The Laursonian Institute

I want to get my wireless keyboard fully functioning in the ol’ Linux.  This is apparently troublesome.  Something about USB, blah-blah whatever.  I got pretty close tonight, but I should really know better than to start futzing around with Linux stuff right before bedtime.  When I’m supposed to be reading a paper anyway!

Today was pretty bonus, as Lewis would say.  Got up early enough to do a little library research this morning from the comfort of my own desk.  (Non-non-heinous side note, saw a rat jump out of our grape vine from own-desk-adjacent window… eech.)  Got to campus with enough time to have lunch with my sweetie, then bust over to class.  Class was pretty good, though it’s a little freaky learning syntax in a non-binary branching way.  Lewis and I talked it over a bit this afternoon though, and I think the kids will be more into it this way.  Hit up the co-op on our way home (I love you, co-op!) where we ran into our next door neighbor who very nicely offered to drive some of our copious groceries home.  Managed to fit all our business in our own bike bags though, and came home with quite a bounty.  I like the bi-weekly mondo shopping trip, even if it’s rather expensive.  Takes a bit of money to feed two point five mouths, I guess.

Oo.. also called my grandmother – it’s her 75th birthday!  Yay!  Talked to her on the phone a bit, which was very nice.  Don’t know why I don’t call my grandmother, but I suspect none of us grandkids do… she’s very lovable but with a gruff demeanor that sometimes makes you feel like she’s got nothing to say to you.  That sounds more callous than I intend it, but these subtle family relations are hard to explain.  I think my grandma is a little lonely, and very much used to being someone… inconsequential.   She sounded so surprised that so many people would be calling her on her important birthday.  Like a whistle-stop town getting a presidential visit.  She’s very dear.

I’m not sure whose idea it was to put the cat box in the office (sadly, probably mine) but given the state of air quality in here at the moment, I think I had better go to bed instead of blathering on any longer.  Yuck.

… the tags on this post are delightful.

October 13th, 2008 | Tags: coop, grandma, kitty, linux, syntax | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Nothing sucks the brain matter right out your ear faster than grading homework.  It’s like trying to imagine what 75 different people all who only sort of understand what they’re talking about try and convince you that both their theoretical underpinnings (under + pin + ing + s) and execution are correct.  And when I say, “it’s like”, what I mean is “it is.”

I realized halfway through my day today that I feel like I’ve been sick all weekend without being sick.  I’m going to call that psychologically exhausted.  Intellectually exhausted.  Something involving exhaust.  ex + haust.  psych + o + log + ic + al + ly.  Look at all those morphemes!   Anyway.  I think I’m running on empty, effortally speaking.  I took two naps this weekend!  Both rather necessary.   Today’s was outside, in the fresh air and sunshine.  I woke up and my hand was asleep.  For all that I’ve been freezing all weekend (scary Davis is down in the 60s and 70s these days!) it was so warm and sunny outside, I had to ditch my scarf and slippers and everything.  Yummy sunshine. (yum+my sun+shine).  I also made our acorn squash.. stuff it with quinoa and raisins and walnuts and stuff.  It was so delicious.  I should have taken a picture!  My blog is so sad and texty lately.  (late + ly).

I failed to plant any bulbs this weekend though it was my secret project I’d been waiting to do all week.  I hate it when the weekend rolls around and all I’ve got time for is work, which is all I have time for any other day.  I guess what I’m trying to say is… I’m ready for a weekend.  A real, honest-to-goodness do-whatever-I-want-all-day day, if not a whole two days.  The deeper we get into this quarter, the less likely that seems to be.  I’ve got sociolinguistic interviews to conduct.  Papers to grade, homeworks to grade (sorry spell checker, homeworks is a count noun for me now), midterm to write… Sigh.  And at some crazy distant future… my own papers to write.  A literature review to lead.  And two presentations.  Before December 10th.  It’s both far away, and quickly approaching.  They don’t kid around with this quarters stuff in the ol’ graduate school.  (grad + u + ate school (monomorphemic)).

Serendipitously, my Monday meetings have been moved to Wednesdays, so I only my TA class to attend.  That’s 50-minutes of required work total on the Mondays.  That pretty much makes Monday part of the weekend, with the added bonus of also forcing me to go to campus and maybe get more work done.  Yep.  If I’m smart, I’ll go to campus early (as in, before class) and get the papers I need copied so that I can come home right after my class.  A whole afternoon off would be so nice.  And I don’t really have all that much to do tomorrow, anyway.  Work-wise.  By “not that much” what I’m trying to say is “the usual amount that will take me all day but at least nothing is late yet”.

On the double-plus side… it’s bed time.  Bed time is my favorite time of day.  If I’ve been good, and I almost always have, it means I can look at my clock, say, “no more work today!  it’s bed time!” and go to bed with a fairly clear conscious.  Or at least one that knows that sleep is more important than staying up late and getting ahead of schedule.  Yessiree.  Lets try and keep it that way.  Though the pull to be ahead of schedule is pretty strong.

Okay, I’ve only got two things left to say:  honk.  shoe.

October 12th, 2008 | Tags: exhausted, taing, weekend | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Nothing spectactular happened today.  I got up early, somewhat hung over from last night’s celebratory escapade.  I did morning chores, my least favorite of all chores, though this set ending deliciously in a mango smoothie.

Tire went completely flat half way to campus, and there wasn’t really any fixing it at the time.  So I walked it to campus.  I was pretty late to class, but I think I handled it fairly well considering I’m normally freaking out about being on time.  Thank goodness for Lewis, both for being adoreable and supportive, as well as for busting it to class for me so I could feel like missing class wasn’t really “missing” it.  We were discussing a paper I didn’t really get and I was really interested to hear what was going on.  Turns out… I still don’t totally get it.  And I still think I might right my final paper using it.  Har.  Why do I do these things to myself?

Fixed tire after lunch, got some reading done and some librarying, and came home and crashed.  Been feeling really down ever since I got home, and I mostly think it’s just that I’m exhausted.  In fact, it’s just past nine.. but I think I’m headed off to bed anyway.  I just can’t deal with having any more day in my day.  But on the plus side, we got some evening chores done, like getting kitty new food and dropping crazy old film off to be developed… and I got the whole kitchen cleaned.  Woot.

For as tired as I am… I really wish tomorrow weren’t my big two-section TA day.  I guess this is why I wasn’t supposed to volunteer for Friday sessions.  Whatever.

October 9th, 2008 | Tags: bike, chores, library, malaise | Category: life | Comments Off

(Half) bottle of wine.  Too inebriated, or tired, to post for really.  Let me sum up my day:

I.  Freaking.  Rocked.  My.  Section!

They should pretty much hire me right now.  C’mon, linguists!  I’m ready to go!

Then I came home, celebrated with Lewis, and talked politics all night.  Why am I still awake?!

October 8th, 2008 | Tags: taing, wine | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Blurp.

I think it might have been a productive day.  If only I could remember what I’ve done.

Ah yes.  I got up early.  And I went to class.  I turned in my first homework(!) and survived my lectures.  I lunched with Lewis, and got all my materials prepared for tomorrow’s first big TA session.  Then I started reading some insane phonology paper and was joyously saved by the presidential debate.  Watched the debate and made delicious spicy dirty rice.  Returned to phonology paper.  Lost my mind.

I am now going to bed.  And I wan’t no more of your crazy beta-sounds or phonetic equivalent classes, Hockett.  You crazy old man.

October 7th, 2008 | Tags: frustration, lists, phonology, productive | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Well, Laurie, it’s Monday.  Night.  You made it!

Sadly, Mondays are my easiest day.  I only have TA stuff to do today, no sections, and no classes.  But for all that, I got a heck of a lot done.  Woke up early-ish, and got a paper read.  Made a reaaaaally good roast beef sandwich and got myself to campus.  Class went well, and I got a chance to finish grading the homeworks this afternoon.  Had our weekly TAs meeting, which at least left me feeling like I’ve got a bit of an idea what to do in sections this week.  We’re moving our meetings to Wednesdays, actually, which makes me a little worried about getting instructions for that weeks section right before we meet… but I think we’ll be fine.

Came home just in time to go with Lewis to take the Boo to the vet.  We were going to get him all vaccinated for his outdoor activities these days.  Got a little distracted by the vet, though, who confirmed my suspicions that Mr. Boo shouldn’t be an outdoor kitty without claws.  So Lewis and I hemmed and hawed for a while and finally decided it was time to curtail his outdoor activities, mostly for his own safety, but a bit (I must admit) for our pocket book as well.  Can’t afford much in the way of expensive vet visits or vaccine regimes… but I think it’ll all be okay.  Boo wasn’t “utilizing” the outdoors much when we weren’t out there already, and what little he did outside of our yard has so far been getting in trouble and getting into fights.  No es bueno.  Compound this with the worry I was having about him being an outdoor kitty and Lewis’ mom’s cat Myles just having been diagnosed with FIV… I’m feeling okay about this decisions.  It is going to be a little heart breaking trying to get Boo to understand he can’t go outside any more.  He was awfully cute prowling around out there.

Post-vet, I made dinner and chatted up Lewis about Trubetzkoi.  Got our laundry folded (we’re going to be all wrinkly this week… oh well).  I also made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!  They’re rather tasty.  All cakey and chocolatey.  Got the grades uploaded into the gradebook, Lewis finished our draft of the homework for tomorrow, and all I have left to do is print that out, and get myself to bed.  And lo, it’s sounding pretty great right about now.

October 6th, 2008 | Tags: baking, class, kitty, vet | Category: life | Comments Off

I made roast beef tonight.  i did not realize this was possible until I had already done it.  I can’t wait to make myself some juicy sandwich action this week!

Other triumps today include (but are not limited to) attending a friend’s tea/bithday party, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, and paying some bills.  Of the nontriumphant, I’ll only mention that the Boo got in a fight with a cat the neighbor (in whose yard said fight broke out) says fights with everybody.  He got a little scratch on his nose.  But tomorrow, Lewis will take him to the vet and get him the vaccines he should have to be an outdoor kitty.  Woot.

I’m not feeling very ready for Monday.  Let this be a lesson that my weekends need to be more restorative and less intense.  Word.

October 5th, 2008 | Tags: chores, cooking, fight, kitty | Category: home, life | Comments Off

I have two things to confess.

First, I waited, again, until midnight to start blogging. This makes me loopy.

And second, I say “nu-cu-lur”.  I know it’s spelled like it’s “supposed to” be pronounced.  Nuclear.  I also know I’m in graduate school and I shouldn’t be harboring all these uneducated colloquialisms in my lexicon.  But I trump both points.  For I am also a linguist!  I celebrate my sub-standard form!  I grew up saying it, and now, with my tiny set of linguistic oddities I like to pretend are my “Seattle accent”, I must embrace my nuclear.  I’m also keeping my short /uh/ “roof”.  And my short /e/ “Vegas”.  And I’m also too tired to try and figure out how to put any of this in IPA tonight.  Oh well.

Half of that aversion is that I spent all afternoon making notes on Trubetzkoi and thus arm wrestling IPA into my wiki program.  Tried to find a more wonderful way to get Linux and IPA together, but it looked like more installing and futzing than I could do at that moment right in the middle of my reading.  That didn’t stop me from installing all the rest of the language packages though!  Got most my non-Latin scripts up and running.

Other things that happened today:  I finished grading two sections worth of homework!  Also, the Lawyers had us over for delicious dinner and we checked out their Hawaii photos and caught up on news.  I got my Trubetzkoi done (though after typing his name all day I’ve really taken to wanting to call him “Trubz”) which was my set goal du jour.  Also the kitty wasn’t feeling well this morning, but I think he’s gotten over it.  Seems to be doing decently this evening, though I’ll keep an ojo on him.  Oh, and reading Trubz gave me an idea for my 260 fieldwork as well… gotta see if I can follow up on that tomorrow.  Decently successful!

October 4th, 2008 | Tags: kitty, linguistics, linux | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Boo goes colloquially by Jingles around these parts some times.  Sometimes I also feel like those jingles are the perfect pick-me-up to a tanking day.  It’s funny how endearing the tinyness of Boo’s existence can be.  But I guess sometimes you just need something that simple to pluck you from the theoretical storm cloud brewing in your head.

It’s silly that my days feel like they’re tanking lately.  Classes are going pretty well.  I’m really worried about Sociolinguistics, but the material is interesting and the challenge, though great, seems surmountable in my moments of optimism.  Bed time is never a moment of optimism.  This is the time of night this stuff sinks in.   I look at my day tomorrow and all I see is myself one moment closer to what must be inevitable TAing mediocrity, and one day closer to the deadline of my Socioling initial research proposal which I am completely floundering about.  This is a little over-dramatic.  After reading all day, this is what happens.  It’s ridiculous to say I’m working too hard when it feels like all I’m going is leisurely reading research papers about subjects I like.  It’s not even hard reading.  And all it is is reading.  But when I crash right about 9:00, like I do most nights, it seems, I wonder if I work too hard.

It’s true I got up at 6, and was busy getting us ready to go to school.  I had class till 11:30 and did a little of what I’m going to call “grad student stuff” for a bit.  Had lunch with Lewis, which is definitely quantifiable as a break, though we were talking about class.  Was home by 1, went straight to TA work and reading.  Read till 5.  Helped Lewis study for Latin test tomorrow.  Turned on the debate at 6, and watched it while simultaneously skim-reading another paper.  Had a brain storming conversation about research proposals with Lewis again.  Finished said paper after debate ended.  Eyes glazed over, doom descended, and a general aversion to bed set in.  I blogged.

And now here we are.  Blogging and dreading again.  But the somewhat meta-frustrating reality of it is that tomorrow I’ll wake up, it will only seem 3/4th as hard, I’ll go through the motions, getting up, making breakfast, studying, class, studying, class… and by 6:00 my weekend will be upon me.  My day will culminate in drinking and festivities with the grad students in the department.  And that’ll be it.  I’ll have fun, some things will go well, some things will discourage me, and I’ll start it all over again.  And with this washing-machine-like emotional cycle in mind, I’ll say one thing definitively that I stupidly had never bothered to anticipate:  grad school is hard.  Now, to sleep on it.

October 2nd, 2008 | Tags: dread, kitty, pensiveness | Category: life, school | Comments Off