so this is the new year

I could write something long and redundant about 2010 in this space, but I won't. I think if you've been keeping up with my blog, you know that 2010 has been a big year for me. A new chapter at the dawn of a new decade, etc. I think it's been a good one, but I also think it's too early to say that.

The one thing I will say about 2010 is that it taught me a lot about myself. I've grown up a lot this year. I am happy with the person I am (becoming).

---

Usually, I'm not one for new year's resolutions. I always forget them after a day or two. I do have a new year's resolution for the blog though- I want to make it more interesting, rather than talking about being cold all the time. Unfortunately, my day-to-day life is rather boring - I sit in an office and read/write all day. But in my free time I'm doing some cool things, so I'll try to write about that. Deal?

---

2011. It feels weird in my mouth, like every new year does.

left and leaving

This past weekend I was in New Hampshire for what is more than likely the last time, engaging in what I called Operation SEE ALL THE PEOPLE. It was like a choose-your-own adventure game, but featuring me. I would be in/on/around Planet UNH for about 56 consecutive hours (including sleeping) and everyone had the opportunity to make plans with me - I would do whatever they wanted me to do. While this might sound like a logistical disaster it actually worked out very well - I think I saw something like 30-40 people while I was around.

And everyone had such nice things to say! There were so many nice words of affirmation and love and encouragement from so many people - people who i seriously respect were telling me that I am inspiring and motivated and intelligent and Going To Do Great Things.

It was strange to be in a place where I was essentially outmoded - the freshmen are tiny babies and I felt too old and out of place. (A friend put it well when she said "if you had been here for another year you would hate it. you've maximized the university at this point.") While I'm really nervous about meeting my new department on Thursday - they are all going to be smarter than me! - I am super excited about the classes that I'm taking and what I will be doing. I know that I am definitely making the right decision. There's no second guessing getting on a plane.

You said, "I'll see you in September"

it's weird to not be at unh today.

Things I Do Not Have III: Revenge of the UPS Guy

(I am sure you are tired of this. I'm sorry. I know I am, especially because I am fairly certain this title series is not getting any funnier. But this blog is about grad school and all things related...and this is certainly related. So here we are. If, somehow, you are missing part 1 and 2, scroll down a bit and start there.)

1. My computer
You guys, I would like to introduce you to someone. I'm writing this on my new computer! It arrived yesterday, which was alarming on the basis that at least UPS can do something right. We got to play the Remember All Your Passwords game for a while, and then we set forth on the arduous task of moving stuff between computers.

It actually wasn't that bad - when we got Beverly back, the nice folks at the computer repair place had taken the liberty of putting my hard drive in an external hard drive casing, so I could access all my files without any difficulty. (Beverly, that dear old gal, was very opinionated. If she decided she did not like what I was doing she would shut down. I bet she would have been jealous of this whole situation.) Obviously I nicknamed that hard drive "Beverly". (For the record I have not named this new computer yet, and it most certainly is not going to be Beverly II. That's just unfairly dooming it.) But I was pleased when I got the following message:
I mean, this was just too good. Even from The Great Hard Drive In The Sky, Beverly managed to make things difficult.

(Yes, I just anthropomorphized my (old) computer and its assorted innards. And you loved it.)

2. My Visa
I mean, we knew this was coming, right? Like, what would be the most unreasonable thing that could happen?

At 9 am yesterday we called UPS for confirmation that transcript had been delivered. Of course if you know anything about situational irony and/or you follow my life very comprehensively, you know what happened: they didn't know where it was. Again.

I am not entirely certain they ever had any idea where it was in the first place - how do you lose a piece of mail TWICE? I called the UK consulate for a flat rate of 3 US dollars per minute and listened to a British robot inform me that "all of our agents are currently assisting other customers" and that "we will answer your call in a few moments" for half an hour. I then e-mailed them (again), and faxed them a letter with everything my emails have said.

So now we are fucked, because in the very eloquent words of the UK Consulate:
If these documents [my UNH transcript] are not received by 13 August 2010 your application will be refused. In addition, if you fail to provide the correct documents as described above, we will assess your application based on what you have provided.
It is now 17 August 2010, which is decidedly not 13 August 2010. Hmm. That's not quite right, is it? I took my extra transcript that I had ordered to keep on file, which was no longer in its sealed envelope because I wanted to make sure it was right before we submitted it - and went down to the post office to express mail it, because it's all we have. Because UPS fucking lost my official sealed transcript, and now I will probably have to reapply, get my transcripts (again, though at least I know for this time), get my biometrics taken again and then we just might be driving ourselves over to the UK consulate in NYC to personally hand all of this to them so it will be filed all before September 18, which is the date that I am moving into my flat in Scotland, come hell or high water. Or bureaucracy parades.


As I am sure you can imagine, I was very proud of myself for not punching the UPS guy in the face when he showed up to deliver my computer later in the day.

3. Plane Tickets
We are not discussing this.


I give up. Here's a picture of the saddest kitten in the world.

I understand, buddy.


EDIT 8/17 1:40 PM!
Guess what came today! That's right, my original UPS shipment from Thursday! Apparently they couldn't read my handwriting, so it was deemed undeliverable. Um. If you insist - this doesn't account for the part where you don't know where it went for three days. Either way I suppose this whole debacle is technically my fault. I know I have terrible handwriting, but this is absurd.

Things I Do Not Have, Redux

1. My computer
Beverly is back! Well, kind of.

As I predicted, she had few problems with her logic board. On macs at least, the video card is part of the logic board. (I might not know everything about computers, like how to program them and build them, but I can recognize what parts are attached to other parts.) Basically the cost of an entirely new logic board + new hard drive as previously installed + LABOR = 1 new computer.

Since computers age in fruit fly years, Beverly was approximately 46821 years old (rough estimate. a fruit fly lifepsan is 10 human days, but then there was division and multiplication, so I made up a number). Rather than pay all that money for repair work on an ancient machine we bought a new computer. Beverly came back to me, a sad pile of metal and wires, soon to be retired forever. RIP Beverly! Have fun crashing in Mac Heaven!

2. My Visa
I mentioned that I needed to get my transcript from UNH to New York City in 7 days in my last post. Remember that I am a generally calm person.

This seemed doable. Okay! TIMELINE TIME.
FRIDAY 08/06 Notification arrives! Request 2 transcripts from UNH; one for my records and one for the British consulate. Remember that the weekend is coming up and the Registrar will probably not deal with it until Monday.
MONDAY 08/09 They have seen my request. If the registrar prints them and puts them in the mail today, they will arrive by Wednesday! It only takes two days for mail to get from MA > NH and NH > MA. Perfect!
WEDNESDAY 08/11 NO TRANSCRIPTS IN THE MAIL; commence panicking (see below). Anticipate the mail being hours late on Thursday, and then still not receiving transcripts. Anticipate not being able to fulfill British Government's demands. Request transcripts for pickup through Blackboard for Thursday.
THURSDAY 08/12: Nervously check the mail every 15 minutes from 9 am onward. (Feel like Dad.) Prepare to drive up to UNH if mail does not arrive by 11 am. Mail arrives at 10:55, with my transcripts; calm the fuck down. Sign envelope, write my application # on it, bring to UPS store to have it overnighted to NYC by Friday 08/13 as requested. Stop worrying! Call off impromptu trip to NH, go to Wheaton to work on research project.
FRIDAY 08/13 Resume panicking! No sign of delivery from UPS. Call UPS, find out they have no idea where my transcript is. They lost track of it somewhere after Shrewsbury, MA. Find out all of this at 4:30 PM! Offices close at 5! UPS guy says he will call back within the hour, as he is going to call ALL OF THE NEW YORK CITY DRIVERS UNTIL HE FINDS IT. UPS guy calls back - it is found but not yet delivered! Hastily e-mail the consulate explaining situation at hand and how it is not my fault.
MONDAY 08/16 UPS promises to have my transcript at British Consulate General by 9 am.

OK! I think we see a problem here. Namely that Monday August 16th is not Friday August 13th. So now I am back to worrying about my visa, because WHAT IF THEY TURN ME DOWN BECAUSE I DID NOT SEND THEM ENOUGH PAPER IN THE FIRST PLACE OH MY GOD. And by the way, it is their fault that I did not send my visa application in earlier. Oh, The Bureaucracy Parade, you are lots of fun!

3. Plane Tickets
As I think you have figured out by now, I still do not have plane tickets, as I am not allowed to buy those without a visa. If I try to do move to Scotland without one, I will eventually become an illegal alien in the UK, and that is generally frowned upon. I am only leaving in FIVE WEEKS. (Plane tickets are already expensive...they are going to be way more expensive than necessary at the rate we are going!)

Things I Do Not Have, A List

1. My computer
I've had my computer for four years (or 438475 years in computer-years). I've had a couple problems with it - but I was also one of the macbook pro early adopters. Macbooks came out in 2006, which is when I was looking to buy a computer for college. So, I have an early model which probably doesn't have all the kinks ironed out. In the past six months, my mac would freeze or black out randomly in the middle of whatever I was doing. I nicknamed my computer Beverly, as she was old and crochety, with a mind of her own. (Plus it made me feel better to yell at something semi-animate: "God dammit, Beverly!") If she decided she didn't like what I was doing, she would shut down on me. It was frustrating, but something I could generally work around. I knew I had to get it fixed before I left for Scotland, but it's not the worst thing. I figured I had a video card problem, based on extensive Google searching.

Finally I took it in to get repaired a little over a week ago. Their solution was to give me a larger hard drive, because I had used too much of it. Too much of my hard drive? If you don't want me to use the space provided, don't give it to me! Anyway, they installed a bigger hard drive and left Beverly alone to her own devices over the weekend to copy my files over. Beverly did not like this and seized the opportunity to freeze again. So, now the computer repair people are trying to replicate the problem organically so they can fix it.

My well-documented hatred of handheld computer things - I barely use my cell phone, don't own an iPod touch and would never dream of owning a blackberry or iphone - means that I am really, really disconnected, more so than usual. I'm using my dad's computer in the meantime. It took me three days to figure out how New Word worked so I could write my column; I still haven't figured out how to save anything. I don't have any of my bookmarks, I don't have stumbleupon, and these computers don't have sound cards so I can't watch youtube. I don't even have wikipedia to look up stuff while I do my research! You guys, I don't know what to do! It is kind of like living in 2003, only with Windows 7. Come back to me, Beverly!

2. My Visa
I submitted a small forest of paper to the UK consulate in New York about two weeks ago, and was informed that there's a 15-day turnaround time for student visas. Last Friday I recieved an email telling me that I needed to submit my UNH transcript by 13 August 2010. This is reasonable, as it was how I got into Strathclyde in the first place. I can't actually get UNH to mail it to NY, because I have to mark a couple things on the envelope so it gets sent to the correct person. I requested my transcript that afternoon, and it has not arrived yet - usually mail to/from UNH takes about two days. It is now August 11th, and I need my transcript to be in their hands by Friday. SO! tomorrow I am driving up to UNH to pick up my transcripts directly from the registrar, overnighting them to NYC, driving back home and hoping this all goes through in time.

3. Plane Tickets
Without my visa, there's no point in searching for plane tickets. I'm not supposed to have tickets until I have my visa; part of the paper forest I had to submit was a proposed itinerary (this means my itinerary has to be approved by The Government.)

I LEAVE IN FIVE WEEKS.
Can you tell that I'm stressed about all of this?

Congratulations, You Did It!

Graduating feels a lot like juggling joy and fear and anxiety and pride and excitement and terror and worry and giddiness and loneliness and regret and satisfaction and frustration and hope and need and want and confusion and love and bafflement and sadness and happiness. It's certainly very comforting to know that this isn't my last graduation, which definitely diffused the shock of I AM DONE WITH COLLEGE FOREVER. In 5-7 years I get to do this again... and it will be more surreal then, I'm sure.


HIGHLIGHTS:

• UNH running out of chairs for the graduating class, meaning a 58-minute version of Pomp & Circumstance and a lot of people just standing around while hilarity ensued
• Collopy and I deciding that we probably could have just gone to a store that sold curtains and bought a gold cord... screw you, Honors Convocation, we'll have your 3.2 GPA if you factor in this semester
• The man who was too short for the microphone stand and as a result looked like the microphones were his eyeballs
• The lady who was convinced that the world was going to end tomorrow and it is ALL OUR FAULTS so do something about it! Or be terrorists!!! or something to that effect
• Bert Jacobs, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Optimist, Life is Good Company, throwing frisbees and being awesome (read his commencement speech)
• Not being told that campus runs on a giant fart (see also: Commencement 2009 & the "CE-Yo" of Stonyfield Yogurt)
  
• When COLA was announced, the entire back row of professors in full doctoral robes threw beach balls at us
• UNH Graduation slowly becomes the UNH Folk Festival

I have a bachelor's degree from the University of New Hampshire in English and Linguistics.
That's strange to say. I have a bachelor's degree. Who let that happen?

Dear UNH (A graduating senior's letter to you)

I came to UNH because it was where I wanted to be.

Thousands of dollars and four years later, I am graduating on Saturday a leading expert in my field with two majors and a minor. I was pretty damn right.

If you had told me in Fall 2006 that I would study at Cambridge University, accidentally fall in love with linguistics, meet some of the greatest and most interesting people, get involved in social justice work, do groundbreaking research, and be accepted into and be going into a PhD program by spring 2010... well, I wouldn't have believed you.

I started out as an English major, though very torn between all sorts of academic interests. I had almost came in as a music major, though I knew that was not what I wanted to do. I toyed with philosophy (this was short-lived) and communication (one huge lecture class changed that). I secretly wanted to be a Women's Studies major, but they seemed crazy-intense and they scared me a lot. So I stuck to English, because I like reading and would be given booklists of stuff I actually wanted to read.

As I grew more and more jaded with writing papers on symbolism, I accidentally signed up for a class called The Secret Lives Of Words (yes, really); immediately after that I declared linguistics as a minor and started exploring the etymology of words within the context of literature - explaining the validity of my approach was an endlessly frustrating process. When I got back from England in the Fall of 2008 (a serendipitous mistake unto itself, I meant to go in 2009) and realized I had two more years to do something with myself, I added linguistics as a major. It was through a similar happy accident that I minored in Race/Culture/Power and found myself in Women's Studies classes, wondering if I missed the boat entirely on my passions.

And then I started my independent research. The more I worked on it, the more I knew this truly is what I want to do for a long time.

I will never forget first stepping onto this campus for Freshman orientation and hating every second of it...and coming back in the fall to live with a huge group of people I couldn't relate to and didn't want to live with. I remember sitting there, miserable in Williamson 519. But I will also never forget the feeling of being dropped into a great big new world of interesting people to meet... and meet them I did. Although SERC C in all of its shiny hotel-esque glory has permanently erased what truly was my first home on campus, I haven't quite left the mini dorms behind. To all my friends out in Mini Dorm Land, past and present: Thanks for the trials, the tribulations, the inside jokes, and the quirks nobody else will ever quite appreciate.

Though I am saddened by the fact I will not be in New Hampshire this summer and beyond, it's for the best. I don't think I could bear knowing that I'm so close, but not entirely here. Merely being here is part of the experience: HoCo Radio, walking through the MUB, the way Ham Smith smells like old books, Ham Smith Room 128, the T-Hall bells, my summer-research-desk-cubicle on the 5th floor in the Dimond Library, the way the sun hits all the trees on campus every day - even on rainy days, lying in the grass wasting time, the way that the other parts of campus feel like a different universe unto themselves, all the people I didn't get a chance to meet, and even the biddies and bros (okay, maybe not so much) - I will miss every aspect of my four years here.

To everyone that matters: I love you all a lot. It's been so incredible to meet the people we are today. Thanks for making my undergrad experience amazing.

at the end of days

I haven't been doing much as of late. It's nice, actually; now that (nearly) everything is done, I can take a weeklong vacation from doing things. I am mostly spending this time attending assorted Recognitions. Next week I am attending a Senior Celebration for my minor and a reception for people who did undergraduate research. I was also invited to an Affirmative Action reception before graduation to get a stole from the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. Please note that my actual majors - my actual academic concentrations - are not doing anything.

I essentially was awarded for being gay the other day through OMSA's graduation reception- really though. I understand what the motivation behind this was, and I appreciate it, but in reality I was awarded for being gay. I don't do anything, so this is overwhelmingly unnecessary. (Really. Mostly I just sit around and write papers.)

But, at the same time I can't resist anything free... which might make me an immoral person, but to be honest we are inching dangerously close to All-Chicken-Meals at the dining hall, and that is not cool, UNH dining. And many of these receptions are catered.

how did it get so late so soon?

Dear UNH,

I feel like I just arrived on your campus maybe two years ago. I'm about to go to my last day of classes in my undergraduate career. When did this happen?! Thanks for four years of academic excitement.

With love,
Heather

i am turning in my thesis today.

this is my thesis. it is 15 pages long. i wrote it in 6 weeks.

i guess I should start de-post-it-noting these library books then.

lately i have been thinking about academia

"Decide that you like college. In your dorm you meet many nice people. Some are smarter than you. And some, you notice, are dumber than you. You will continue, unfortunately, to view the world in exactly these terms for the rest of your life."

-- Lorrie Moore

After this ridiculously crazy no-sleep, no-social-life, all-work thesis process I can't help but wonder why I have signed up for five to seven more years of masochism. And then I think about how rewarding of a process it is, but how truly frustrating it can be. It takes so much self control to not punch people in the face sometimes.

I think everyone should have to write a thesis / do some sort of equivalent senior capstone project in whatever discipline they choose to study -- way too many people float through college. Show me that you actually learned something while you were here rather than drank yourself to death every weekend. And take some goddamn pride in your work!


I am almost done with my thesis. I have a few minor things to tweak, but I'm very close.

Hey everybody, come check out how great I am!

My presentations yesterday went really well. (This is a blog about my thesis right? Guess what - you get to hear more about it!) Unfortunately, my project is not the most self-explanatory thing ever, so even though I had a sweet 32x40 semi-shiny sheet of paper, I usually had to walk people through it. This is fine unless more people show up halfway through my spiel, but I'm not complaining - a lot of my friends dropped by the poster presentation and a whole bunch of people came to my presentation to the English department. Thanks for checking out my work!

My parents The Scientists came up for the day, which provided almost unending entertainment. Some background: My dad is a PhD chemist and my mother is a biochemist who did some early work on the human genome project in Canada. These days they are writing manuals for scientific instruments, but the liberal arts are not their thing. Watching them try not to kill themselves during the four hours of the English Department Honors Conference was hilarious - the better a presentation was, the more they looked like they were going to put hot forks through their eyes. They are very intelligent people, but this is quite simply not what they do.

HIGHLIGHTS:
- Mom and Dad sitting next to Dennis Britton at the English department thesis reading, who is prone to flailing when he gets excited about things - especially the analysis of female and male sexuality in Spencer's The Faerie Queen
(to be honest, that was the longest amount of time I had ever seen Dennis sit still)
- Sarah Sherman, interim honors director for the English department, who was just so over this whole situation. "This is blah blah and they like this. their thesis is about this. sadly, there are still eight more presentation after this." (Not a direct quote, but close.)
- Mary Clark sitting behind me, having a grand time: "Hmmm. I don't think so. hmmm."
- the look on the English department's collective face when I introduced an equation to their lives. HILARIOUS. Luckily, we switched back to words quickly. (Meanwhile, Mom and Dad were celebrating the fact they finally understood something happening.)
- Mom and Dad finally meeting Shelly. Shelly and my mom could possibly be the same person - they have the same mannerisms.

Here is a very picture of me explaining my research to one of my many advisors (left) and my friend Kallie (right)

In my mind, the URC is like a very large-scale science fair. I hope someone brings a paper-mache volcano.

When I signed up for the Undergraduate Research Conference in March, I hadn't planned on having to restart my thesis. I also assumed that a poster presentation would be a fairly straightforward thing, which is why I decided to do a poster presentation AND a thesis reading. This may have been an error in judgment. But, there wasn't much I could do about it.

Last Thursday I very sleep-deprivingly drove to every nearby place that would print a 32x40 semi-gloss professional poster. Due to my tiny department of 35 students and three professors, I was in charge of my own poster. Conveniently, UNH offers these printing services, but they said they needed a 5-7 day turnaround time. This was the 5-7 day turnaround deadline before the URC, and I had nothing to give them. Worried, I went to Kinko's and Staples to get quotes. For the convenience of approximately a 2 hour turnaround time, I would pay nearly three times as much. I had planned on working on my poster the week I got back from spring break. I didn't even start rewriting until two weeks ago.

This weekend I started working on my poster. I sent it to print an hour ago.

To be honest, the nature of my project is that it is quite simply not accessible to everyone. There aren't a lot of pictures which are applicable to native and adopted locative prefixes. It requires a lot of very wordy explanation. There is no way to make this "user-friendly". I tried, believe me. It was a stretch to come up with two graphs.

Helpfully, the last time I used Powerpoint for ANYTHING was middle school, and we all had to make a metaslide that showed we knew how to use powerpoint. I had no idea how to make a poster using it... but there is no time for a learning curve. Luckily for me, someone compiled a How-To. Beverly, my old and rather crotchety computer, decided that this was a good time to let Powerpoint crash every 20 minutes or so. This was frustrating.

But, Shelly approved of my final poster draft while I was in class this afternoon. I ran to get it printed through UNH's copy center, which apparently is three days ahead of schedule and not costing me $92.25 for 32x40 inches of semi-shiny paper with things printed on it. So this is all going very well; much better than anticipated, really.

Dear Dimond Library,

I missed you. I'm glad we're back together for the next few weeks.

Love,
Heather

You can also buy Joy To The World for $1500

While taking a short break from my life of calculating things (yes, you did read that correctly; somehow my thesis became about MATH. what do I thoroughly dislike more than most things? MATH. why is my thesis about math? please refer to this post. this falls under both #1 and #2) and before I have to run off to lead a workshop on homophobic language (really, this is my life; I couldn't make this up if I tried), I am here to tell you about The Heifer Project. Apparently UNH has decided to participate, and furthermore decided to inform us about this by having a giant chocolate fondue fountain and fresh fruit at lunch to "raise awareness about this important project".

The Heifer Project is - predictably? - a project wherein a group raises a bunch of money and buys an animal for an impoverished third-world country. This is generally a good idea in that a privileged country with indoor, attached-to-the-building restrooms and clean drinking water is helping an underprivileged place by donating them a goat, sheep, oxen, a flock of geese, water buffalo (I'm reading the site - I don't know either. What do you do with a water buffalo??), or; best case scenario: an actual cow.

The last time (that I'm aware of) I was a part of an institution that was involved with The Heifer Project was my high school. I distinctly remember that we didn't raise enough money to buy anything useful like a flock of geese, a water buffalo, a trio of rabbits or even "Trees" (just trees. really.). We sent some impoverished third-world country in Asia - I forget which one or if it even still exists any more - a swarm of bees. Yes. Someone had to take a swarm of bees, box them up, put them on an airplane, and mail them to this country. And then someone in this place had to open a box of bees.

I really can't take this project very seriously after that experience. Whenever someone mentions The Heifer Project and how I should really truly consider donating to it, I just imagine an indigenous person being attacked by Franklin High School's Swarm of Bees and cursing our existence for sending him a box of pain and misery.

My non-denominational public university is closed for Easter.

Easter is one of those holidays I really just don't get. Your leading prophet died... which is somehow a positive thing (Good Friday) and then 48 hours later he rises again (Easter), which somehow actually means bunnies, jelly beans and chocolate. Right.

At least my holiday (Passover) makes moderate sense: A bunch of plagues happen because a large group of people are being oppressed; and in order to be spared from the final plague (death of the first-born), Jewish families had to mark their doors so they would be passed over (PASSOVER). From there, the Jewish families escape their oppressor by fleeing the country. This seems like a much more reasonable holiday. All of the traditions at least fit the [percieved] historic background.

But I digress. Apparently my non-denominational public university is "closed" for Easter weekend. This means it operates much like a curtailed-operations day; only "Essential Employees" are here. Granted, there aren't a lot of people here - unless you don't celebrate Easter or live too far away to go home for the weekend, not a lot really needs to be going on. But why couldn't you have TOLD us, UNH? We could have planned ahead. I was surprised to find myself kicked out of the library until 4 PM tomorrow without any warning. I wasn't the only one there, either! There is work to be done; where are we supposed to go? What if I needed something there tomorrow?

If I was an angrier person I would probably call the university out on being oppressive to those of us still here and/or not celebrators of Easter. But I am not that angry of a person, and I suppose it IS unfair to anyone (read: nearly everyone) who celebrates Easter to make them work. But, really! What would happen if I were to celebrate every Jewish holiday? "No, I can't go anywhere tonight or tomorow; it's Shabbat and I don't do anything which could quantify as 'work' until Sunday morning." "I can't. It's Yom Ha'atzmaut. I'm celebrating Jewish independence. I have to go light twelve torches." This wouldn't fly! I barely get any sort of university recognition on Hannukkah; I'm amazed every year when the dining halls when they designate a Passover-appropriate section, which mostly features matzah for build-your-own matzah adventures featuring the rest of the dining hall.

I think I'm just mad because nobody provided a heads-up in case you were planning on sticking around. That would have been nice. I know it's difficult, New Hampshire, to recognize difference sometimes. But I had work to do, and planned to be here in hopes of getting it done.

Character Study: Dr. Lieber

Since Shelly keeps coming up as a Major Character in my life, I think it is time to define her for you, dear reader.

Dr. Lieber is kind of a big deal.

And when I say that, I mean it- She studied under Noam Chomsky at MIT in the 1970s and while there, developed the prevailing system of understanding underlying linguistic structure which basically says that the properties of each individual word item, both within the word itself and how the word functions in a sentence, are inherited by morphology (the study of word-parts, which is what I've been working on) and syntax (which is the organization of words into phrases which turn into sentences). In picture form, this structure looks like what is seen to the right: Any time a letter (N, P, V representing nouns, prepositions, verbs) is repeated that means it allows for phrasal attachement. This can be applied to word-parts in that you can separate little bits of words which make sense individually and allow for attachment and word-formation. If this makes your head hurt, imagine taking a class strictly devoted to things like that picture. Shelly teaches this class at UNH, and is notorious amongst the 35 or so Linguistics majors on campus for using all of her example sentences about Fenster and wombats.

(Which brings me to the next related thing to talk about - this picture, brought to us by someone in the UNH linguistics department in front of the English building. If you can't read it, it says "Fenster kissed the wombat" in IPA. This is a linguistics joke and a funny one at that - mostly because nobody knows we exist, nor will the rest of the English Department understand it!)

Shelly's work is mostly in morphology despite her important strides in syntax. She co-developed the prevailing formula to measure productivity of affixes through corpus study (in Not-Linguistics-Speak this means "what my thesis is centered around: The Formula.") This - among MANY other things related to word-formation and how it functions - is her main focus of research. She's been working on assorted projects of word-formation rules and how they are understood to speakers of language for a very long time.

She is very, very well respected in her field. So going in to see her today was an intimidating moment, as you have hopefully understood. I have weekly "homework assignments" for her related to Thesis 2.0; this past weeks' was to read three of her articles on word-formation and synthesize a methodology of measuring and understanding word-formation techniques in regards to her own research. But - for those of us keeping track at home, the work I brought into her was described as "on the correct path" (translated from Thesis Advisor-Speak that means "Yes, you're close. Now do this that and the other thing and it will be better. But yes, mostly.")

I AM DOING SOMETHING RIGHT!

do doot DODOO DOOT DOO (a short story)

Apparently nobody reviews demographics OR contemporality when it came to picking performers for UNH; I would like to review that this is, in fact, New Hampshire. As a result, we have had concerts by Third Eye Blind, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Lupe Fiasco featuring Sean Kingston, Akon, Guster, Brand New, and Dropkick Murphys (among others) while I've been here.

Now, to be fair, I've gone to a few of these. I am not hating entirely on SCOPE, who is responsible for bringing these major concerts (though their comedians are questionable: Jimmy Fallon? Demetri Martin? Bo Burnham?? really guys?). Third Eye Blind was fun if not nostalgic for sure. And if Guster hadn't been full of drunk biddies it would have been a lot more fun. And, admittedly, I am a little bit disappointed in myself retroactively for not seeing Ludacris when he was here. BUT... That's a lot of hip-hop. And not all of campus listens to this kind of music - I know that I wouldn't pay even $5 to see Snoop Dogg or Akon; so overall I've been a bit disappointed in the acts brought to campus.

Though SCOPE promised "not another rap act!" I think we all had our apprehensions. We all waited nervously. Last year I found out that the decision process was between Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco and Guster, and they chose Guster - who had been to UNH several times in the past - yet again. Maybe this was a scheduling thing, a cost thing, an any thing. I don't know. I'm not in SCOPE. Or MUSO for that matter - who brought Girl Talk my sophomore year and are bringing the Mountain Goats tomorrow - so I suppose I'm not really allowed to criticize. But, I think the campus collective was all sort of nervous that Taylor Swift or Toby Keith was coming for our spring show.

BUT NO, thank god, they actually brought something likely to pique the interest of the part of campus who probably wouldn't go to see Snoop Dogg and Akon. They're bringing MGMT - refreshing! Exciting! And just announced on Monday! So I jumped at the chance to get tickets, knowing that they're going to go fast...and I don't have class on Wednesday mornings. That helped too. So I dragged my ass out of bed at 7:30 am, chugged a few cups of coffee and walked over to the MUB for 8:30, thinking this would be a reasonable time to start waiting for tickets which went on sale at 9:45. We couldn't leave the line unless you had someone to swap out for you, lest you lose your spot. So I was stuck there. Not too bad, this should be quick, right?

FOUR HOURS LATER

I had tickets to MGMT. And I had also listened to approximately a thousand people over the course of the past four hours say the initialism "M-G-M-T" (their name is pronounced "management", everyone, pay attention). I spent my morning standing and occasionally shuffling along between a biddy collective and two pretentious and otherwise apparently dumb English majors who spent the entire time alternatively talking about how great Chuck Palahniuk's books are and how much one of them looooves Alice in Wonderland and every concert that has happened in Boston in the past six months (and of course they had been to all of them).

I had contemplated about six ways to either kill myself or these girls, but all of them required that I drink more coffee. My well-documented hatred of mornings comes with my consumption of enough coffee to kill a small rodent. This is one of those conundrums in that I can't do anything productive until I have my coffee, but I can't have more coffee if I can't leave. (Luckily Oliver, Former Coffee Shop Employee, walked by and was willing to go on a coffee journey for me while I was getting slightly closer to the ticket office. He understands).

But - the long and short of all of this is that finally a big concert is happening at UNH that I am legitimately excited about and demographically more reasonable than something like 70% of the past concerts in the past four years. And while the biddies and yah-dudes will probably still be belligerently stupid at this, too, it will hopefully be a good time.

one fish two fish red fish blue fish

WHAT. UNH. WHAT IS THIS.