Well, it's official. I just sent off my first paper, with the hopes that it will get published.
Ok, let's not get our egos pumped up hugely here. It's a working paper, meaning that it's not posing a 'novel' idea per se, rather it's going to lead to a bigger, better paper. Also, the chances of it getting published are slim...you just can't expect everything you send off to be published. But still...there's a sense of accomplishment associated with this. I have officially taken the next
I decided last night to go see "No Country For Old Men," seeing as how it was about to be in a double feature with "There Will Be Blood" (which I don't care to see right now). So, 9:35pm showing...and it was so worth it.
Admittedly, I'm a big Coen Bros. fan. I love their work--"The Big Lebowski" is in permanent residence in my DVD collection, and "Fargo" is about to join it. I love how they can work the dark side of humanity into a central question of society: what is justice? At least,
Originally I was set to teach a course in the summer, one which was meant to include local high school students. It was a great program--the thought is to include them on certain popular courses so that their transition to college (be it community college or a 4-year college) would be better. 6 weeks, and a collegiate course. It was going to be tough, but hell, I was up for the challenge!
News just came down the pipe...the high school district just now realized that the high school studen
For the record: I'm a moderate Independent, one who is completely undecided. I didn't vote for either of these candidates in the primaries; Independents in California only had open access to the Democrat ballot, and not the Republican, so I gave no vote either way.
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I really enjoyed listening to this first Presidential debate. Some of the items were to be expected: Obama linking McCain to Dubbya, while McCain consistently saying that Obama was in
At the very last meeting of my Monday night class last semester, we got talking about food. One student was having issues with lasagna...loved to eat it, hated to make it because she didn't really know what to do. Evidently, she was raised on Stoffer's, not on fresh. I said I often make it when I have people coming over, and she asked for the recipe. I chuckled...my 'recipe' for lasagna is done on the fly, much like my 'recipes' for minestrone, spaghetti sauce, chili, and a few other soups.
When it rains, it pours. It's rained something like 5 out of the last 6 days, and will continue to rain another 6 out of the next 7. One lady I see often in the gym is starting to complain about it, seeing as how the precipitation is causing her to do all her exercise indoors rather than go for a walk. Personally, I do like walking in light rain; it brings this cool, cool water down right when you're getting a bit too warm. As long as it's not blustery or pouring (and we rarely, if ever, get
This week has been utterly brutal. Actually, the last few weeks have, and it wasn't until Thursday that it all came to a head.
I teach an 8am class 3 days a week, on a campus that's 25 miles away. For us 'round here, well, that's not much of a commute, and I really don't view it as being far away. But an 8am class, that means I need to be on campus by 7:30 to get last minute stuff done, which means I have to leave the house no later than 6:45. Originally I thought I had to leave the hous
Thanks to last year's baseball excursion, I had a $300 voucher to fly anywhere in the continental US on American Airlines, and decided a while back to use it to go down to San Antonio and Austin. Outside of a trip back here 2 years ago to defend the dissertation--when I was so focused on that one element that I didn't do anything else--I haven't been back since I left 4 years ago. There are a lot of people here that I came to care about, and I wanted to visit them. And, well, Austin is an out
Saturday night...after a day of not much, but so much, I feel a melancholy shadow starting starting to creep in. Well, maybe 'melancholy' isn't the right word...definitely it's subdued in nature, and even has elements of uncertainty and doubt in it. This cloud, however, does have a silver lining.
My main teaching gig has me going in different directions. Various groups are asking for my time and effort in order to accomplish a variety of goals. Sure, it's an honor to do so, as they genui
Well, the interview has passed. And my nerves are infinitely calmer for it, too.
I have spent the last week or so cramming as much Italian grammar as I can...which sounds like a lot of studying. But considering this is mid-semester, and that normally implies a mountain of work, I didn't get to study quite as much as I would have liked. Not to mention that I had no time to go to any conversation groups, so my confidence in my speaking abilities was not exactly bolstered.
I knew that in
Sausalito--or 'The Land of the Little Willows' as the Spaniards called it--lies just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. For the past 54 years they have an arts and crafts festival that rivals any other, with middle-to-very-high end pottery, jewelry, paintings, photography, and the like (yes, and the prices to match).
This year, my parents and I went to it, just to see what we could see. Gesu Maria...wow...I mean, some really great stuff, that took our breath
There are certain words in Old Castilian that occur in my dataset which I have traced their etymology...and they are Arabic borrowings. Not unusual at all; because of almost 800 years of Moorish rule, and the close contact between the Romance-speaking Iberians, the Jewish shopkeepers and the Arabic-speaking Moors, there's about 10% of the Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan vocabularies which is Semitic (mostly Arabic) in origin.
So, I have about 8 words in my dataset which are Arabic in origi
Wanted: 3 more hours in the day
Job description: I need 3 more hours per day in order to finish all of the work that I need to do. In those said 3 hours I need to do a combination of any of the following activities:
** sleep and/or rest
** eat
** grade papers
** finish editing
** play with Bella the Feline
** have a pot of tea
** go out into the garden and play in the dirt
** take a walk
** go for a swim
Compensation: Getting more things done
I want this on record: I have the coolest students ever.
My Intermediate Spanish class is a unique group. 60% of them are over the age of 50, and are taking this to better their knowledge...no requirements here. The rest are a mix of college-aged and teenaged students, taking the course for credit towards their school or degree. They all knew, like their colleagues in my other classes, that I was gone last week for my dissertation defense. But this class was different.
First, they bo
Ok, I'm not, really, but it makes for a great title.
I crack up anymore about meteorology and the news. If you're here in the States, and perhaps on some BBC newscasts, the weather here in Northern California made headlines. "Monster storm!" "Buckets of rain!" "Flooding!"
Yeah, ok. Let me 'splain some tings, Loocee:
1) January is usually a wet month for us. Usually November is, too, as is March...this time 'round November was kinda dry, but so far January's holding up its end
So I'm in the dressing room of the gym, after a good workout, and I'm stripping off to go into the showers. Now, if one were to look at pictures of me, even if they only saw my face, they would guess (and correctly so) that I am prolifically freckly. Indeed, previous boyfriends have kidded around that they could play connect-the-dots on my body, and would be amused for hours. 'Tis true. Freckles and moles are all over, and have been since I was a babe. I have been made aware of my sensitive
If you are a baseball fan, you are about to be immediately jealous of my vacation trip this year. If you're any kind of sports fan, you also might turn a bit green. For the rest of you, I will explain. My mother, my brother Matt and I are about to embark on a trip to the Shrine and two of the Temples of Major League Baseball.
Tuesday night: we take the red-eye to New York, get in Wednesday morning.
Wednesday: afternoon game at Yankee Stadium (vs. the Baltimore Orioles)
Thursday: night g
(**Warning...venting allert. No advice necessary, just need to pout and mope. All is well, I promise!**)
My dad picked the wrong week to go on vacation. Dammit.
Usually when I have questions on certain subjects, I go to him. One is physiology. Not because he's a doctor or has any medical training whatsoever. Instead, he's someone who has done a ton of reading, has felt pain of pretty much every position on the spectrum, and is a logical person. He's the person who taught me that n
Let me tell you, folks, I had plans! First, a great steak dinner (NY Strip steak, medium rare, with sauteed green beans and a great pinot noir), followed by meeting up with neighbors for either one of two ideas: 1) hang out in the backyard bar area and be stupid drunk; or 2) go to the Japantown festivities and be stupid drunk. Either way, I had 2 bottles of Asti chilling, plenty of other potent potables to quench my thirst...to be surrounded by friends (both 'old' and 'new') to celebrate the b
March is an amazing month here in Baghdad-By-The-Bay. The weather is either rainy (but not cold...55'F or so) or gloriously sunny. It seems like we're done with the rain for about a week, so I spent much of the mid-morning and early-afternoon outside. Bella was all too eager to join me, and was ecstatic to be outside again. I don't know who had more fun: her going all over the backyard as I cleaned up the debris from the neighborhood trees, or me playing with her. She took several naps in t
Don't you love it when you hear a song that you love, and it happens to fit your life in some way or another?
I was driving to work this afternoon when that lovely Smiths song came on. The funny thing about the Smiths (and Morrissey) is that I never am totally sure what the title of the song is, but I always end up singing the damned thing. Very good songs, very catchy...and very silly.
"Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life
Well, I guess I should explain my absence and lack of participation. To say the least, I've been a very busy doc.
It breaks down like this: I've been doing more, although I haven't exactly been paid any more, but with the added responsability comes recognition and, hopefully, something more permanent. There were late classes thrown at me, various curriculum and planning duties. I do love it...I'm back to teaching an intro to linguistics class, which I haven't taught in over 10 years, alon
There once was a point in my life that I really didn't care about going out. Well, that's what I thought...in reality I was lonely, but also in denial about said lonliness, so as far as I was concerned, hitting the town with friends was no big deal. Sure, it's fun, but I wasn't concerned that I was missing out on the grandest of times.
At the time, I was living in Austin, working on my degree and, frankly, not very happy. Oh, I loved the city, loved the university...just hated the state (
Life has been busy lately, but somehow I've managed. I've had to get creative in order to make ends meet...it doesn't involve a street corner, but it does involve applying my talents in new ways. I have decided that I need to be called a 'consultant.'
Why, you ask? Because for one, I live not in the city, but in the suburbs, and evidently all those minimally-employed or unemployed professionals who are looking to rectify their economic situation call themselves as such. I've been told th
