now about using Invader Zim to make my many points. (My essay, at this point, is essentially about the organization of research aims and how they effect the methodology you use to investigate them.)
At this point, I'm thinking about throwing in the towel for a bit and walking home. I've been working on this more or less since 9:45 this morning and its almost 4 in the afternoon now. Although, I would like to get through to the bottom of this draft (I'm on draft 6) before I move locations. I can't decide if I'm being stubborn of systematic. bah.
In a little more than half an hour I am going to a lecture given by Deborah Cameron ( she wrote Working with Spoken Discourse. I'm pretty stoked about it. I will update you later on how it goes and what she talks about.
WeeHee!
But, first, coffee.
Okay, massive update time:
1. There is a studentship available through the department. It is in conjunction with <a href="http://www.intune.it">intune</a> which is funded by the EU. Intune is looking at European Citizenship and the EU and how these things are created, understood, etc. The requirements include a. having completed the masters in Language and Communication Research b. speaking more than one European language c. having an eu topic. Here's the thing: This is the department's studentship and my friend Steffi is applying for it. Steffi already has a masters, speaks English and German (because she is German) and has an interesting sociolinguistic topic that has to do with European citizenship. So, I'm going to apply, but don't hold your breath because I won' be getting it.
2. I am just so tired of thinking about everything in relationship to my future. The future this, the future that...its beginning to get to the point where I don't even enjoy what's going on anymore because everything is just dripping with so much anxiety.
3. John's housemates offered to pay part of my rent so it would be cheap for us to stay in the house instead of moving into our own flat without them, thus saving the two of them the trouble of having to make other arrangements. They have been told that there will be MURDER if anyone skanks my food. This is to say that I am moving into John's house at the end of my lease. (Well, I'll probably move my stuff in before that, but you know... officially, it'll be at the end of my lease...although, unofficially, I may have my own set of keys this weekend.)
4. John and I are thinking about coming to America for a visit over the 4th of July. I figure during this time I can help move my shit out of Beth's apartment and I can do something about my shit at my parents house.
5. The plan is still to stay in the UK until my visa is up. If I am going to be taking another year off I might as well stay with John (whom I love...doesn't that sound weird?) and work as opposed to move home and be miserable at b&n and work.
6. Anne-Marie has suggested that I just look for jobs around the university. I think sometime next week I am going to go to the job shop. I would like something for the summer but perhaps I could parlay it into something a bit more long term and maybe I could end up back here for my PhD anyway.
7. I was looking at PhD programs in the states the other day and did you know that University of Buffalo has a language and cognition PhD program? F, do you know/have you heard anything about linguistics at your fair uni?
8. For some reason the internet people think I haven't paid my bill so, I don't seem to have internet in my house right now. its annoying.
9. I think I need to do some yoga, or meditate or something because I am way freaked out about things. Although, John bought me a copy of the Great Escape, so I have some good Steve to watch (well,I had good Steve anyway because I had the magnificent 7)
10. Okay, I have to post the news and get rolling. I have work to do and I would like to go to the chip shop. I have some ranch dressing (thank you, Beth!) that I would like to have on chips and cheese. Oooh, such decadence!
I have a feeling I just misspelled all of those words. I can't decide if I feel incredibly stressed out...or just pissed off at myself for not being a harder worker. I've not had a bad day. Actually, I've had a pretty good day. I received an email from the professor in charge of the studentship I am working on an application for. She said that there is no citizenship restriction but has indicated that it will be an advantage to speak more than one European language. So, I have to stop being afraid and just suck it up and own up to the fact that I do, in fact, speak Spanish and Italian and stop denying my abilities. Also, for some reason I'm having trouble checking my university email. its pissing me off.
I supposed to be meeting Anne-Marie in 15 minutes. We are going to be study buddies and hopefully encourage each other out of great periods of sloth into healthy periods of enquiry and endeavour. Does that sound optimistic, because it is. My phone is flashing incessantly at me and I need to brush my teeth.
John and I talked about going on holiday together. We talked about visiting America. There's one problem with that...plane tickets are so expensive and being an apprentice painter and decorator he's not rolling in the cash. He seems to think he'll be able to save up enough money for a ticket, but the longer he has the better he'll be at it. He got really quiet as we were talking about this. Depending on how things go in the next three weeks I may not want to go until September. But, I may have to go in July. We'll see what happens.
In other news, I'm thinking of putting together a PhD proposal that looks at the formulaic language used to sell European citizenship to the British by the government and other interesting parties. The project would take a look at multiple modes of media and compare the amount of formulaicity used and the type of language used in general. I'll have to get more specific than that but I just thought of that last night while John and I were talking.
Everything's up in the air right now...you can imagine how I feel about that.
