Admittedly I study some really obscure stuff. Literary linguistics is a very small field, comprised of even smaller fields. A lot of people in literary linguistics are really interested in metaphor and figurative language (how it works, what it does in a text, how we understand it, etc), and I know a few people who are getting their PhDs in metaphor (yes, really.) I subscribe to a few literary linguistic mailing lists- these mailing lists are ridiculous; someone with the last name van der Boom manages one of them (I love getting emails from Ms van der Boom for entertainment value alone.)
Sometimes I get emails like this:
"The 2011 [redacted] Metaphor Festival
Thursday 8 to Saturday 10 September
The [redacted] Metaphor Festival is an annual conference on the use of figurative
language, arranged by The Department of English at [redacted] University. It
brings together researchers from a broad range of academic disciplines, working
within different theoretical and methodological paradigms -literary as well as
linguistic - in a creative, internationally oriented and friendly atmosphere.
The importance of figurative language is now generally recognised, and the
Festival offers an opportunity to present and learn about research findings
concerning figures of speech in different types of discourse, and their
cognitive, cultural, narrative, poetic, rhetorical, social or textual functions."
I don't even know where to start with this.
Listen; I am currently working in corpus stylistics, which is not a big field in my already-tiny subfield of the intersection of linguistics and literature. It's like a subfield of a subfield. But it's always comforting to hear there's people working on something much more ridiculous than me.
Showing posts with label i have a blog my opinions are important. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i have a blog my opinions are important. Show all posts
06 February 2011
02 February 2011
don't walk around at night
Glasgow is pretty far north, more northerly than you'd think. Here's a map of Glasgow Vs Other Northern Places.
You will note that Glasgow is close to Iceland, Norway and Sweden and kind of on par with Canada. I'm from the Northeast of America, which is (relatively) much more southern. While this explains the fact that it's always cold - I had no idea that we were so far above the inhabitable parts of Canada - a side effect of being this for north, there is not a lot of sunlight during the winter months. Seriously, in December the sun set at like 3:30pm - you get maybe 7 hours of sunlight on a good day. If it's raining, which it might be, you might not get sunlight for days. It takes some getting used to! (I would not recommend having Seasonal Affective Disorder here.)
Okay! So what is the #1 piece of advice for living in a city? "Don't walk around at night."
As you can imagine, this isn't very helpful, because it means that you can never walk around after 4 pm. (Obviously there are places in a city - any city - you shouldn't walk alone in at night, and I know that.) This strikes me as being rather inefficient, especially as the places I would be going are safe/well lit - I live quite near the big shopping streets (the high streets, as they're called here) and if I'm coming from/going to another major part of the city I'll be on public transit, so I generally try to disregard this warning, but I've studied rape stats and all that long enough to not be a little bit wary sometimes.
Luckily, the sun's been setting at more reasonable times (4 pm) now that we're inching into springtime. However... this means that in the summer, the sun will stay out laaaate - like 10, 11 pm late. All this nighttime takes some getting used to; I imagine 10+ hours of daytime will take some adjustment too.
You will note that Glasgow is close to Iceland, Norway and Sweden and kind of on par with Canada. I'm from the Northeast of America, which is (relatively) much more southern. While this explains the fact that it's always cold - I had no idea that we were so far above the inhabitable parts of Canada - a side effect of being this for north, there is not a lot of sunlight during the winter months. Seriously, in December the sun set at like 3:30pm - you get maybe 7 hours of sunlight on a good day. If it's raining, which it might be, you might not get sunlight for days. It takes some getting used to! (I would not recommend having Seasonal Affective Disorder here.)
Okay! So what is the #1 piece of advice for living in a city? "Don't walk around at night."
As you can imagine, this isn't very helpful, because it means that you can never walk around after 4 pm. (Obviously there are places in a city - any city - you shouldn't walk alone in at night, and I know that.) This strikes me as being rather inefficient, especially as the places I would be going are safe/well lit - I live quite near the big shopping streets (the high streets, as they're called here) and if I'm coming from/going to another major part of the city I'll be on public transit, so I generally try to disregard this warning, but I've studied rape stats and all that long enough to not be a little bit wary sometimes.
Luckily, the sun's been setting at more reasonable times (4 pm) now that we're inching into springtime. However... this means that in the summer, the sun will stay out laaaate - like 10, 11 pm late. All this nighttime takes some getting used to; I imagine 10+ hours of daytime will take some adjustment too.
21 January 2011
"we must commute the pasta"
I like being around people who speak more than one language fluently, because it often means that they make some interesting constructions in their non-native language(s), as a result of knowing so many other languages. Similarly, some of these little phrase quirks carry over into one's native language. Although I don't speak any languages other than English, I can read and write in a few others (Old English, French), and I know that my feeble attempts at forming phrases are entirely based in my own language; you often end up making fairly clunky, literal word-by-word translations.
Though occasionally (as a native English speaker) it can get frustrating to try to use some advanced metaphorical language, on the whole, most people are pretty fluent in English. A number of my friends here speak English as well as their native language, and what's cool is that you can almost see what they are literally translating from one language to another. For example: Two of my friends are French and they'll often use gender pronouns to describe inanimate objects ("my chair, she is broken"). My German friends have less difficulty with this, perhaps as a result of the fact that German and English are linguistically really close. (Interestingly enough, my German friends all speak English with American accents.)
My friend Stefano speaks Italian, German, and English fluently, with Italian obviously being his first language. Although his spoken English is not perfect, it is very, very good (and as a linguist he's always interested in hearing how English works for a native speaker!) Sometimes he says some strange things, but they're all very reasonable and logical when you think about it- today I ran into Stefano in the department's kitchenette while he was preparing his lunch, and I asked him what he was making. He explained the dish to me, and as he moved the pasta from the microwave to a bowl, he told me "we must commute the pasta". This is a wonderfully formal sentence to say that you are moving the pasta into the sauce, but it makes perfect sense: you are moving the pasta from one point to another in a large group, and there's a lot of them, so it could take a collective pronoun.
English is hard to learn, you guys - I'm not nearly as confident in other languages as my international friends are! I'm always impressed when I meet non-native speakers whose English is as good as (if not better than!) mine, even if they do sometimes tell me that we must commute the pasta.
Though occasionally (as a native English speaker) it can get frustrating to try to use some advanced metaphorical language, on the whole, most people are pretty fluent in English. A number of my friends here speak English as well as their native language, and what's cool is that you can almost see what they are literally translating from one language to another. For example: Two of my friends are French and they'll often use gender pronouns to describe inanimate objects ("my chair, she is broken"). My German friends have less difficulty with this, perhaps as a result of the fact that German and English are linguistically really close. (Interestingly enough, my German friends all speak English with American accents.)
My friend Stefano speaks Italian, German, and English fluently, with Italian obviously being his first language. Although his spoken English is not perfect, it is very, very good (and as a linguist he's always interested in hearing how English works for a native speaker!) Sometimes he says some strange things, but they're all very reasonable and logical when you think about it- today I ran into Stefano in the department's kitchenette while he was preparing his lunch, and I asked him what he was making. He explained the dish to me, and as he moved the pasta from the microwave to a bowl, he told me "we must commute the pasta". This is a wonderfully formal sentence to say that you are moving the pasta into the sauce, but it makes perfect sense: you are moving the pasta from one point to another in a large group, and there's a lot of them, so it could take a collective pronoun.
English is hard to learn, you guys - I'm not nearly as confident in other languages as my international friends are! I'm always impressed when I meet non-native speakers whose English is as good as (if not better than!) mine, even if they do sometimes tell me that we must commute the pasta.
30 December 2010
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.
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.
05 December 2010
BEER
Today we are going to talk about beer! Because everyone loves beer. And it's what we drink when we're not drinking tea here.
Scottish culture pretty much revolves around pubs. It's a very egalitarian situation - you alternate buying the drinks with whoever is keeping pace with you - and the Scots can drink. I feel like my 4 years of undergrad were training for UK drinking - I am now confident in my ability to drink from 4pm until 11 pm, having eaten lunch at 12:30, with dinner at 8pm (this is not uncommon) AND NOT SAY OR DO ANYTHING STUPID.
So! Beer!
Unsurprisingly, not many American beers make it over here. And if they are here, either a) they're usually pretty good American beers or b) you're in a nice pub. Sierra Nevada is pretty popular, and I've seen a couple places that had Sam Adams and Brooklyn Lager (I was excited). That said, you can get a bottle of Budweiser in most places (Light beer doesn't exist here, so Bud Light is out of the question.) You can also sometimes get Miller Genuine Draft, and then laugh about it because you know it's shit! Last week I had both Miller and Corona, because they were The Cheap Beer Special. We should probably start being embarrassed about anything that you can buy in a 30 rack. Blue Moon is starting to trickle over here, which is hilarious, however - I keep seeing it as a "specialty bottled beer".
The cheapest of the cheap beers here are infinitely better than American cheap beers. The big one here is Tennants, which is made in Glasgow. Tennants is sort of like Budweiser in that nobody actually likes it, but everyone will drink it. Stella and Peroni are both pretty popular, though I have no idea why- one is infinitely worse than the other (hint: Peroni > Stella.) Other cheap beers include Belhaven, Grolsh, Heineken, Kronenbourg, and Budweiser Budvar (which I assure you is different than Budweiser.) Guinness isn't always cheap, but it's easy to get. And, of course, every country needs their hipster beer. We don't have PBR here (but everyone who has been to the states LOVES pbr, it's hilarious); hipster beer here is Red Stripe. These are all pretty cheap, they're about £2 or £3 at a pub. You can get most of these - except for Red Stripe, you need to be able to identify your hipsters - on tap. Tennants and Belhaven are on tap at every single pub ever, and most places will have one or two others on tap too.
The UK also has cider, which is amazing. Well, we have it in the states, but not in the same way. Basically: you can buy a two-liter of alcohol that tastes like apples for about £2.50 at almost any store that sells alcohol, and it will fuck you up. It also comes on tap, in bottles and in cans. There's a couple major brands: Strongbow and Bulmer's are the two big ones, and then there are some smaller breweries around (Addleston's is good and I think the main local one). A good rule for cider is "the cloudier it is the more you will get fucked up". I really like cider but that's a slippery slope to go down sometimes!
There are some really good local brews too - Deuchar's IPA is made in Caledonia, and it's amazing. I don't usually like IPAs and this is fantastic. Alloa is made in some place called Clackmannanshire, they've got a great beer called Good Times ("Hiya, can I get two Good Times?" sounds ridiculous, but it's delicious) and they make porter called Midnight Sun which is very good too. Caley is heavy; I'm not a big fan but maybe you are. There's a whole group of ales called Heather Ales, which are fantastic, but again not if you're going to be drinking them for a long time.
I happen to really like Hefenweizens, which are German wheat beers - we're close to Germany, so those are easy to come by; naturally I am very pleased. I've had a couple of real German Hefenweizens, and they were lovely, but alas I cannot spell them (I can barely pronounce them).
Scottish culture pretty much revolves around pubs. It's a very egalitarian situation - you alternate buying the drinks with whoever is keeping pace with you - and the Scots can drink. I feel like my 4 years of undergrad were training for UK drinking - I am now confident in my ability to drink from 4pm until 11 pm, having eaten lunch at 12:30, with dinner at 8pm (this is not uncommon) AND NOT SAY OR DO ANYTHING STUPID.
So! Beer!
Unsurprisingly, not many American beers make it over here. And if they are here, either a) they're usually pretty good American beers or b) you're in a nice pub. Sierra Nevada is pretty popular, and I've seen a couple places that had Sam Adams and Brooklyn Lager (I was excited). That said, you can get a bottle of Budweiser in most places (Light beer doesn't exist here, so Bud Light is out of the question.) You can also sometimes get Miller Genuine Draft, and then laugh about it because you know it's shit! Last week I had both Miller and Corona, because they were The Cheap Beer Special. We should probably start being embarrassed about anything that you can buy in a 30 rack. Blue Moon is starting to trickle over here, which is hilarious, however - I keep seeing it as a "specialty bottled beer".
The cheapest of the cheap beers here are infinitely better than American cheap beers. The big one here is Tennants, which is made in Glasgow. Tennants is sort of like Budweiser in that nobody actually likes it, but everyone will drink it. Stella and Peroni are both pretty popular, though I have no idea why- one is infinitely worse than the other (hint: Peroni > Stella.) Other cheap beers include Belhaven, Grolsh, Heineken, Kronenbourg, and Budweiser Budvar (which I assure you is different than Budweiser.) Guinness isn't always cheap, but it's easy to get. And, of course, every country needs their hipster beer. We don't have PBR here (but everyone who has been to the states LOVES pbr, it's hilarious); hipster beer here is Red Stripe. These are all pretty cheap, they're about £2 or £3 at a pub. You can get most of these - except for Red Stripe, you need to be able to identify your hipsters - on tap. Tennants and Belhaven are on tap at every single pub ever, and most places will have one or two others on tap too.
The UK also has cider, which is amazing. Well, we have it in the states, but not in the same way. Basically: you can buy a two-liter of alcohol that tastes like apples for about £2.50 at almost any store that sells alcohol, and it will fuck you up. It also comes on tap, in bottles and in cans. There's a couple major brands: Strongbow and Bulmer's are the two big ones, and then there are some smaller breweries around (Addleston's is good and I think the main local one). A good rule for cider is "the cloudier it is the more you will get fucked up". I really like cider but that's a slippery slope to go down sometimes!
There are some really good local brews too - Deuchar's IPA is made in Caledonia, and it's amazing. I don't usually like IPAs and this is fantastic. Alloa is made in some place called Clackmannanshire, they've got a great beer called Good Times ("Hiya, can I get two Good Times?" sounds ridiculous, but it's delicious) and they make porter called Midnight Sun which is very good too. Caley is heavy; I'm not a big fan but maybe you are. There's a whole group of ales called Heather Ales, which are fantastic, but again not if you're going to be drinking them for a long time.
I happen to really like Hefenweizens, which are German wheat beers - we're close to Germany, so those are easy to come by; naturally I am very pleased. I've had a couple of real German Hefenweizens, and they were lovely, but alas I cannot spell them (I can barely pronounce them).
23 November 2010
pot kettle black
For a while there, we had coffee in the office. Then some sort of bureaucratic restructuring occurred and then we no longer had departmental coffee. I suppose that's fair, they do make everyone buy their own tea. So I am trying to switch over to tea! At least in the office. This means I drink about 7 cups of tea a day and alternate between doing work and going to the bathroom every hour or so.
As we all know I love coffee more than most things, so this was a bit heartbreaking. But at the same time it makes me feel really Scottish.
26 October 2010
and you in your autumn sweater
It's starting to feel like autumn around here, which is exciting! Previously it was just raining and being warm a lot. Now it is cold and raining! No, just kidding, we've been having some really sunny days lately.
I really like Glasgow a lot - I can see myself being here for a long time, I think - but for now I live in the city centre, where there are no trees. No, that's a lie, I can see a couple trees on my way to my office, but it's not the same as a Proper New England Fall. (Glasgow Green, where I took this picture, is a park about 10 minutes away from where I live. Sometimes I go over to Glasgow University and get jealous of the beautiful West End of Glasgow, complete with trees everywhere.)
I've lived in New England for 22 years, and while I think I am pretty much over homesickness at this point, but I do find myself being surprisingly homesick for New England fall. I think living in New England ruins autumn everywhere else for you.
I've lived in New England for 22 years, and while I think I am pretty much over homesickness at this point, but I do find myself being surprisingly homesick for New England fall. I think living in New England ruins autumn everywhere else for you.
23 October 2010
the dream of a common language
The Scottish accent is famously a pretty dense thing to decipher. It's a British English accent, but with more to it. I don't know how else to describe it - and on top of that, the Glasgow accent is like the Extra Super Mega Scottish Accent. It's like listening to Sean Connery talk every day. (Some people are less mumbly.) After living here for about 5 weeks I'm starting to not notice it anymore; it's starting to sound pretty normal to me. Ordinarily this would be a terrifying concept to not notice something as big as an accent, but I am generally taking it as a good sign - This is a vast improvement over my first few weeks here, when I understood about 45% of what was being said to me at any moment in time. Though I'm a native speaker of English, sometimes I may as well not be!
Here's a fairly accurate clip about the Scottish accent:
Anecdotally: the other day I was skyping with A, who is in South Korea, when a guy with a fairly standard Glaswegian accent came by to look at our shower and reported back to me that there was nothing especially wrong with it...and A was dying - "DOES EVERYONE SOUND LIKE THAT?!" Yes. The answer is yes.
You wouldn't think this, but American English and British English are more different than you'd expect. Scots English is different enough from British English (it even has its own dictionary: The Dictionary of the Scots Language) but from what I can tell it's close enough to British English for my general purposes.
There are still a lot of words I don't quite "get" yet, and I feel ridiculous saying almost all of these things. Here everyone would say "loads" where we would say "lots", and the word "wee" is liberally used here to describe something that is small. "What's on?" is equivalent to "What's happening?" or "What's going on?". I have to remember not to ask for "a bathroom", as I will be directed to a shower room; I need to ask for a toilet instead, and "loo" is often thrown around instead. Then there are the things I absolutely cannot wrap my brain around: I keep calling the kettle the teapot, and if I am looking for push pins, I am looking for "drawing pins", which go in a "notice board", not a cork board.
There's an interesting article floating around that discusses how language is directly influenced by the people speaking around you - I can guarantee this is is true. I am trying to let some Britishisms into my language though - I can hear myself trying to replicate the intonation patterns of native UKers, and I'm catching myself describe things as "quite _____", more so than I usually would. Especially in an international setting - where most people have learned British rather than American English - it's often easier to use Britishisms as common ground.
That said, I definitely can't replicate a Scottish accent at all. I sometimes still catch myself being very embarrassed when I speak, because my accent is so flat and boring and very, very American, while a good Glasgow accent is so sing-songy, and all the back vowels are dipthongized. (If you are not a linguisticky type person, this means that they actually have two vowel sounds smushed together. [iu] for /u/ sounds are the most noticable, though /o/ and /a/ have some pretty good ones too. I can't find you a page about this that doesn't involve a lot of knowledge of phonetic background information, but you can probably find something accessible on youtube.)
While I can use a lot of the lingo properly, I can't help but feel like I must sound like an idiot with my ridiculous American accent. (Thankfully, the phoneticists around me say I don't have much of a Boston accent but more of a Canadian accent - looks like Mom's Canadianness rubbed off on me more than I thought! I don't hate Boston accents, but now I am very glad to not have too strong of one.)
Here's a fairly accurate clip about the Scottish accent:
Anecdotally: the other day I was skyping with A, who is in South Korea, when a guy with a fairly standard Glaswegian accent came by to look at our shower and reported back to me that there was nothing especially wrong with it...and A was dying - "DOES EVERYONE SOUND LIKE THAT?!" Yes. The answer is yes.
You wouldn't think this, but American English and British English are more different than you'd expect. Scots English is different enough from British English (it even has its own dictionary: The Dictionary of the Scots Language) but from what I can tell it's close enough to British English for my general purposes.
There are still a lot of words I don't quite "get" yet, and I feel ridiculous saying almost all of these things. Here everyone would say "loads" where we would say "lots", and the word "wee" is liberally used here to describe something that is small. "What's on?" is equivalent to "What's happening?" or "What's going on?". I have to remember not to ask for "a bathroom", as I will be directed to a shower room; I need to ask for a toilet instead, and "loo" is often thrown around instead. Then there are the things I absolutely cannot wrap my brain around: I keep calling the kettle the teapot, and if I am looking for push pins, I am looking for "drawing pins", which go in a "notice board", not a cork board.
There's an interesting article floating around that discusses how language is directly influenced by the people speaking around you - I can guarantee this is is true. I am trying to let some Britishisms into my language though - I can hear myself trying to replicate the intonation patterns of native UKers, and I'm catching myself describe things as "quite _____", more so than I usually would. Especially in an international setting - where most people have learned British rather than American English - it's often easier to use Britishisms as common ground.
That said, I definitely can't replicate a Scottish accent at all. I sometimes still catch myself being very embarrassed when I speak, because my accent is so flat and boring and very, very American, while a good Glasgow accent is so sing-songy, and all the back vowels are dipthongized. (If you are not a linguisticky type person, this means that they actually have two vowel sounds smushed together. [iu] for /u/ sounds are the most noticable, though /o/ and /a/ have some pretty good ones too. I can't find you a page about this that doesn't involve a lot of knowledge of phonetic background information, but you can probably find something accessible on youtube.)
While I can use a lot of the lingo properly, I can't help but feel like I must sound like an idiot with my ridiculous American accent. (Thankfully, the phoneticists around me say I don't have much of a Boston accent but more of a Canadian accent - looks like Mom's Canadianness rubbed off on me more than I thought! I don't hate Boston accents, but now I am very glad to not have too strong of one.)
16 October 2010
Help, I'm Alive!: A One-Month Retrospective
[editor's note: Two years ago in late July, I was in Edinburgh, Scotland for a weekend, with food poisoning. Today I am back there on a hike with some Germans, hopefully without food poisoning. Through the magic of the internet and auto-posting, I present the following.]
You guys, I have been in Glasgow for a month! I can't believe it's been a month already. Things are going so, so well - this blog has sort of shown the ups and downs of the first few weeks of moving to a new country by myself, but I definitely feel like each day is better than the last. There's a lot of things that I am still working out - like what side of the street and which side of the stairs to walk on. (This is more complicated than you'd expect.) Sometimes I still have difficulties figuring out where I would go to buy things - we don't have Wal-Mart or Target or CVS here - but this is getting better. Some days I wake up and just really want to see something instantly recognizably American, like peanut butter and jelly or the word "eggplant", and some days I want be able to talk to someone from home and not have to wait for 7pm to be able to do so. But moving to a new place by yourself is an emotional rollercoaster, let alone a new country or a new continent! I think I am doing very well. I have tentative friends! It's all very exciting.
It's an amazing opportunity to be here, and even more of an amazing opportunity to be working with the man who invented my field in addition to meeting all these other important linguists and literary people across three institutions (Strathclyde, Glasgow University, the University of Edinburgh). I am very, very lucky. There's no second-guessing crossing an ocean to do something and the more I am getting into what I am actually doing the more I am absolutely certain this is was absolutely 100% the right choice for me. I love all the work I am doing, and the people around me are so passionate about their work, so deeply involved that I can't imagine them doing anything else. I've been in contact with all these important linguistics people - the other day I met the woman who headed the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. (No big deal or anything...only one of my life goals achieved! She was so interested in what I had done and what I am doing here.) Glasgow Uni and Strathclyde are already both aggressively courting me for their PhD program next year; I just want to tell them to cool off a little bit!
I can't believe this is my life. I am so, so lucky.
I definitely still feel like I have a giant American flag tattooed on my forehead, but with every day I feel more integrated into Scottish life. Maybe soon I will start talking with a Scottish accent. (Or at least write a blog post about it, as I keep meaning to.) Or maybe that will just have to wait for month two...
You guys, I have been in Glasgow for a month! I can't believe it's been a month already. Things are going so, so well - this blog has sort of shown the ups and downs of the first few weeks of moving to a new country by myself, but I definitely feel like each day is better than the last. There's a lot of things that I am still working out - like what side of the street and which side of the stairs to walk on. (This is more complicated than you'd expect.) Sometimes I still have difficulties figuring out where I would go to buy things - we don't have Wal-Mart or Target or CVS here - but this is getting better. Some days I wake up and just really want to see something instantly recognizably American, like peanut butter and jelly or the word "eggplant", and some days I want be able to talk to someone from home and not have to wait for 7pm to be able to do so. But moving to a new place by yourself is an emotional rollercoaster, let alone a new country or a new continent! I think I am doing very well. I have tentative friends! It's all very exciting.
It's an amazing opportunity to be here, and even more of an amazing opportunity to be working with the man who invented my field in addition to meeting all these other important linguists and literary people across three institutions (Strathclyde, Glasgow University, the University of Edinburgh). I am very, very lucky. There's no second-guessing crossing an ocean to do something and the more I am getting into what I am actually doing the more I am absolutely certain this is was absolutely 100% the right choice for me. I love all the work I am doing, and the people around me are so passionate about their work, so deeply involved that I can't imagine them doing anything else. I've been in contact with all these important linguistics people - the other day I met the woman who headed the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. (No big deal or anything...only one of my life goals achieved! She was so interested in what I had done and what I am doing here.) Glasgow Uni and Strathclyde are already both aggressively courting me for their PhD program next year; I just want to tell them to cool off a little bit!
I can't believe this is my life. I am so, so lucky.
I definitely still feel like I have a giant American flag tattooed on my forehead, but with every day I feel more integrated into Scottish life. Maybe soon I will start talking with a Scottish accent. (Or at least write a blog post about it, as I keep meaning to.) Or maybe that will just have to wait for month two...
13 October 2010
people told me slow my roll, i'm screaming out "fuck that!"
One of the first things I was told when I arrived here was "slow down." I was also told not to worry about "breakneck American speed", whatever that was.
I am beginning to understand what is meant by "breakneck American speed".
Basically, if you know anybody in graduate school in the States, you know that they keep 15-20 hour days, are often wearing clothes from three days ago and look pretty ragged. Being a graduate student in the US is far from a glamorous thing - you'll often get looks of pity from other people when you tell them you're in graduate school! This is what I was expecting from graduate school in the UK - and was asking advice of people whom I had viewed as successful graduate students on surviving the journey. I had assumed that graduate school was a universal experience of intellectual masochism.
This is simply not how higher education works here. I was gearing up for 15-20 hour days of work only to find out that nobody would EVER do that! The postgrads I share an office with nearly fell out of their chairs when they heard that American grad students would work that much. In ONE DAY? they asked. They said that if I worked for six to eight hours a day "that would be a beautifully productive day" and that "I should go to the pub immediately". SIX TO EIGHT HOURS, you guys. (They do make a valid point, though - after a while, doesn't the quality of the work you produce go down? Well, yes...) Later I inquired about gaining access to the office over the weekend, and everyone stared at me. "Why would you come in over the weekend unless you had a giant deadline hanging over your head?" they asked. Because I have work to do? I don't know when they get anything done.
I try to show up at my office around 10 or 11 Monday through Friday and work until about 7 or 8 pm unless I have seminars to attend or meetings with people. When I go home I stop working. Not only is this unheard of in American-style grad school - or any American education system really, I am still being told I work too much! As it is, I am already pulling "ridiculous hours at the office"; I am almost always the first person to arrive. The other grad students think I am crazy for even attempting this.
It is arguably harder to slow down than it is to speed up. Given pressure, I think you can definitely learn how to do more work. (You might not like it, however.) But being told to do less work? I'm having such a hard time figuring out what i should DO with myself! I have a book that I have been working through slowly for one of my professors and could be working harder at, and I have other readings that I could be working on too. But no, I decided, I should take the weekend off. Or at least as much of it as I could bear. If you knew me in college, you know that I would do schoolwork every day except for Friday (I would sleep on Friday.)
So in an effort to slow down, on my first weekend after the semester started, I:
read a book for fun,
went to a farmer's market,
saw three bands play a gig,
went grocery shopping at two separate stores,
visited three art galleries,
scoped out a couple other art galleries,
looked into seeing some plays,
tried to hunt down some books I need for a class I joined,
walked to a new part of the city and back,
sent some emails,
typed up some drafts for future posts,
and read two articles and wrote a 500 word response
...all before 6pm on Sunday night. (Last weekend was quite similar.)
So much for slowing down! It's so strange to be told to relax. I've been working on it, though but I feel like I'm not not doing anything ever! As it is, I don't really have anything "due" at any specific date; I just sit and read and produce ideas. (I should point out that I don't really have classes that have things due - as an MRes student, I'm essentially a PhD student, but without the title.) I don't know what to do with all this free time. I suppose I should cultivate a hobby or seven.
I am beginning to understand what is meant by "breakneck American speed".
Basically, if you know anybody in graduate school in the States, you know that they keep 15-20 hour days, are often wearing clothes from three days ago and look pretty ragged. Being a graduate student in the US is far from a glamorous thing - you'll often get looks of pity from other people when you tell them you're in graduate school! This is what I was expecting from graduate school in the UK - and was asking advice of people whom I had viewed as successful graduate students on surviving the journey. I had assumed that graduate school was a universal experience of intellectual masochism.
This is simply not how higher education works here. I was gearing up for 15-20 hour days of work only to find out that nobody would EVER do that! The postgrads I share an office with nearly fell out of their chairs when they heard that American grad students would work that much. In ONE DAY? they asked. They said that if I worked for six to eight hours a day "that would be a beautifully productive day" and that "I should go to the pub immediately". SIX TO EIGHT HOURS, you guys. (They do make a valid point, though - after a while, doesn't the quality of the work you produce go down? Well, yes...) Later I inquired about gaining access to the office over the weekend, and everyone stared at me. "Why would you come in over the weekend unless you had a giant deadline hanging over your head?" they asked. Because I have work to do? I don't know when they get anything done.
I try to show up at my office around 10 or 11 Monday through Friday and work until about 7 or 8 pm unless I have seminars to attend or meetings with people. When I go home I stop working. Not only is this unheard of in American-style grad school - or any American education system really, I am still being told I work too much! As it is, I am already pulling "ridiculous hours at the office"; I am almost always the first person to arrive. The other grad students think I am crazy for even attempting this.
It is arguably harder to slow down than it is to speed up. Given pressure, I think you can definitely learn how to do more work. (You might not like it, however.) But being told to do less work? I'm having such a hard time figuring out what i should DO with myself! I have a book that I have been working through slowly for one of my professors and could be working harder at, and I have other readings that I could be working on too. But no, I decided, I should take the weekend off. Or at least as much of it as I could bear. If you knew me in college, you know that I would do schoolwork every day except for Friday (I would sleep on Friday.)
So in an effort to slow down, on my first weekend after the semester started, I:
read a book for fun,
went to a farmer's market,
saw three bands play a gig,
went grocery shopping at two separate stores,
visited three art galleries,
scoped out a couple other art galleries,
looked into seeing some plays,
tried to hunt down some books I need for a class I joined,
walked to a new part of the city and back,
sent some emails,
typed up some drafts for future posts,
and read two articles and wrote a 500 word response
...all before 6pm on Sunday night. (Last weekend was quite similar.)
So much for slowing down! It's so strange to be told to relax. I've been working on it, though but I feel like I'm not not doing anything ever! As it is, I don't really have anything "due" at any specific date; I just sit and read and produce ideas. (I should point out that I don't really have classes that have things due - as an MRes student, I'm essentially a PhD student, but without the title.) I don't know what to do with all this free time. I suppose I should cultivate a hobby or seven.
11 October 2010
I don't mind the weather, I've got scarves and caps and sweaters
I just wish I understood it.
The other day someone turned to me and said, "Oh, we're having a lovely fall!" It is sixty degrees and raining. Fall? I've been spoiled by beautiful New England autumns for the past 22 years. Living in a city often means "no trees", though. But as for the weather...
(image from thefuckingweather dot com)
I've desperately been trying to figure out what Scotland's weather is like. Well, I mean, of course it rains; we are in the United Kingdom. But a lot of it is not intuitive. I also have rapidly figured out that I always need to have an umbrella on me - even if it has been sunny and beautiful all day, it is bound to rain at some point. It is also not uncommon for rain to happen while it is perfectly sunny - clear skies and rain (this happened repeatedly last week.)
A larger problem is that they insist on using Celsius here, which means that sometimes someone will say "It's so hot out - 22 degrees!" and I have a little heart attack for a second. (My idea of "hot" is American style 80+ F with humidity.) That said, we've been having a great few weeks in what I believe is the mid to high 60s. I have been informed that this is a "heat wave". Unfortunately this also means that sometimes it will be around 35-40 (F) and I will find people wearing just a t-shirt. I know I am not one to speak - I have questionable tastes of what is counts as hot vs cold - but even I know that 30 degrees is unreasonable for t-shirt weather.
I've also been told that winter here is "miserable", which to my New England brain translates to "wet, snowy, and cold as fucking hell." My office is on this gigantic mega-hill (as seen below, though I assure you, google maps will not do it justice, increase the incline by about 45% more. Today I saw three cars stall out while trying to park).
I asked the English department if I will need to buy ice picks for wintertime. They assured me that no, I will not need to do this. I don't see how this is possible.
The other day someone turned to me and said, "Oh, we're having a lovely fall!" It is sixty degrees and raining. Fall? I've been spoiled by beautiful New England autumns for the past 22 years. Living in a city often means "no trees", though. But as for the weather...
(image from thefuckingweather dot com)
I've desperately been trying to figure out what Scotland's weather is like. Well, I mean, of course it rains; we are in the United Kingdom. But a lot of it is not intuitive. I also have rapidly figured out that I always need to have an umbrella on me - even if it has been sunny and beautiful all day, it is bound to rain at some point. It is also not uncommon for rain to happen while it is perfectly sunny - clear skies and rain (this happened repeatedly last week.)
A larger problem is that they insist on using Celsius here, which means that sometimes someone will say "It's so hot out - 22 degrees!" and I have a little heart attack for a second. (My idea of "hot" is American style 80+ F with humidity.) That said, we've been having a great few weeks in what I believe is the mid to high 60s. I have been informed that this is a "heat wave". Unfortunately this also means that sometimes it will be around 35-40 (F) and I will find people wearing just a t-shirt. I know I am not one to speak - I have questionable tastes of what is counts as hot vs cold - but even I know that 30 degrees is unreasonable for t-shirt weather.
I've also been told that winter here is "miserable", which to my New England brain translates to "wet, snowy, and cold as fucking hell." My office is on this gigantic mega-hill (as seen below, though I assure you, google maps will not do it justice, increase the incline by about 45% more. Today I saw three cars stall out while trying to park).
I asked the English department if I will need to buy ice picks for wintertime. They assured me that no, I will not need to do this. I don't see how this is possible.
25 September 2010
Stranger in a Strange Land
Before I left for Scotland, everyone was telling me how very brave they thought I was - going so far away to a place I had never been, without knowing anybody there. And I appreciated that, but I never really thought of myself as being brave. I was doing what I had to do - the guy who essentially invented what I do is here, there's a lot of linguistics stuff happening here (sometime in the next few weeks I am meeting with someone who is working on the Oxford English Thesaurus!). It just made sense to come to Glasgow.
It turns out it was a brave thing to do.
I've been here a little over a week and things are going really well. Don't get me wrong - it's terrifying to be in a new city, let alone a new country by yourself! There are good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours, but it's really about little victories. I rode the tube by myself to go somewhere new and I didn't get lost! I went to the pub by myself and read some newspapers for a couple of hours. I asked someone to lunch and we talked for a while. I just got back from meeting another grad student who is also an American - we met up with a couple of her friends from her church, who were amazing and helpful and very kind.
Luckily everyone speaks English and everyone is very friendly. (This is the friendliest city I've ever been in!). The other students in my program are very nice and very helpful but I'm trying to not depend on them for everything, you know? I send them emails asking what I should do on a weekend, and they were all great, giving me some pubs to check out, and suggestions for theatres to go to.
But, it's hard when you don't know anybody. How do you make friends in a city? I'm trying to push my boundaries a little bit, be open to anything, and attend anything I am invited to. Do you have any ideas, dear readers?
It turns out it was a brave thing to do.
I've been here a little over a week and things are going really well. Don't get me wrong - it's terrifying to be in a new city, let alone a new country by yourself! There are good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours, but it's really about little victories. I rode the tube by myself to go somewhere new and I didn't get lost! I went to the pub by myself and read some newspapers for a couple of hours. I asked someone to lunch and we talked for a while. I just got back from meeting another grad student who is also an American - we met up with a couple of her friends from her church, who were amazing and helpful and very kind.
Luckily everyone speaks English and everyone is very friendly. (This is the friendliest city I've ever been in!). The other students in my program are very nice and very helpful but I'm trying to not depend on them for everything, you know? I send them emails asking what I should do on a weekend, and they were all great, giving me some pubs to check out, and suggestions for theatres to go to.
But, it's hard when you don't know anybody. How do you make friends in a city? I'm trying to push my boundaries a little bit, be open to anything, and attend anything I am invited to. Do you have any ideas, dear readers?
14 August 2010
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!)
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!)
05 August 2010
in which i have feelings about prop 8
As I'm sure you know by now, Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop 8 yesterday afternoon. Proposition 8 was passed by voters in 2008 and effectively repealed same-sex marriage in California.
Obviously, it was a big deal to repeal same-sex marriage in one of the most stereotypically liberal places in the country. There were protests, there were rallies, there were viral video campaigns, there were celebrity speak-outs. Barack Obama had just been elected president around the same time. We - anyone who could be construed as even kind of liberal - were all certain that The World Was Going To Change For The Better. It was going to be great! "Yes we can," we had said. We did!
I remember November 5, 2008. We were all high off the announcement of President-Elect Barack Obama; we were full of joy and hope. We were proud to be Americans, Americans who had just elected our first African-American president, we were going to be Liberal Progressives and we had silenced McCain and Palin. I mostly remember being glad that the election was over so I wouldn't have to hear anything about it anymore; nobody would be chasing me across the street begging me to vote!
The next day, I remember hearing that Prop 8 had passed. I remember being kind of hurt and but still riding high from the night before. It's going to be okay, I thought. It won't be nearly as bad as the past eight years. We have Obama, not Bush. It's going to be okay. (I also remember not wanting to put all my trust for a country in one person; I remember not entirely liking Obama's LGBT policies and plans and I remember being distrustful of political promises. I knew that I was being stupid and naive, so easily deluded by our Liberal Progressiveness! But I wanted to believe, oh how I wanted to believe.)
I put Prop 8 out of my mind. California's far away, I thought. Things can change still. Other states will pass civil unions. There are 49 other states. It's scary to know that same-sex marriages can and will be repealed, but at least they had them, right? New Hampshire had just begun to talk about it. It was an exciting time. My home state of Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage, and I was hoping to see the same live-free-or-die philosophy honored in my adopted home state. New Hampshire's civil union ruling went into effect on January 1 of this year. It is exciting to be young and queer in the midst of this political process.
I kept pushing Prop 8 out of my head as more states started to institute civil unions. It's a frustratingly slow process; it doesn't always feel like you are moving forward. Sometimes it feels like you are moving backwards.
On the road to LGBTQ+ equality, every state that starts to think about civil unions is a baby step. Every state that passed civil unions and/or same-sex marriage is another baby step. I have friends who are not in support of marriage, calling it a heterosexist institution. But before you can overthrow an institution you need to have it securely in place. Baby steps. Gay marriage with full civil liberties will eventually become Non-Modifier Marriage. We need marriage before we can overthrow marriage.
Straight folks can get married and divorced and married and divorced; something like 50% of marriages end in divorce. Maybe you are the one ruining the institution of marriage. How does that feel? Not so good, right?
Here's the thing about being gay: you are repeatedly told that your identity is inherently wrong. Being gay is the scariest fucking thing, every single day.
This past fall, Maine was voting on legalizing civil unions. In October, I went to a concert in Portland and saw many God Hates Fags signs while I was there. Maine, twenty minutes away from me at UNH, didn't feel like a very safe place anymore.
Maine's civil unions bill didn't pass. I read the news that morning, heartbroken, and cried for a while. How could this happen? How could this happen so close to me? And then I remembered Prop 8. I remembered how many lives these rulings touch and affect. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about it.
Knowing that California has reversed their ruling makes me so, so happy because it is a huge step towards equality. Of course there are going to be appeals, and of course it's going to keep going on and on in circles for a while. But yesterday was a huge, huge victory for so many people. And not just in California - this struggle for equality is worldwide.
I can't wait to tell my kids about it one day.
15 July 2010
Tweet tweet (Or: Now back to our regularly-scheduled deconstruction)
So I joined Twitter, as you may have figured out by now. Judge away, I don't blame you. I can claim I was doing it for "research purposes" but whatever, I have a twitter account. I was bored one day and it provides another time-waster during funemployment. For the most part, it's a depository of links to some of the articles I've written. I don't think my minute-to-minute actions are especially interesting; perhaps that makes me a bad Twitter user. I have a hard enough time coming up with things to write about on here! But at the same time I also feel like I have Joined The Internet. I am now - officially - An Internet Person.
Basically, we can boil down the twitter experience to the following sentence: Twitter has been rather lamentable but simultaneously REALLY INTERESTING, and once you get accustomed to getting your information in that way, it is very difficult to disconnect. I've been on there for about a month now, and the longer you're on it the more it grows on you. It's kind of unfortunate.
What I like about Twitter is that it offers information in an ingenious way. It's kind of like having your own personal newsfeed only about things that you care about, which is really cool. I think 140 characters is limiting - I am very bad at keeping sentences succinct, and don't text messages get 160 characters? - but at the same time it's almost a challenge to see how simply you can state something. Linguistically, Twitter is amazing! (Also, I don't shut up about linguistics.)
It also offers something called Trending Twitter Topics, which are Things Many People Are Talking About. These are fascinating, and it's amazing to see how people create new words in real-time! You can tell what is catching on and what isn't, what makes a good catchphrase and what does not. It also shows what is Really Important on a Global Scale; it's kind of like a Global Newsfeed unto itself. Another thing I do really like about twitter is that it allows you to search users' tweets for specific words, which is occasionally really helpful.
But, I'm also not following a lot of people. I'm following 40 accounts right now, which isn't too bad, but I feel like my Twitter experience would greatly benefit from having friends to have conversations with, but at the same time that seems like a wildly inefficient form of communication. Are you on twitter? You should follow me (@heatherfro).
Basically, we can boil down the twitter experience to the following sentence: Twitter has been rather lamentable but simultaneously REALLY INTERESTING, and once you get accustomed to getting your information in that way, it is very difficult to disconnect. I've been on there for about a month now, and the longer you're on it the more it grows on you. It's kind of unfortunate.
What I like about Twitter is that it offers information in an ingenious way. It's kind of like having your own personal newsfeed only about things that you care about, which is really cool. I think 140 characters is limiting - I am very bad at keeping sentences succinct, and don't text messages get 160 characters? - but at the same time it's almost a challenge to see how simply you can state something. Linguistically, Twitter is amazing! (Also, I don't shut up about linguistics.)
It also offers something called Trending Twitter Topics, which are Things Many People Are Talking About. These are fascinating, and it's amazing to see how people create new words in real-time! You can tell what is catching on and what isn't, what makes a good catchphrase and what does not. It also shows what is Really Important on a Global Scale; it's kind of like a Global Newsfeed unto itself. Another thing I do really like about twitter is that it allows you to search users' tweets for specific words, which is occasionally really helpful.
But, I'm also not following a lot of people. I'm following 40 accounts right now, which isn't too bad, but I feel like my Twitter experience would greatly benefit from having friends to have conversations with, but at the same time that seems like a wildly inefficient form of communication. Are you on twitter? You should follow me (@heatherfro).
my blog is decidedly not a tumblr but I don't think it's too much to say that this is all I ever really want out of life.
paired with some nice folk music playing in the background.
10 July 2010
From proto-Sanskrit Minoans to Porto-centric Lisboans, Greek Cypriots and and hobbisots who hang around in quotes a lot
So I write a column for The Examiner about linguistics. (you might have heard about it.) It's a lot of fun, there's a lot of freedom to write about whatever you want as long as it's relevant to your topic. However, next to nothing happens linguistically on a day to day basis, and rarely does anything especially "local" happens in my field - sometimes it's a bit of a stretch to come up with stuff to talk about! As a result, a lot of my columns are mostly extravagant concessions on my part.
Much like this blog, I have no idea who is reading my columns. I'm not really promoting this page at all, so it's often like shouting into the void. Writing for the Examiner is similar in that I'm still kind of shouting into the void, but I'm also putting all of my articles on StumbleUpon and sending a few people my articles. I'm trying a little harder. I have garnered some readership, and unlike this blog, I have some analytics available for The Examiner. I usually get about 60-90 page hits on days that I write. This baffles me, because I don't think I could think of 60-90 people who would want to hear what I have to say. Other than the people I've bullied into reading (thanks, if you're reading; I do really appreciate it, and I'm sorry if it's annoying) and a few people in my family who are sort of required to read my articles (ahem, Mom & Dad) I don't think I could come up with 60-90 people off the top of my head!
But for the first time since I started writing for The Examiner, something linguistically newsworthy happened and I wrote about it for yesterday's article. I then went to Boston for a day and a half to dog-sit with my friend KA. Upon coming back, I found out that I was on the front of the Society & Culture page and had been on the front page of the Boston Examiner yesterday, leading to my highest readership ever - just from one article! I am currently the third-most read Society & Culture Examiner behind the New York Charities Examiner. I am floored!
1,413 people were interested in what I had to say yesterday. That's pretty cool. If you've been reading all along - thanks so much.
09 June 2010
This is a little story about the best birthday present I have received in a long time
Yesterday was my birthday! Aside from a few books that I've been looking forward to reading, I didn't get anything especially exciting until later in the afternoon.
While sitting around the other night, I went to check my assorted Career-Finding-Website newsletters. Presumably if you have used one of these Find-A-Career Dot-Coms, you are familiar with these e-mails. One of them listed that The Examiner was looking for some columnists for their Society & Culture section. Familiar with The Examiner, I quickly skim the list of available Examiner titles: Linguistics Examiner.
"That's me!" I thought. "I could do that!"
So at 11:30 at night, I throw together a quick article about Twitterspeak and a little blurb about why they should hire me as the Boston-Area Linguist.
I receive one of those "we are now processing your information FOR EVER" e-mails. I don't really think too much about it. The next afternoon - on my birthday - I discover they want to give me the linguistics column! And I will get paid per article! (spoiler alert: probably very little.) AND it'll be a legitimate thing (ahem, Beer Summer.)
To recap: I get to write articles about things I already think about. These articles are then published! With my name attached! Other people will read them (maybe!) And then, I will (presumably) get paid for it. What's up, relevant resume expierence. I don't care any more, really, if I don't have a "real job". I am actually using my degree directly out of college! Not only am I going be a freelance writer, which is every English major's dream, I get to read about linguistics and think about language and THEN I GET TO OPEN THIS DISCUSSION FOR OTHER PEOPLE. I, for one, am excited. I hope you are too.
While sitting around the other night, I went to check my assorted Career-Finding-Website newsletters. Presumably if you have used one of these Find-A-Career Dot-Coms, you are familiar with these e-mails. One of them listed that The Examiner was looking for some columnists for their Society & Culture section. Familiar with The Examiner, I quickly skim the list of available Examiner titles: Linguistics Examiner.
"That's me!" I thought. "I could do that!"
So at 11:30 at night, I throw together a quick article about Twitterspeak and a little blurb about why they should hire me as the Boston-Area Linguist.
I receive one of those "we are now processing your information FOR EVER" e-mails. I don't really think too much about it. The next afternoon - on my birthday - I discover they want to give me the linguistics column! And I will get paid per article! (spoiler alert: probably very little.) AND it'll be a legitimate thing (ahem, Beer Summer.)
To recap: I get to write articles about things I already think about. These articles are then published! With my name attached! Other people will read them (maybe!) And then, I will (presumably) get paid for it. What's up, relevant resume expierence. I don't care any more, really, if I don't have a "real job". I am actually using my degree directly out of college! Not only am I going be a freelance writer, which is every English major's dream, I get to read about linguistics and think about language and THEN I GET TO OPEN THIS DISCUSSION FOR OTHER PEOPLE. I, for one, am excited. I hope you are too.
12 May 2010
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.
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.
09 April 2010
sticking it to the man
You have probably figured out by now, dear reader, that i like social justice; I'm very passionate about it. I have probably gone on a few too many Angry Feminist Rants already on here. But, if you don't want to hear about it, that's fine ... have fun being ignorant.
So you can imagine my surprise when the US Census Bureau announced that for the 2010 Census, they were not counting LGBT(Q)* identities. This is supposed to be a portrait of Identities of People who Live in the United States. And so, as their ads say, we can't figure out how many classrooms the United States needs unless we know how many schoolchildren are there. But, we also can't see how many people are affected by not recognizing LGBT(Q) identities in socio-political discourse. (Yeah, I said socio-political discourse on my blog.)
Which brings me to the Queer The Census movement. The Queer The Census movement - a product of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force - is mass-producing free stickers for everyone who wants one to identify themselves to the Census Bureau to show them a population of people who are not-straight, and want their identity to count.** (Conveniently, almost a full month into the Census, the Census bureau announced if you were an LGBTQ in a long-term, committed partnership and wanted to list yourself as "married" rather than "single", it is okay to list your partner as your husband or wife. Way to devalidate any long-term same-sex partnerships for anyone who submitted their census form in the first month.)
If you have your census form sitting in front of you and you don't have a sticker, you can download a PDF from their website and use packing tape to put it on your form. You have the option of checking off lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or a straight ally - an identity that almost everyone can categorize themselves under, even if it's a little limiting or broad. Below are pictures of me Queering the Census. Please do this - it's really important.
* I'm notating (Q) as such because Queer and Questioning are sometimes a little too broad in categorization. This is not a bad thing, but if we can get everyone to identify predominantly on an identity which is easily quantifiable by the whole country? That would be so wonderful.
** In a similar act of ignorance, Hispanic/Latino/Latina identities are equally as ignored in the category of "Race".
So you can imagine my surprise when the US Census Bureau announced that for the 2010 Census, they were not counting LGBT(Q)* identities. This is supposed to be a portrait of Identities of People who Live in the United States. And so, as their ads say, we can't figure out how many classrooms the United States needs unless we know how many schoolchildren are there. But, we also can't see how many people are affected by not recognizing LGBT(Q) identities in socio-political discourse. (Yeah, I said socio-political discourse on my blog.)
Which brings me to the Queer The Census movement. The Queer The Census movement - a product of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force - is mass-producing free stickers for everyone who wants one to identify themselves to the Census Bureau to show them a population of people who are not-straight, and want their identity to count.** (Conveniently, almost a full month into the Census, the Census bureau announced if you were an LGBTQ in a long-term, committed partnership and wanted to list yourself as "married" rather than "single", it is okay to list your partner as your husband or wife. Way to devalidate any long-term same-sex partnerships for anyone who submitted their census form in the first month.)
If you have your census form sitting in front of you and you don't have a sticker, you can download a PDF from their website and use packing tape to put it on your form. You have the option of checking off lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or a straight ally - an identity that almost everyone can categorize themselves under, even if it's a little limiting or broad. Below are pictures of me Queering the Census. Please do this - it's really important.
* I'm notating (Q) as such because Queer and Questioning are sometimes a little too broad in categorization. This is not a bad thing, but if we can get everyone to identify predominantly on an identity which is easily quantifiable by the whole country? That would be so wonderful.
** In a similar act of ignorance, Hispanic/Latino/Latina identities are equally as ignored in the category of "Race".
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