The Laursonian Institute

Today was a day for doing what I ought, taking my self-prescribed medicine, and getting on with my life.  I’ve been living under this fog of being underworked and unfocused.  Like trying to start a car which is frosted over and too cold to turn over.  LA was just the little vacation I needed.  It came on the perfect weekend – I just got a whole bunch of stuff to do, but wasn’t behind on anything, and thus got to go play and get all my work done.  I got a cold my last day there, and skipped yesterday’s Quechua and today’s semantics classes, and now I’m feeling really rested, restored, and caught up.  I worked all day today.  One of those life-affirming, productive, well-paced work days.  I got started this morning when Lewis went off to class, and I worked all the way until he came home for dinner and I got a ton of stuff done.

(Now to deliniate my list in a self-fulfilling manner:) I cleaned my desk, caught up on neuroscience powerpoints, did some neuro-reading, did Quechua homework, pronounciation practice, and song practice, set up a meeting with my TAing professor for tomorrow, cleaned the living room, did some research and brain-dumping on my phoneme paper, read an article for that, prepared for my meeting with research professor tomorrow, went out to Chinese food with the Lawyers (+Emily & Andrew!), screwed around with my computer’s layout, and studied all my Quechua flash cards!

Now it’s almost 11, and I’m feeling so accomplished and vaguely prepared for tomorrow.  I can’t remember the last time I went to bed feeling prepared for my next day of classes because I’ve actually studied everything I intended.  It’s good to be TAing again (at least, having work to grade) and I’ve got midterms coming up!   Not to mention, researching for my QP always gets me all excited.  I imagine this is what archeologists get to spend their lives doing – unearthing artifacts and surprising relations between things.  It gets my brain working so quickly, it’s like all my synapses are firing at the same time.  It’s crazy, like no other feeling I know.  I think I’m built for critical analysis.  I keep discovering these quotes in papers that just make me jump out of my chair.  I want to run down the street announcing, “Hockett said it in 1942!  It’s right here!  I can’t believe it!!” and have everyone I meet be pleasantly surprised to see that a quote I’ve found proves a thing that we hadn’t thought was true.  That everything I need to know is right there, on paper, lost somewhere in the annals of history.  It’s like the Da Vinci Code, but with linguists arguing over the existance of theoretical units of sound.  That’s my new line for whenever anyone asks what I’m doing.  “It’s like the Da Vinci Code, but with linguists”.

And on top of it all, I’m feeling pretty much non-sick this evening!  Sore throat still, but all my sinus stuff seems gone.  Did I mention I’m listening to The Moody Blues?  I love The Moody Blues.  I’m a happy camper!

January 27th, 2009 | Tags: exhaultation, lauditory, lists, nerdery, phoneme, sick, vacation, work | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Got a cold… house is freezing.  I’m thinking it’s bed time.   Didn’t go to my early class, but managed to make it to my later one (thanks to the help of being able to drive, and it’s a short one)… got all my work done this afternoon though.  That’s good.

January 26th, 2009 | Tags: sick | Category: life, school | Comments Off

It was one of those big days today.  Got up early.  Took sister to airport.  Got home just in time to put books in bag and bike to school.

Eventful school-happenings du jour.  Fire alarm during Quechua, thus allowing Michiq and I to do our dialogue outside on the grass instead of inside where everyone is watching.  This is much preferable, but sadly won’t happen again.  Also sadly, we have a dialogue due Monday and it’s much harder than today’s.  This class sometimes kills me.

Had meeting for the rest of the afternoon.  Spent my lunch hour gathering library call numbers for all the semantics reading I need to copy tomorrow afternoon.  Had my second meeting with the professor I’m TAing for, who bears this incredibly uncanny resemblance in both looks and manner to Damien Jurado.  This pleases me greatly.  He’s also much too nice to me, which is breeding a mutual appreciative work situation.  He straightens and staples papers before he gives them to me, makes me an answer key, and posts it online so I don’t have to hand correct anything.  In exchange, I expertly and expediently grade all his papers.  I feel as though this is how TAs are supposed to be used, but I probably shouldn’t get used to it.  Something tells me last quarter is probably a better indicator of TA workload and appreciation than this one.  Odd thing to note: professor mentioned that he had heard good things about me around the department, particularly that I was a good student and worker.  My reputation proceeds me?  Graduate advisor is at it again!

Second meeting with professor I think I’ll dub QP Advisor, for this ought to be his role in best possible of worlds (as in, the world in which this research turns into my first QP).  Advisory was impressed with the bones of the paper (had given me an A, “Excellent!” on it in first grading round) and thought that with the right amount of work we could make it into “the perfect QP”.  This is a good note to start on.  Unfortunatley I seem to have lost the short-lived grasp of Halle’s arguement for morphonemic analysis that I had last quarter and based said paper on, so I’ve got some brushing up to do.  Other than that, advisor gave me a hundred other trees to start barking up, which pretty much cuts my work out for me this week.  Odd things to note number two: QP advisor had heard that graduate advisor wanted me to turn my other essay from last quarter into another QP.  My reputation proceeds me?  Graduate advisor strikes again!

Came home and for the first time this quarter put more than three things on my Tasque list for next week.  House seems a little lonely and quiet without the sister around today.  I guess it’s back to business.  I did get four whole days off (and subsequently had too much fun to blog regularly…) so I suppose I can trade a mini-vacation for a few weeks (8 weeks?) of hump-busting.  It’s really only fair.  Anyway, got everything I put on my list for today back off, which was a fair load.  I’ve got a lot of things lined up for the upcoming weekend, but managed to for the most part avoid putting anything on Saturday when I’m sure to be busy.  I am looking forward to LA.  Been a while since I’ve seen that town!

And now, I really must go to bed.  It’s not very late, but I’ve been nodding off since about 6:30 this afternoon, and I’ve got another few days of early wake-age to get through before my weekend starts (and is filled with more early wake-age).  All in all, a solid way to start the first day of my life under Obama.

January 21st, 2009 | Tags: dialogue, meetings, QP, quechua, reputation, schedule, sleep, tasks | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Boy, I’ve had one of those fantastically productive days.  I blame this all on Lewis having made grapefruit juice this morning.  Mmm, grapefruit juice.

Anyway, I’m really not feeling like I can excrete some sort of erudite epistle tonight, so instead let me yammer on about the few things I really did do.  First of all, I went to Quechua class, wherein I sang songs, appropriately replied to prompts, and forged an inane dialogue with my convo partner, Michiq.  It goes like this:

Me:  Allillanchu kashanki?
Michiq:  Allillanmi.  Imata yachashanki?
Me:  Noqa qheswata yachashani.
Michiq:  Kusa!   Maypin Mariya kashan?
Me:  Pay wasipi kashan.
Michiq:  Pay imaynan kashan?
Me:  Pay allinmi kashan.
Michiq:  Kusa!  Tupananchiskama!
Me:  Tupananchiskama!

Boy, that was pretty entertaining, no?  Oh… no?  Oh well!  I’ve got to perform it next week, and it is not to be missed.  What if in the intervening time I decide *not* to study Quechua (manan qheswata yachashani!), or Maria becomes unwell?  (*cliffhanging organ music*)

Today got started on a great note.  First thing this morning, I heard back from my undergrad thesis advisor, Todd!  Todd is great.  And he was ready and able to send out a duplicate copy of his letter of rec from last year, and thus complete the letter-of-rec-trifecta I needed to get my fellowship application in.  I can’t believe I went from zero to finished on the fellowship application in a mere two days.  I’m going to procrastinate this long every year.  Or not.

Well, maybe finishing that application was really all I did today, but it felt momentus!  Oh wait, I did go to the Co-op and buy ice cream and other comestables.  That’s pretty zang.  I’m really looking forward to some sort of grapefruit blueberry nectarine and who knows what kind of smoothie / juice experience tomorrow morning.  Every day should be as good as this day.

Did I mention I watched two hours of Law & Order, and had a quesadilla?  Well I did!

January 14th, 2009 | Tags: application, coop, dialog, fellowship, juice, quechua | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Massively productive day.  Now I’m massively tired.  Better opt for list:

• got 2/3 of fellowship application done
• finished semantics reading for the week
• made eye doctor appt
• did quechua homework
• got class schedule straightened out
• assembled new desk chair!
• yummy chinese food with lewis
• went to jazz show @ the mondavi

And now, honk shoe.  Three more days this week?  Everything’s looking pretty easy except Friday, where I”ve got some stuff piling up.  But then my sister will be here!  And Monday is a holiday!  Is it bad when I’m looking forward to Monday on… Tuesday?

January 13th, 2009 | Tags: busy, chores, concert, list | Category: life, school | Comments Off

I had a really liberating morning which lead me to a very envigorating afternoon.  Then some time after dinner I completely crashed into the state I’m in now of total blankness.  I think the culprit may have been the 40 pages of semantics reading I plowed through (and accidentally enjoyed).  Relief this morning was garnered by fixing my class schedule after confirming I could swap the over-my-head philosophy class with two units of research towards my first QP.  Woot to that.  Anyway.  Today was great. The weather was so nice I read outside for a while (my thermometer told me 75 degrees!) even though it drives my cat crazy when I sit right outside the window.  Lewis and I also succeeded in getting chairs for our office (our backs will thank us) and a stapler that’s capable of stapling realistically-sized papers.  Apparently regular staplers are only intended for undergraduate-level work.  The big term papers of graduate school make my old stapler cry.   Oh, also on the success-o-meter today, Lewis made the most delicious grapefruit and blue cheese salad, and I made biscuits to go with it.  Mm, salad and biscuits.   Oh yeah, and I had my first neuroimaging class, which was completely awesome.  I’m really glad I stuck that class out.  Our professor is hilarious and kept referring to nerdy stuff like the X-Men and the dangers of hidden piercings.  Yay for one of my out-on-a-limb classes working!

January 12th, 2009 | Tags: biscuits, blank, chairs, rambly, staplers, sunny | Category: life, school | Comments Off

This is me, being cranky about classes.  I’m waiting for a professor to email me back and maybe okay a bit of a change of courses for this quarter.  I think this would make me feel less cranky.  I just feel really uninspired so far, and like I’m wasting a lot of my time.  Though to be fair, I’ve only had half my classes so far.  Anyway.  I’m feeling rather strung out and not at all ready to run around this linguistics conference all weekend.  But I know once I get there, I’ll be happy to see everybody, and it’ll be a fun adventure.  And until then… I think I’d better go to bed and hope for a better day tomorrow.

January 7th, 2009 | Tags: grumpy | Category: school | Comments Off

Day two, and I’m already feeling mind-dumb, though not from overwork, which I could be doing.  It’s odd, I only have three classes so far, and one of them is Quechua, which I’m auditing, and is an entry-level language class anyway.  In other words, I have no work for that class and being a warm body in a seat is about all I need for a grade.  I did have semantics today for the first time, and there’s no required reading for that class.  Just problem sets, and a paper at the end.  Maybe I’ll be feeling more nervous after my first philosophy class on Thursday, but right now I’m feeling really underworked.  Even my readership is going slowly – the class I’m reading for doesn’t even have homework due till the 21st, and the professor seems really nice and easy going.   What’s a girl to do?

Well, I did sew curtains for our bathroom yesterday.  And I’ve been cooking nice dinners.  And I did do the laundry today.  I’ve been trying to knock back the optional reading for semantics today, but it’s a little draining.  It’s the intro chapter to our book and it’s a bit meandery and broad.  I’m already missing the excellent source reading I was getting to do for structuralism…. even sociolinguistics!  (Consequently, I got an A+ on my socioling paper, and the professor thinks I should use (an expanded version of) it for my first qualifying paper.  A bit of a brag, I know, but I can’t think of the last time I got an A+ on a paper!).  Anyway… there’s really nothing worse than dry, optional reading.

January 6th, 2009 | Tags: bored, quechua, reading, semantics | Category: school | Comments Off

Ooo, school starts tomorrow!  I’m rather excited about that this evening.  I just got my bag prepared for tomorrow, and packed with all the books and pens and things I need.  I’ve got a pretty easy day, I think – just Quechua and a meeting with the professor I’m TAing for.  I’m looking forward to it for sure!

Today turned into that relaxing and great day I was hoping for.  Got up pretty late after a debacle with our smoke alarm (chirpping, running out of batteries) at 4 am.  Had a nice lie in, a quick breakfast, and then we headed off to Vacaville to get some stuff done.  Lewis needed new pants that fit better, so we hit up the Eddie Bauer outlet and proceeded to spend waaaay more money than we probably needed.  But when all pants are like 15 dollars, and nothing you own fits any more… it’s time to sink some money in for the name of comfort.  We even ran into our Davis friends Ann and Joaquin there!   We had a nice lunch at Mels and then went and picked fabric for our bathroom curtain which maybe I’ll have time to pin and sew tomorrow.  Dinner with the Lawyers tonight was very relaxing.  We had some mixed drinks and talked through our LA plans (whew!) and a very tasty dinner.  Life is good.

Now I just need to try and get myself into bed before 1 am, so that I’ll actually make it to class on time in the morning.  Thankfully I don’t have any 8 am classes this quarter.  10 am will seem like a blessing!   And here’s to hoping that this quarter will be a better balanced, but equally enriching and stimulating experience.  Last quarter was a little out of control in places, and this quarter has a lot of potential for getting out of hand.  But as of tonight, I’m feeling relaxed and hopeful that this quarter will be a happy time full of friends and fun and adventure!  How’s that for a last-night-of-break cap?

January 4th, 2009 | Tags: crafts, family, plans, school, shopping | Category: home, school | Comments Off