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The Laursonian Institute

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Posts tagged syntax

Freitag

Oh beloved Friday, you have come to bless me again.

Class was great today.  We started semantics and it was really bueno.  I haven’t done semantics formally before, so it’s great to get a little primer before I take semantics next quarter from the same professor.  I’m really looking forward to it!

Had a delightfully social day after that.  Dionne came by my office hours to chat about our plan for next week to see if we needed to prep anything this afternoon.  We didn’t – hurrah!  Lewis came by shortly thereafter, and then we met up with fellow grad student Ariel to chat a bit about how classes are going and set up a Friday drinks plan for one of the upcoming weeks.  She’s in our 260 class with us, so it was nice to comisserate about certain things together.  She also is TAing this semester, and we’ll be TAing together in the spring.  Woot.

Sessions actually did pretty well!  Much better than Wednesday, despite feeling like it was going to be a flop.  Seems like maybe the Friday kids are whittling down to just the few who want to participate whereas maybe the Wednesday session still attracts those who feel like they should attend but don’t really want to.  Not sure.  Anyway, it’s always relieving to have another week behind us, and moving on towards the weekend.  Next week in sessions we’re talking about semntics, so that’ll be a bit of trouble, but after blazing through syntax today and for once feeling like I know what I’m doing, I’m read to tackle semantics for sure.

Came home and had some vino with Lewis while watching out most recently netflixed movie, Buster Keaton’s “The General”.  How much do I love Buster Keaton?  A lot!  I laugh so much more in his silent movies than I do most of the contemporary “comedies”.  It’s really amazing how much he can do with his face, and how acrobatic he is!  Good times had by all, for sure.  I’m hoping to get a few household-type projects done this weekend in addition to the regular work load.  I think I worked too hard last weekend and it really burned me out this week.  So I’m going to make cider this weekend, and attempt Clare Hall Soup #1.  Really not sure what I’m doing there, but it’s always worth a go.  Maybe some day I’ll figure out their secret daily-changing-but-always-sort-of-the-same recipe!  Also have a little home maintenance to do with the landlord/inlaws, and maybe my first sewing fix-it project.  Oo – and if we can borrow a car — to the you-pick pumpkin patch!!

What good stuff I have in store!  Yay!

October 17th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , | Category: home, life, school | Comments Off

91st!

Hey, it’s my 91st post!  This post-every-day thing seems to be taking hold.  And what an exciting three months it’s been in the life of me, too.  Yay.

Pretty decent day today.  Got through classes.  Lewis had a presentation to give in 260 which went well!  Mine is in two more weeks, but it doesn’t seem to be much of a big deal.  Only non-final presentation I’ve got to do this quarter, so I won’t complain.  It’s really a pretty work-free quarter, other than the mass of required reading for all my classes.  Wonder what I’ll be up to next quarter.   I think we register pretty soon, actually.  Egad!

So anyway, came home after classes and got my lesson plan for tomorrow hammered out.  I hope it goes alright.. we’re sort of just going over old homework questions, which isn’t super cool, but given how many of them got them wrong on the homework (ie, more than 90%) it looks really necessary to do.  I had Lewis get me a little up to speed on syntax, too, and did the homework trees the kids have to do for this Friday’s homework so I’ve got a grip on what the phrase structure rules this book is using are.  Had a few little syntax debates over stuff, and it was nice to hear that the stuff I found a little odd or non-intuitive about this classes trees were not me being dumb, but more that I wasn’t taught trees this way.  Woot.  Nice to know we’ll be through syntax in no time!

Had a tea and cribbage night with Ben afterwords and it was really nice.  It’s good to be forced to take some time off now and again, and it’s also nice to feel like I’m getting really natural-like comfortable with Lewis’ friends.  I even managed a 20-point hand!  Was feeling rather loopy after all the reading and thinking and planning I did this afternoon, so I hope I didn’t do anything too uncouth.  But whatever.  It’s Daily Show and bed time.

October 14th, 2008 | Tags: , , , | Category: meta, school | Comments Off

Cordless Wireless Thoughtless Something

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: , , , , | Category: life, school | Comments Off