Tuesday, April 18, 2006
life being what it is, this blog has fallen by the wayside and there it will likely remain. sitemeter tells me that people still visit here, and i think it fair to tell you that after this, i probably won't update here anymore. but for the sake of symmetry i offer the following.
fall semester ended rather torturously, but successfully. i got the grades, i got the letters of recommendation, i finished the apps. i was accepted everywhere i applied. i guess it was a combination of a genuine love for the field, playing the game reasonably well, and some amount of dumb luck. hopefully i can preserve all three of these factors as i go forward, beyond the pale...
you might expect that once you get accepted everywhere life becomes sunnywarm and easy, with butterflies lighting softly on your shoulder and birds singing songs just for you. but i am here to shatter your expectations. it can be really hard because then you are confronted with figuring out why you are REALLY in this. how you want the next 5-6 years of your life to be. and what position you want to be in at the end of that time. you have to make sure you're serious and you have to get very comfortable with making a leap of faith in practice, not just in theory. finally last week i committed to a program, and then immediately collapsed on my couch in a swarm of migraine and infection. will said once that school is corrosive, and i guess he was right. but it's so worth it, says the me with antibiotics percolating happily through the blood supply.
in the fall i will be starting the ph.d program in linguistics at uc berkeley. i'm just auditing one class now, and not very faithfully. but i'm reading like mad. for me, this is living the dream.
and i've never felt such a sense of accomplishment, in all my life.
thanks for reading, you few tenacious optimists.
xo,
amy
fall semester ended rather torturously, but successfully. i got the grades, i got the letters of recommendation, i finished the apps. i was accepted everywhere i applied. i guess it was a combination of a genuine love for the field, playing the game reasonably well, and some amount of dumb luck. hopefully i can preserve all three of these factors as i go forward, beyond the pale...
you might expect that once you get accepted everywhere life becomes sunnywarm and easy, with butterflies lighting softly on your shoulder and birds singing songs just for you. but i am here to shatter your expectations. it can be really hard because then you are confronted with figuring out why you are REALLY in this. how you want the next 5-6 years of your life to be. and what position you want to be in at the end of that time. you have to make sure you're serious and you have to get very comfortable with making a leap of faith in practice, not just in theory. finally last week i committed to a program, and then immediately collapsed on my couch in a swarm of migraine and infection. will said once that school is corrosive, and i guess he was right. but it's so worth it, says the me with antibiotics percolating happily through the blood supply.
in the fall i will be starting the ph.d program in linguistics at uc berkeley. i'm just auditing one class now, and not very faithfully. but i'm reading like mad. for me, this is living the dream.
and i've never felt such a sense of accomplishment, in all my life.
thanks for reading, you few tenacious optimists.
xo,
amy
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
hello school blog.
it's me.
look, i know it's been awhile.
i haven't written.
i haven't even called.
i never said it was gonna be all roses and champagne you know.
sometimes people just have to be free.
to do what they gotta do.
free to be you & me.
i still love you.
don't cry.
c'mere.
***
week 12 of 15.
let's see where the tally stands.
midterms: all done.
that's about all i can say about that.
reading: basically caught up.
homeworks: i'm rocking them. just a few left.
grad school apps: uhhhhh
hey look over there
a shiny thing!
look, elvis!
attendance: extremely good
course project/term paper: probably better than average. have to start writing now.
hmm i don't know what else to tell you.
i could tell you the funny old theory about grimm's law and germanic speakers being from the alps. how all the running up and down mountains made them huff and puff a lot, and that's why the voiceless stop series all changed to fricatives.
i could tell you about that, but i don't think you'd find it very funny.
you're just a blog, after all.
it's me.
look, i know it's been awhile.
i haven't written.
i haven't even called.
i never said it was gonna be all roses and champagne you know.
sometimes people just have to be free.
to do what they gotta do.
free to be you & me.
i still love you.
don't cry.
c'mere.
***
week 12 of 15.
let's see where the tally stands.
midterms: all done.
that's about all i can say about that.
reading: basically caught up.
homeworks: i'm rocking them. just a few left.
grad school apps: uhhhhh
hey look over there
a shiny thing!
look, elvis!
attendance: extremely good
course project/term paper: probably better than average. have to start writing now.
hmm i don't know what else to tell you.
i could tell you the funny old theory about grimm's law and germanic speakers being from the alps. how all the running up and down mountains made them huff and puff a lot, and that's why the voiceless stop series all changed to fricatives.
i could tell you about that, but i don't think you'd find it very funny.
you're just a blog, after all.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
8/15.
the halfway point of any difficult and extended task is always so psychologically significant for me. i wasn't very focused this week but i did manage to acknowledge the exact moment on wednesday morning when i crossed the line. now i am closer to the end than to the beginning and that is a relief, and that is scary. so much left to do between now and then: another midterm, term paper, grad school stuff, finals.
i love framenet in a way that transcends the work and its usefulness to my study, to my qualifications (i still can't get around to thinking of a summary of my preparedness as a 'cv' - such a pretentious term). i love to go there and sit in the windowless little office shared by a fulltime frame developer (who also serves an important role as chief answerer of my general pondery questions) and the two real annotators, i.e. those who are paid for their efforts. the former is a previous ling grad student, the latter a first year grad student and a last year undergrad cog sci/music double major. she plays tapes of brahms and air-pianos them on her desk. wednesdays when i'm there all afternoon and it's just me & the fulltime guy i play kalx. always we play with language, whoever is around. i feel a warmth for these people although i don't really know them yet.
this week at framenet i learned about pangolins.
hmm, what else...i've been pointedly avoiding the needy gaze of the grad school application process. obviously that needs to change.
why not today?
the halfway point of any difficult and extended task is always so psychologically significant for me. i wasn't very focused this week but i did manage to acknowledge the exact moment on wednesday morning when i crossed the line. now i am closer to the end than to the beginning and that is a relief, and that is scary. so much left to do between now and then: another midterm, term paper, grad school stuff, finals.
i love framenet in a way that transcends the work and its usefulness to my study, to my qualifications (i still can't get around to thinking of a summary of my preparedness as a 'cv' - such a pretentious term). i love to go there and sit in the windowless little office shared by a fulltime frame developer (who also serves an important role as chief answerer of my general pondery questions) and the two real annotators, i.e. those who are paid for their efforts. the former is a previous ling grad student, the latter a first year grad student and a last year undergrad cog sci/music double major. she plays tapes of brahms and air-pianos them on her desk. wednesdays when i'm there all afternoon and it's just me & the fulltime guy i play kalx. always we play with language, whoever is around. i feel a warmth for these people although i don't really know them yet.
this week at framenet i learned about pangolins.
hmm, what else...i've been pointedly avoiding the needy gaze of the grad school application process. obviously that needs to change.
why not today?
Thursday, October 13, 2005
midterms: could've been better, could've been worse. no permanent damage done.
i've begun my framenet annotation work in earnest. i think my next song will be titled "ballad of the lexicographer." we may have to get the flying saussures back together, blues brothers style. i get to be elwood. wait, jake. wait, which one always ordered dry white toast? i wanna be that one.
i think i'm not totally bad at it. lexicography, that is.
i helped fix a couple of frames today. Secrecy_status and Be_in_agreement_on_action, if you must know.
what i'm really trying to avoid discussing here is that i had some direct and strong confirmation of some worries that have been simmering around in my fretty head for awhile. about the direction of the department. it's not quite to the point of a crisis of faith but the pedestal is teetering a bit.
i found out some stuff i probably shouldn't know.
bah, i'm grumpy.
go away now.
i've begun my framenet annotation work in earnest. i think my next song will be titled "ballad of the lexicographer." we may have to get the flying saussures back together, blues brothers style. i get to be elwood. wait, jake. wait, which one always ordered dry white toast? i wanna be that one.
i think i'm not totally bad at it. lexicography, that is.
i helped fix a couple of frames today. Secrecy_status and Be_in_agreement_on_action, if you must know.
what i'm really trying to avoid discussing here is that i had some direct and strong confirmation of some worries that have been simmering around in my fretty head for awhile. about the direction of the department. it's not quite to the point of a crisis of faith but the pedestal is teetering a bit.
i found out some stuff i probably shouldn't know.
bah, i'm grumpy.
go away now.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
quote of the week:
"the first rule of comparative linguistics is that you've got to know what to compare."
-professor holland
at the risk of this blog becoming a serial love letter to historical linguistics, just let me say that this is one of those statements that really struck me as quiet brilliance. it seems obvious on its face, but not only is it the kind of thing that gets slippery in practice (that's part of what makes this stuff fun though, guessing at dropped first syllables, metathesized sounds, etc.) but it can also be metaphorically extended to other things in life. deep thoughts from my 9a class, fun!
midterm tomorrow, another on tuesday.
i'm not really worried.
(well maybe a little)
"the first rule of comparative linguistics is that you've got to know what to compare."
-professor holland
at the risk of this blog becoming a serial love letter to historical linguistics, just let me say that this is one of those statements that really struck me as quiet brilliance. it seems obvious on its face, but not only is it the kind of thing that gets slippery in practice (that's part of what makes this stuff fun though, guessing at dropped first syllables, metathesized sounds, etc.) but it can also be metaphorically extended to other things in life. deep thoughts from my 9a class, fun!
midterm tomorrow, another on tuesday.
i'm not really worried.
(well maybe a little)
Friday, September 30, 2005
my internet broke last night (ha ha) so i panicked for awhile because i had to look up some etymologies in the venerable OED which i was accessing by proxying through the ucb library. 'cause you need to subscribe etc. i briefly considered a crazed midnight call to some friend who might have the OED or a working internet (ha ha) or both. then i just decided to go to bed. lo, upon waking everything was right in the world and i finished without any trouble whatsoever. you can do an advanced search for "folk etymology" and "back-formation" and that makes historical ling homework fairly straightforward.
so today was:
class
coffee
section
class
icsi meeting.
by tuesday i will have an icsi account and email address, and a card key. i'm going to start with frame-based corpus annotation which is a change from their initial plan to exploit my programming skills. i'm certainly happier with annotation. i still haven't figured out how i managed to impress them, but i'm glad that i did.
today i am rather proud that i have made it through five weeks relatively unscathed. 1/3 of the semester done and i am on steady ground. and there's still plenty of fight left in me.
so bit by bit i implement my takeover stragety.
today: icsi.
soon: a tropical island-state!
so today was:
class
coffee
section
class
icsi meeting.
by tuesday i will have an icsi account and email address, and a card key. i'm going to start with frame-based corpus annotation which is a change from their initial plan to exploit my programming skills. i'm certainly happier with annotation. i still haven't figured out how i managed to impress them, but i'm glad that i did.
today i am rather proud that i have made it through five weeks relatively unscathed. 1/3 of the semester done and i am on steady ground. and there's still plenty of fight left in me.
so bit by bit i implement my takeover stragety.
today: icsi.
soon: a tropical island-state!
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
unbelievably gorgeous day. sunny and 80's, my face is sunburned a little but i'm happy. the first of my new no-work-wednesdays and i stayed on campus all day long, caught up on all of my reading and wandered through cafes and the bookstore. walked through parts of campus i'd not been to before, just to explore.
visited my summer professor whom i love. she agreed to write me a grad school recommendation, one little box checked off, long long column of them still empty but i think i have it figured out. i think i have it under control. i told her about my master plan and she didn't laugh, so that's something. she didn't snicker at my oppenheimer caveat, either. will did, but that's to be expected.
in historical we are learning about the comparative method for reconstructing proto-languages. i get it, so that's nice.
study group tonight. srini's talk at icsi tomorrow ("Beyond Keyword Search: Semantic Structures for Question Answering"). meet collin friday. midterms next two weeks. statement of purpose draft within two weeks.
so my life is set. it all (mostly) fits into my schedule and i've relaxed into the pace and now i just have to follow through. all of this having things lined up is new for me. i've been feeling a little boring lately but maybe that's just another word for grownup. no time for hard living when i have all those unchecked boxes...
now i have just enough time for a little nap before i go back into the fray.
visited my summer professor whom i love. she agreed to write me a grad school recommendation, one little box checked off, long long column of them still empty but i think i have it figured out. i think i have it under control. i told her about my master plan and she didn't laugh, so that's something. she didn't snicker at my oppenheimer caveat, either. will did, but that's to be expected.
in historical we are learning about the comparative method for reconstructing proto-languages. i get it, so that's nice.
study group tonight. srini's talk at icsi tomorrow ("Beyond Keyword Search: Semantic Structures for Question Answering"). meet collin friday. midterms next two weeks. statement of purpose draft within two weeks.
so my life is set. it all (mostly) fits into my schedule and i've relaxed into the pace and now i just have to follow through. all of this having things lined up is new for me. i've been feeling a little boring lately but maybe that's just another word for grownup. no time for hard living when i have all those unchecked boxes...
now i have just enough time for a little nap before i go back into the fray.
