I think we’re about to hit that point in the blogging where I don’t have anything to say, and no time to say it in. It’s finals week!
So I guess that’s it. One day of classes left. Lovely weather today – worked outside most the afternoon. Got started on my semantics paper, and my research write-up. Made a tasty dinner and played Zombie Fluxx with Lewis while we ate.
Boy, I guess that’s it. How sad! Amazing how time flies when you’re staring at this screen. Oy.
This is one of those dead-tired sort of days. But it’s okay. It should be the last one this quarter!
It was a necessarily busy day today. Had Quechua this morning and we did dialogs and had a little Peruvian feast. I wish I knew what anything was called or made of, because it certainly was delicious. Oh, and we drank some Inca Kola. Drinking neon yellow soda at 10 am is certainly a way to kick off a day. Anyway. Much fun was had in Quechua, and my heart is softening a bit towards that class. Probably a good time to have handed course evaluations out.
Went straight from Peruvian snacks to my lunch date with Bernard Comrie. It’s so amusing to have lunch with famous linguist-types. I don’t know what it is about being a grad student that gets you introduced to these folks. Maybe it’s the benevolence of those above you to spread your name around and get your face known. At any rate, it was great being invited to lunch. The food and company were both excellent, and I learned amusing things about Comrie that will stick with me for a while. He’s a good guy.
Had to ditch lunch a little early to go meet with my TAing professor, and then my research professor. This is the last set of homeworks I have to grade for this quarter, which is excellent, but sadly means that soon I have to grade the final. Had a very nice final meeting with my research professor, and wrapped up what we’ve been reading very nicely. Unfortunately he also assigned me a little write-up to do before the end of next week, so I didn’t quite escape without a short paper to do. Oh well. I sort of needed to synthesize what we’ve been doing anyway, so it will end up being rather useful later.
Spent a few minutes with Lewis in the sunshine on the Quad, and puttered about for my spare hour until it was time to go to Comrie’s talk! I’d seen him give portions of this talk in Cambridge before, but for some reason it was much more engaging this time. The talk seemed to fly by, and all the questions were very interesting. Before I knew it, it was 6:00 already and time to go home. Crashed a fair bit when I got here, didn’t make dinner… but I did watch some Colbert over some left-overs, and made a loaf of lemon bread for breakfast tomorrow.
All in all… a very successful, if draining, day!
I’m feeling so very delightfully relaxed. Sorta. I realized right after typing that out, that per usual I’m sitting here with my jaw clenched as tight as can be. I do wish I could stop doing that. I guess on a metalevel I’m relaxed, but on some sort of biological level I’m still all keyed up. Anyway.
It was a good day. Penultimate semantics class finished, though it was sort of painful. Professor was discussing his own paper, which is really interesting, but I didn’t bring it with me (it’s 60 pages! truthfully, I didn’t print it!) and it was more like a talk than a class. Got some TA work done after that, and headed home. Spent home-time pretty well, reviewing my semantics work and doing a bit of thinking about the last meeting with my professor for research I have tomorrow. Got tired of thinking and mowed the lawn. Made Lewis take me out to our local “Mexican” place (New Mexican I guess?) to split some nachoes, and then I was feeling all rejuvinated. Did a bunch more research prep for tomorrow (synthesizing! my greatest talent!) while sitting by a toasty fire. I’ve had this kitty on my lap all night, while I drink mate and eat what’s left of my chocolate chip cookies and listen to these nice Mozart clarinet and bassoon concertos… life is pretty spectacular.
Tomorrow should be an interesting and sorta big day! I’ve only got Quechua to get through, but I have a million things in the afternoon to do. First of all, and I guess most importantly, I’ve got a lunch date with a very famous visiting linguist! Thankfully it’s not just me, there should be several of us grad students, and a professor friend of ours who invited us (and is good friends with the visiting linguist). It’s just a little unnerving, but very exciting to feel partially responsible for entertaining someone I respect so much! After that, I’ve got a meeting with the teacher I TA for to get the last homeworks from him, then my last research meeting with that professor. Hopefully he’s going to tell me that I don’t need to do any more work this quarter! And then after that… the lecture that the visiting linguist is giving. I’ve actually seen him give this talk before when Lewis and I caught him at Cambridge, but it’s a really neat thing, so it certainly won’t be boring to catch again. Yay, it’s Comrie Day! (For fun, try to count the number of publications he has on his site..!)
I have not adjusted to this time change. It’s 10:00 and here I am, completely exhausted again.
It was a pretty darn good day, though. It’s always encouraging to start off the last week of school! And as a bonus, we had a Quechua linguist-guy visiting our class this morning. He was only going to sit in for an hour or so and watch us work, but in fact he gave us a very interesting 2-hour lecture and used up all our time! So we didn’t have to do our dialogs, and didn’t even correct or turn in our homeworks. Thus, we also didn’t get any more work assigned! Best class yet. Neuroimaging was good and short today (as it is every Monday), so it was a real smooth day.
I did also go to see the doctor (nurse practicioner, it turns out) about these migraines though. I was looking forward to having that taken care of. So there isn’t actually any real news from the visit. My nurse is great. She thinks the headaches are some combo of hormones and stress, and that I don’t have to do anything about them unless they really get in my way. We can try messing with my birth control perscription, or they could perscribe me migraine medicine or something that has the effect of migraine mitigation (anti-depressants, blood pressure medicine) if I wanted… but one crap day a month sounds a hair less bad to me then being on medicine every day I don’t really need. So for now, no change. But good to know that it’s non-life-threatening and that I’ve got escape plans if I need them. Nurse said I could even see the neurologist if I wanted… ooo. Anyway, sort of a relief to know the headaches are not a huge deal, just another minor annoyance to deal with in life.
So I triumphantly rode home, got all my work done, baked cookies, and concocted dinner. I’ve discovered that one of my best cooking resources is some innate ability to conjure up a version “KC’s Rice Surprise”, my Dad’s magical never-the-same-twice refridgerator meal. Boy, Laurie’s Rice Surprise was sure good tonight. Verrry spicy, and full of kale and collard greens and rice and red beans and ground beef. Mmm. It did have the odd effect of making my fridge as seemingly full as when I started though, since I somehow managed to create twice as much rice surprise as the rice I was attempting to use up. Ended up going right back in the same tupperware it came out of! Oh well! It’s at least a little tastier now.
It’s Friday night. I’m watching a cute foreign movie with Lewis. I’m drinking champagne. And I’m feeling like the luckiest kid in town!
It’s been such a fantastic day. I had neuroimaging this morning, and it was really awkward – I was actually sort of nodding off during class. This hasn’t happened to me since I was a freshman, I think, and I normally really enjoy this class. I’m just getting tuckered out, I suppose. Anyway, came home and took a nap, and refreshed myself very well for the rest of my day, and it’s a good thing I did!
The only other thing I needed to do today (having slept through the Quechua talk I could have been at) was show up for this Language Group meeting at the Center for Mind and Brain. I was just invited to attend by another psycho/neruolinguist in our department, and they were having a little reading group today. I think normally they practice presentations in front of eachother and such. Anyway, it was nice, informative and pleasant.
The important part of this all is that a professor I’ve been trying to get in contact with from my department (who has been not returning my emails) was also there, and had sent me word through a student who works in his lab (who I have Quechua with) that I should drop by some time and that he wasn’t meaning to ignore me. Anyway, he told me to drop by his office after the talk, and we had the most amazing chat! I told him all the things I’ve been getting into, and the classes I’m taking, and the ideas I’ve been having for a thesis, and he was right there with me on all counts. He really likes what I want to do, and he’s sure that there’s ways to make it happen. He has extra funding in his name for some MRI studies which we might be able to use as a pilot study for my thesis (and maybe also my second QP?). Most of all, he seems to be really interested in letting me do the research I want to do, and providing me the support and guidance I need to do it. This was the huge thing that was missing from my grad school experience so far, an actual advisor-type who can oversee me in a functional useful way with resources and an interest in my project! I just about jumped out of my skin!
So I got a tour of his lab from my Quechua friend Michiq, and met the other folks who work with him. He wants me to sign up for 2 units worth of research to get my feet wet and make sure we’re all on the same page or whatever. I think I may be using some of these research units to read up on the literature in the field I’m trying to get in to, which he already seems to have a pretty good grasp of. This was what I wanted to spend my summer doing anyway, so a little directed reading is even better. It seems as though he’s also in contact with the as-yet-on-Sabbatical phonologist in the department, who is also interested in neuro work, so that looks to me like the beginning of a committee coming together, and the foundation for lots of good to come. So…. I went to an informal reading group, and came out with a lab job for next quarter, and the beginning of what I hope is my advisor-student relation. I never dreamed that would all go so smoothly!
After that I made Lewis take me out to my favorite Davis place (mmm, Greek pizza) and buy me a bottle of champagne. Life is so good! I hope I can keep my eye on getting through the end of this quarter before I spend all my time thinking about how sweet next quarter is going to be :)
Progress being made today – had a short discussion in semantics about deixis in Aymara, and it got me thinking an awful lot about Quechua systems of various things for this lexical decompositon paper I’m theoretically writing. So I did a little Google Scholar research (har) and I think I’ve hit upon a nice lexical field to sink my teeth in. Quechua has a really large set of what I’m calling conveyance verbs – like bring and carry. In fact, the dictionary listing for carry I’ve got has like 10 or 12 different verb roots. These include different verbs for “to carry by arm” or “to carry on the back”, and “to carry under the arm”. Good stuff! I’m hoping I’ve finally hit semantic gold here, cause I’m starting to lose faith that I’m going to have a great idea anytime soon. Phew.
So that was pretty much my whole day. Went to semantics. Had an idea. Graded papers, had lunch with my sweetie, came home, worked on said idea. Had dinner. Worked on said idea. Blogged! Finis. (Tukurqani!)
Ah, the most bittersweet night of the week, Sunday is. But it’s really not so bad. I’ve only got two weeks of school left though, so I can slog through no problem. The worst of it is the five remaining Quechua classes, which is really making a mountain out of a molehill, since class is always enjoyable, and never particularly stressful. I just don’t much enjoy it overall, and though I’m learning a little, it seems like a waste of time. It’s a series of ill-explained half-successful in-class exercises, and time consuming dialog recitations. I miss my Russian classes, with their textbooks and small class size and clear goals. I did way overdo some Quechua homework today. We got the remaining class materials emailed to us this weekend and I’ve gotten pretty tired of doing these orally in class so I just did them all ahead of time. It says something about how useless our class really is when I can do the next two weeks worth of home and class work in about two hours before the material is even introduced. I should put that in quotes: “introduced”.
Anyway, it’s been a very nice and very relaxing weekend for it being during the quarter and all. I’ve been doing a lot of baking, which is nice. Made two loaves of whole wheat sandwich bread today, but I haven’t tried it out yet. Maybe tomorrow. I sure am looking forward to getting through all this to finals, by which I mean writing the one paper I have to write and being done with this quarter. I don’t know how much I’m looking forward to next quarter, but the plus side is that I’ve got a whole new set of classes, one of which is with one of my favorite professors from USC. I’m TAing, too, which always makes life sort of fly by. I hope my sections are good! Still not sure whether I can audit my neurobiology class, or whether I’ll just take that pass/fail, but either way, I’m looking forward to change up.
Long day full of not a lot. Didn’t have class this morning, so I got to sleep in and make Lewis a tasty weekend-like breakfast with some of the tasty hot sauce he made yesterday. I did manage to mow the lawn today, which was a really nice excuse to hang out in the decent weather and sunshine. Did a little weeding even, and spend a while gazing lovingly at the waxwing flock in our tree. I need to spend more time outdoors that doesn’t involve moving from one location to another. I’ll be happy when it’s toasty enough for long enough to read on the lawn again. It’s been so damp this winter! You know, for Davis.
Did manage a few accomplishments today. Bought my tickets to San Diego for my grandparents’ joint 80th birthday party in April, so that ought to alleviate some parental worry. Also turned in my neuroimaging quiz, which went slightly crappier than I could have hoped. I’m definitely a little out of my league, so getting a decent grade I’ll consider a triumph. I really have no idea what I’m going to get as a final grade in that class – as far as I can tell, it’s going to be entirely dependent on 3 quizes, the second of which I just finished today. Got an A on the first one, and I’m feeling B on this one… so hopefully I can nail the last one as scrape by with an A- or such in this class. Phew.
I also baked a loaf of bread! I haven’t made this recipe for potato bread for a few years, so it was a nice one to come back to. The potato in it always makes it turn out nice a moist and smooshy, which is great. I did forget to put the butter in, but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference. All in all, pretty great. After all that, I was pretty pooped today, so I sort of slugged around and ended up needing to go out for dinner, despite having lots of food here. I was just too knackered to cook, and was feeling really ready to get out of the house anyway. So Lewis and I had a great sushi dinner, and I was feeling much more relaxed and put together by the time I got back home. Though we did reneg on a pictionary party with the philosophy grad students. We’ve got a party to go to tomorrow, so I’m not feeling too bad… but we are so terribly unsocial some times!
My day was pretty bueno. I did take the opportunity to sleep in this morning, and it was fantastic! I don’t skip class very often- in fact, I think this was the first time I’ve missed Quechua except the day I was sick, and let me tell you, sleeping in on a Wednesday is pretty dang fantastic. My Wednesday was especially empty today at that, since the class I TA for had no homework due this week thus I didn’t need to meet with my professor. Yay! So one meeting was all I had today, and it went pretty well. Talked to my QP advisor about some interesting issues today, and he seems to be really into what we’re doing, so that’s nice. Now to polish off my blissfully short week – one class worth of student presentations in semantics, and a cancelled Friday class! What luck!
Blog, I had such big plans for you tonight. But my legs are absolutely killing me (I do not know why.. they do this sometimes) and now I’m not sure how much I can stand before I go to bed. I can at least hit the major points… maybe it’s time to go list-format:
The Great:
The Bad:
You can tell it’s been an excellent day when I have to grasp at straws like that on my bad list. What’s even better… I’m not sure I’m even going to go to class in the morning. I’ve left it up to morning-me to decide, but I’m feeling rather self-congradulatory, and like I deserve a little spoiling. Besides, I’m taking Quechua pass/fail and I’ve got like 99% at the moment. I can well afford a little slackage. And sleeping in!
