I can’t remember the last time I spent a whole afternoon making optimality theory tableaux. I think it was 2004. And I think they were on syllabification in Nuxalk. The next summer I found a Nuxalk dictionary in a speciality bookshop near MIT while Lewis and I were hanging out at the 2005 LSA summer institute. I don’t know if I’ll ever really have use for a Nuxalk dictionary, but it’s one of my more cherished silly books. Doing OT is amusing, though much of the time spent doing the work is making the tableaux, which is just asking for everything that could possibly go wrong with word processing software to do so. Turns out I have two Linux-related OT problems: a) OpenOffice doesn’t permit dashed lines in tables (!) so I can’t show my unranked constraints properly, and b) the bomb symbol isn’t in unicode! At least I finally found my pointing hand. For a minute there, it felt like OT was going to demand Microsoft Word, and that just seems like a ridiculous presupposition for a phonological theory.
But speaking of the LSA… what am I going to do this year? In more prosperous times (read: no rent to pay) I would have been there in a flash. The institute is at Berkeley this year, commutable from home, which makes it seem a bit like an opportunity I couldn’t possibly pass up. On the other hand, committing 6 weeks of my 12 week summer to commuting to Berkeley every day and not having a job seems like a pretty poor idea. Coupled with the fact that I could only go if I got a fellowship to cover tuition (admittedly a not-unlikely prospect) and that students with fellowships are required to attend all six weeks instead of one of the two three-week sessions generally open to the linguisty public and furthermore that there aren’t really 8 classes I want to take… makes me wonder if it’s worth going. I need letters of rec and transcripts as well as a personal statement to apply for the fellowship before next week, and I’m really feeling uninspired and unsure about my summer. My graduate advisor reaaaally wants me to go (and wants to write one of my letters of rec)… but meh. Money is a pain in the ass. On the other hand, infinite time and means seems like a bit much to ask.
I made saurkraut-y cabbage tonight. It wasn’t intended to be kraut-esque; I used the Chez Panisse recipe for warm cabbage, apple, and onion salad. But it sure was good, at any rate. Had dinner over one of my favorite new public television related activities – watching Huell Howser. When I was in LA, he really used to get under my skin. Though Pinks did have a hotdog named after him, which should have been a tip-off of his potential greatness. Anyway, for some reason his boundless enthusiasm and child-like irrepressability warms my heart at the end of a long day. Who couldn’t use a few more handy facts about out-of-the-way California towns? Today we learned about Smallsville and Timbuctoo. High quality.