The Laursonian Institute

Excellently productive day?  I think so!  Though I didn’t do any reading, and a day without reading is never a great idea.  What I did get done was some prep for section, and the approval of a prompt for both my neuroscience class, and my typology class.  In fact, my typology professor had some really good ideas about what direction to take my paper, and thus I’ve even sort of gotten an outline put together for that one!  I’m hoping sections go well tomorrow.  I have to hand back the midterms, and my Wednedsay section did particularly poorly.  We’re also moving into real “discussion” territory, and these guys also aren’t too participatory when I’d like them to be.  So we’ll see how well I can manage to swing chattiness.    I’ve also been scheduled for my fMRI safety training tomorrow, so I can officially operate the magnet!

In non-school triumphs, yesterday we did our tri-weekly co-op trip, so there is actually food in the house today.   I had a smoothie and toast this morning, which is hands down my favorite (regular) breakfast.  I also made it to the gym, which is good since I skipped yoga in favor of food shopping yesterday.  I really need to get to yoga on Thursday, I miss it.  I was pretty stressed out pre-gym, and I’m happy to say that working out calmed me down.  Also, I came home and cleaned our room (which was a complete disaster) so I’m feeling pretty accomplished!  Here’s to hoping I can keep up this level of optimism for the rest of the week.

May 12th, 2009 | Tags: cleaning, essays, fmri, gym, midterm, optimism, section, training | Category: home, school | Comments Off

Quechua midterm this morning.  Went well, I think. Oral portion was pretty decent, I only mussed a question up because my professor had just told me how to say “linguistics” in Quechua (which I do not remember, of course) and then asked if I study Quechua (“Imata Quechua yachashanki?”) but I thought she asked me what I studied in Quechua to test my new knowledge (“Imata Quechuapi yachashanki”).  Oh well!

Afternoon was pretty productive.  Got a mat put down under our slippery rug in the TA office, registered for classes, and met Lewis for lunch on a nice sunny bench on the bike path.  Had my neuroimaging class which was great per usual, though the professor ran over time by 20 whole minutes!  The subject matter was interesting so nobody minded, but it was pretty funny.

Sadly,  I spent the whole rest of the night reading and grading papers.  I was hoping to get some sewing or some cooking or even some ironing done tonight, but I guess things are settling in to that middle-of-the-term grind.  Oh well.  I’ll come out the other side soon enough, and then I’ll have a whole week or two off for my leisure.  Life is grand!

February 9th, 2009 | Tags: midterm, quechua, studying | Category: life, school | Comments Off

Almost had a nosedive of a day, but Lewis saved it at the very end by taking me out for dinner and a pint at our little German braupub, Sudwerk.  The rest of my day was one of those head-against-wall work days.  I got up early (for a sleep in day, I guess) to finish grading papers, and was nearly done by the time Lewis got up to make his tasty cinnamon rolls (and they were tasty!).  Spent the rest of the morning / afternoon reviewing for my Quechua midterm, and reading the next chapter in my structuralist semantics book.  I’ve got a presentation on the semantics of european structuralists next week, and I’m really not sure what to do yet.  Thankfully the book I’m reading is going way better than the last one, and I’m sure I can come up with something interesting to say.  After that though, I was just completely spent… so thank goodness Lewis took me out.   Now… I guess I’m off to bed, so I can get a decent sleep and maybe get up early to do a short-term-memory filling before the midterm in the morning.

February 8th, 2009 | Tags: midterm, out, pub, quechua, semantics | Category: life, school | Comments Off