Capture the infinity

Why, hello

2011-05-15T20:39:00.005-05:00

I have not posted since early 2010. It is now mid 2011. A lot has changed since then: I moved south into Chicago, I finished (officially) taking classes, and this happened. But then again, many things are very much the same. I'm not sure why I stopped posting here but I wish I hadn't... it might have been helpful for noticing when I started to become lame and miserable. I mean, I'm not totally miserable anymore, but I am pretty lame. For example, these are a few things I was supposed to do this weekend: laundry, dishes, make some sort of healthy food item, prepare for 3 meetings this week, fix stimuli, look at conference deadlines, find a place to live in Boulder, edit paper for Melissa, work on website, work on teaching project, read a lot about face recognition. If I were to make a list of the things I actually did this weekend, it would include some of the above, but also: play approximately 1 zillion hours of iphone games, take a nap, don't leave the house, listen to the radio for many hours, watch a basketball game on the internet, and spend a while on various websites looking for a birthday present for my sister. I'm not sure what's worse, the fact that I didn't even plan on leaving the house, or the fact that I didn't leave the house. In my defense, it was super nice earlier this week, and I did do things like ride my bike to the Montenegran pie place up the street and to a coffee shop. It then got unexpectedly cold (which necessitated me buying an emergency sweatshirt) and rained all weekend and my morale declined a bit. Oh, I did do something on Friday, though! After the colloquium I drove Mike to the bank and then we went to Jordana's house and drank wine and ate ice cream. That was fun.

I don't know -- I feel like I could be on the verge of being awesome again, but I just don't quite know how to get there. I'm much closer to there than I was in the fall, but I'm still not very far.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2010-01-31T23:10:00.000-06:00

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

It has been a while

2009-10-23T20:26:00.003-05:00

There's not much to say, but I finally have time to say it. I've been working a lot lately, but a little less crazily since after the AACL conference. It was so nice to be back in Edmonton and to see all of its lovely inhabitants.

My dad came to my office hours yesterday. He even thought of a question to ask me about linguistics. Three or four weeks ago, he was also in town for several hours. Strangely, my uncle and cousin from San Francisco were also here visiting my cousin who just moved here. So we all got together. And somehow ended up at a tequila bar.

Last week I made lemon and black pepper cookies, which came out more like biscuits, but were actually pretty good.

Okay that's all I got. Just testing to make sure this thing still works.

Harumph.

2009-06-05T19:47:00.002-05:00

Beautiful day outside. Sitting inside.

Karma

2009-05-27T22:34:00.005-05:00

The other day my dollar was doing the in-and-out of the vending machine slot thing when I was trying to buy a drink. Wouldn't take it. At the same time, the guy at the food vending machine next to me got TWO peanut M&M packets at the same time! It was no fair. I wasn't bitter, though. It made me very happy for him, mostly because he seemed to recognize how exciting and important that was.

Today it was my turn. A girl - who I'm assuming was an undergrad who needed to use up some meal points or something - paid for my frozen yogurt milkshake for me, just out of the blue. She just told the cashier at the student center to ring up hers and mine together. Highlight of the day, for sure. I would send her a card if I knew her name.

Sometimes you should just pick the first thing that comes around

2009-05-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

Over Christmas break I went to visit my great uncle Fritz in Virginia with my dad and my grandma (uncle Fritz's sister). The conversations we had that day are worthy of their own posts, and I recorded much of them, so perhaps I will get to that at some later date. Fritz's wife Mary Ann made a nice lunch for us. There wasn't much I could eat on account of everything having meat in it, but there was a delicious looking salad that I was excited about. There were a couple of bottles of salad dressing on the table. Someone passed me the Green Goddess dressing, which sounded pretty good. The expiration date, however, just happened to catch my eye: April 2006. So, I passed it on and waited for the next bottle to come around: Italian. This was going to be it... November 2005. Damn.

Deja vu

2009-05-20T13:31:00.003-05:00

It comes and goes, like the hiccups. I'll get it a lot for a few weeks, and then not have it happen again for months. I wish I could understand it. It's the most intense but also elusive experiences... there's something about the situation that is so impossibly familiar but when you think too hard about what it is the whole thing falls apart. Is it an overactive, creative episodic memory? Or have I really done some of this stuff before? And if I have, why didn't I save some of my old labs so I wouldn't have to do them again?

Two things that are sort of related to food, but not to eating it

2009-05-13T00:24:00.004-05:00

Getting a new refrigerator last week was great, because things in the new refrigerator are cold, but it's hard to get used to all its new noises. There's this one high pitched one that modulates and falls and sounds kind of sounds like a mouth harp.

Yesterday on the train home from the airport, the first time the doors opened it smelled like hot dogs, and did for pretty much my whole ride home. Does Chicago really smell like that all the time? Or was there a Cubs game? Or maybe somebody put a piece of hot dog up my nose?

Note: Spring = May

2009-05-06T12:01:00.001-05:00

Last weekend it turned into springtime here! Proof is outside my office window.

Not so tough after all

2009-04-20T15:00:00.004-05:00

There's been a lot of construction going on outside my office at school since the beginning of the year, apparently involving the installation of an elevator in the building (though they haven't yet gotten very far). The other day I left the office to go upstairs and fill up the coffee pot, and happened upon a burly-looking construction worker taking a break, reading the bulletin boards in the hallway. As I was coming behind him he reached toward the board and ripped off one of those tabs from the bottom of one of the many flyers (is there a name for those?), scanning the hallway to his left and right to make sure that nobody was watching. He was gone by the time I came back with the pot of water, so I went and looked at the flyer that had interested the dude. It read: "Are you afraid of spiders? Sign up for a study to cure your arachnophobia!" Ha!

Moron

2009-04-13T10:48:00.003-05:00

I was running out of my building this morning, late for the bus as usual, and the door wouldn't shut behind me. The back door of my apartment building is falling apart and often doesn't latch at all. This particular time, though, there was an unusual resistance to my pushing, which I attributed to some sort of weird wind current that had been created through the halls of my building on account of the fact that it was quite windy out.

So, I pushed the door closed, and it popped open. I pushed it again but then noticed that I only had four minutes before the bus was going to come so I gave up and started down the stairs. Then, someone walked out the door. He had been trying to get out. I didn't even notice him behind me. I apologized, sheepishly, and then ran away. Oops.

Spring break, in summary

2009-03-30T11:00:00.007-05:00

Alas, break is over. Second week back to school. For posterity, and to remember what it's like to have free time, here are some of the things I did over break:

I slept for pretty much the entire first weekend, did two-three weeks' worth of laundry, saw Slumdog Millionaire, watched Ghostbusters, went to brunch at Cassie & Ben's, made some pretty good cupcakes, bought lots of house plants and planted them, walked around Andersonville, did serious house reorganizing, saw the Bucky Fuller exhibit at MCA, went to the Green Mill, worked on my website, redesigned Talking NC website, went to the Yoga Journal conference in Lake Geneva, WI for a day, and did a lot of hanging out in pajamas. It was pretty great. It even snowed on the last day of break.

It snowed last night, too. And the Rosebuds were in town and they played a fun show on Saturday night at the Beat Kitchen and Matt & Chris & Jordana came to the show and then Ivan & Kelly came over after for a sleepover and diner breakfast. And then I took a nap. I had gone out the night before that too! I am a party animal!

Today, back to school. Monday 9am class really eases me back into the week.

Over, not done with

2009-03-12T12:49:00.004-05:00

Finished the quarter's classes yesterday. Have only just started the quarter's exams and final projects. This next week will be long, but unfortunately not long enough.

Last weekend I experienced the most acute feeling of school burnout maybe ever. I began and finished two whole seasons of a TV series in four days. I dropped a piece of cereal under the couch (Heart to Heart Honey Toasted Os - they are amazing) and spent a good amount of time thinking about whether it was worth it to reach down and pick it up. I took naps at 11am, after having only been up for three hours. One day I sat at the kitchen table and took pictures of some guys across the street tearing down a chimney. Another day I sat at the kitchen table and just stared at the rain. It was bad.

In any case, I've mostly snapped out of it, and have been on a productive streak this week. Let's hope it lasts as long as I need it to.

Not much to report

2009-02-24T18:59:00.001-06:00

I have been working constantly for about as long as I can remember. Working and taking naps. Last week the Daily Show was all reruns so I had nothing to look forward to when I got home. This week is better, if only for that reason. And maybe it is only for that reason.

Unseasonable

2009-02-08T11:36:00.003-06:00

The high was 56 degrees yesterday! It is still February! We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. I think the lions were happy that the snow was melting. The zoo is free, which I did not know. Supporting a free zoo seems to me to be a great use of income from our 11% sales tax. I am still curious about what else the taxes support besides paying people off, etc.

25 things

2009-02-05T01:03:00.004-06:00

I did this silly thing that was going around on the facebook where you list 25 facts about yourself. It was uncomfortable and fun at the same time. One of my 'things' was going to be that I have a secret blog, but I didn't want to blow my cover. These are the things that I did say:

1. Even though I love making lists, I can't believe I am doing this.

2. I always set my alarm clock to a palindrome. Usually it's 7:37.

3. When I wake up every morning the first thing I do is a handstand.

4. While I didn't realize it at the time, I really liked high school. At least compared to college.

5. I have an overwhelmingly irrational fear of throwing up.

6. I like learning everything possible about space travel in the 1960s-70s.

7. The extent to which I like ice cream could occupy at least five of these entries.

8. I hate March. Bad things always happen in March.

9. I think people are amazing. It is astounding to me that we figured out things like electricity and computers. I mean - fax machines? Building tunnels underwater? Magic!

10. Whenever I travel, using pretty much any mode of transportation, I mostly think about all the ways that I could possibly die at any minute.

11. It's hard for me to watch a movie more than once, but I can listen to a single song on repeat.

12. I have no feeling at the tip of my left thumb, my skeleton is unbelievably asymmetrical in multiple dimensions, and I have a torn meniscus in my left knee.

13. I believe that having low expectations only sets you up to be pleasantly surprised.

14. When I laugh a lot tears stream down my face uncontrollably. I tend to think most things are really hilarious, so I often end up in that situation.

15. I am just now starting to forget things like the names of people from middle school who were two years older than me and who would have never talked to me, or my best friend from first grade's phone number, and I couldn't be more thrilled. My brain needs to have room for other things.

16. As much as I like to be organized, I can also be really messy.

17. I think that my friends and my family are pretty much the greatest, and think that everyone else should think so too.

18. That said, I really really like to be alone.

19. I enjoy hearing about, and most often believe in, paranormal activity and conspiracy theories.

20. I think that I am kind of good at a lot of things, but not really good at much of anything.

21. My great-aunts and uncle were responsible for making those terrifying movies we all had to watch in driver's ed. Sorry.

22. I have a pretty hard time throwing things away. If you have ever written me a note or sent me a letter, I've still got it. I'm serious.

23. I absolutely love other people's birthdays, but really don't like mine.

24. Upon others pointing this out to me, it seems that I have had a number of weird encounters with semi-famous to very famous people: I danced with Bill Murray (nothing will ever top that one), Stephen Colbert's producer called me on the phone, I went to Food Lion with Robert Pinsky, Arianna Huffington called Bill Maher from my car, I saw Slash pushing a baby stroller in LA, I swam in a pond with Maggie Gyllenhall, I drove David Sedaris to his brother's house and his dad called me every morning for a week, I sat at a table next to Jerry Springer at a restaurant, I gave Maria Shriver my pen, I ate dinner with Alan Keyes (along with several male members of the Duke Conservative Union - that was fun), and I am two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

25. Damn. There you have it. That last entry gave away every interesting party story I could ever possibly tell. Now everybody knows it all. I got nothing left.

What what?

2009-01-31T22:52:00.003-06:00

Why is 'reduplication' called 'reduplication' (see Wikipedia entry, for example)? Why can't it just be called 'duplication'?

No really, I'm serious! I have never understood this.

Ice-slippades #2

2009-01-28T20:08:00.002-06:00

It happened on the way to the train from campus yesterday afternoon. Luckily, there were plenty of people around to see this time.

I would also like to note for the record that both of the falls on the ice so far have occurred while wearing the same boots. A variable worth keeping track of, I believe.

An open letter to Bill Murray

2009-01-27T18:52:00.017-06:00

I wrote this letter last August after a series of fateful encounters with Bill Murray. My intent is not really for him to ever read it (just as my intent for this blog is not really for anyone to read it), but I want to put it here so that I don't lose the letter, and the memories of this magical period of my life.

August 19, 2008

Dear Bill,

I’m not really sure how to get in touch with you, so here’s hoping this will reach you somehow.

So, wow. What can I say? I knew we had really hit it off last weekend when we danced together to the Neville Brothers and Gladys Knight [see below left], but I was afraid that maybe it hadn’t meant as much to you as it had to me. As the week unfolded, though, I found out how wrong I was to ever doubt it.

When we did the sideways butt-bump to “Everybody Plays the Fool,” I knew this was for real. I don’t know, it might have been something about how you looked at me when you suggestively took off one long-sleeved button-down plaid shirt to reveal another one below, or the way the setting sun bounced off your seventh glass of wine to light up your eyes, but I just felt we had made a real connection. And then later when you came in with the echo part during “Neither One of Us,” I almost couldn’t take it anymore. “He knows the words!,” I thought. I wanted to invite you home, but I was staying on an air mattress in someone else’s mom’s closet, so I wasn’t sure if you’d go for that. I woke up the next morning in a sad state – my back was a little sore, my shirt was stained with wine and those little mushroom tart things they had in the VIP tent, and I was afraid that, even if you did find the rose my sister gave you in your shirt pocket, that maybe you wouldn’t remember our night forever. I mean, it did get a little hazy there at the end – I don’t even remember the whole thing [see photo above, right], but come on – we had undeniable magic.

I consoled myself by thinking that maybe it just isn’t our time yet (maybe, as our mutual spiritual advisor would say, our relationship so far is only at, like, number 3? [see diagram at left]), and that if it really is meant to be then sometime down the road there will be a sign – like maybe something falling from the sky – to let me know.

So later that week and in a different time zone, I was waiting for the Brown Line train at the Belmont stop when something compelled me to look up. There were three trails of smoke circling the sky, while a daring, brave parachutist drifted down in the center of them all [see photo at right]. It was beautiful.

At first I thought that it might have been the sound of the fighter planes that had gotten my attention, but when I found out who it was that was hurtling through the sky at 120 MPH [see below, left], I realized that it had been your presence that made my head turn. I’m not one to believe in soul mates and all that crap, but if that isn’t some kind of cosmic connection, I don’t know what is.

It all made sense: you were trying to find me.

Well, I did wave at you from the train platform, but I’m not sure if you saw me. It was super crowded downtown, on account of your jumping from 13,000 feet, so I didn’t feel like trying to wade through the crowds to get to you. I figured fate would bring us together again. Seeing as how it didn’t, I’m writing you this letter to give you my cell phone number so that you can call me. The way you went all the way to Chicago and jumped out of that airplane just to get my attention was really romantic, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take such drastic measures next time. You can just call. My phone battery doesn’t always stay charged, so if I don’t answer, just leave me a message.

Yours sincerely,
Charlotte Vaughn

Home again

2009-01-25T16:26:00.002-06:00

Home for the weekend. Had a nice brunch at Walt & Marge's this morning. Thai takeout party last night at Mickey & Arika's. Have otherwise been very lazy. Am starting on work now. Got a new phone yesterday! It works even! Back to Evanston tomorrow... dad's on my plane!

New joke from Mikey:

Two drums and a cymbal fell off a cliff... ba-dum ching!

Inauguration day

2009-01-20T21:04:00.003-06:00

Obama got inaugurated today. I was in Stefan's class so I couldn't watch it, but there are plenty of highlights continually repeating on every website, TV and radio station in the world, so I don't feel like I missed anything.

So I never did get my ID card back. But, when I went to get a new one the guy didn't make me pay $15!

I am procrastinating. I have a presentation in Syntax tomorrow. I am writing this instead.

No. Motivation.

2009-01-14T00:05:00.006-06:00

My school ID fell out of my pocket on my way to the bus this morning and someone found it in the snow and wrote me an email! Hooray! Hopefully I can go meet up with them tomorrow to get it back. It costs $15 to replace those things. Somehow I managed to go through all of college without losing or breaking mine, and I thought I'd have to get a new one already, after like four months of grad school. Sheesh. As soon as I get it back I'll have to say that I'm on a winning streak!

Except: I broke the handle off of my favorite mug. The Big Hug Mug. James gave it to me some time in college. It is awesome. So I will fix it.

Ricemilk egg nog is NOT as good as soymilk egg nog. In fact, I would say it is bad.

I can't stop playing Lego Indiana Jones on Nintendo DS. With that, I am going to go play right now.

Somebody likes me today

2009-01-11T20:17:00.004-06:00

I have to write about this before I forget what happened because there was no one here to witness it. Earlier tonight I was making some vegetable stew. I had a bottle of wine open to put in the stew, and for me to drink. First, logistical, spatial background information: I keep all my cookbooks on top of a glass-front cabinet that is installed into the wall. The cookbooks are arranged according to size, between two bookends. My garbage can happens to be directly to the right of this cabinet. I had the (open) bottle of wine on the cabinet next to the cookbooks, which were happily standing up in a row, like they do every day. The first thing that happened was that I poured some wine into a cup, and turned around to pour it in the pot. Then I added some spices, and stirred for a while. As I was doing that, I heard a loud noise behind me, coming from the direction of the cabinet. I assumed something horrible had happened. I finally decided I should turn around and investigate. What I saw first, on top of the cabinet, was decidedly fewer cookbooks than were there earlier. Looking to the right, I saw a couple droplets of red wine on the wall. I wiped them off. Things were going much better than expected. I looked into the trash can to find four or five cookbooks, piled there on top of potato peels, coffee grounds, bad parts of various vegetables, and old guacamole. I reached in and picked them up. Miraculously, they weren't disgusting! Given all of the sticky, gloppy, and able-to-stain items in the trash can, they were really quite clean. What did to deserve such fortune? Next, though, is the best part. What was under the pile of cookbooks but the bottle of wine, standing right-side up?! Amazing! I'm not sure what the laws of physics are, but this definitely defied all of them! In celebration, pulled the bottle out of the trash, wiped it off a little bit, and poured some into my glass to toast myself. Considering my luck, this whole sequence of events was nothing short of miraculous.

2008 is almost done

2008-12-31T14:43:00.005-06:00

Haven't 'blogged' since a long time ago. It's now New Year's Eve. Since I wrote last, I finished exams, Sydney & Daniel came to visit, I drove back to Raleigh, hung out with people, did Christmas shopping, went in to Tompkins to work for a few days, drove to Ridgway for Christmas and drove back, had Christmas #2, went to work some more, drove to Madison, Virginia and back, and now I'm in Tompkins again, soon to be going to a New Year's party at Laurie & Joel's. On Friday I'm on the road again back to Evanston after dropping off Grandma in Waverly. My goal over break of reading lots of novels didn't go so well. I'm still only halfway through my first. I did play a good amount of video games. And saw some friends. And got some work done. I have mixed feelings about going back to school, but mostly I'm excited to go.

Christmas-y

2008-12-06T01:02:00.009-06:00

It might just be because of the constant snowing but I'm getting really into the holidays. I hung up lights and made cookies. I gave some to the crosswalk guy on my corner, the crosswalk lady down the block, the post-person, etc. The bus driver didn't want any, which made me worried because I think she's too skinny already and aren't you supposed to get fat in the winter for warmth? That's what I'm telling myself anyway. I'm going to try to post a photograph here of the cookies because I've never tried doing that before on this blog site. The cookies came out pretty good, I think. I made these last year and they were a pretty big hit. They're like Mint Milanos, but better. (Recipe from epicurious.) I have to learn to decide to make cookies BEFORE 10:30pm. It always takes longer than I think it will. I'd been in the mood to bake, though, and decided that having a colloquium today and it being Elizabeth's birthday were pretty good excuses. I came upon a problem this morning when trying to figure out how to wrap them into little packets, since I didn't have any cellophane (the first time I wrote that it was "cellphone") or good ribbon or anything. What I did have was coffee filters. And pipe cleaners. So that's what I used.

I thought it was f-ing freezing today, but resisted complaining about it so as not to seem like a southern wimp, but it turns out it was only 9 degrees when I was waiting for the bus. So I don't feel that bad about thinking it was cold. Tonight after the colloquium I went to a small, warm, cozy bar in Andersonville for dinner & drinks (The Edgewater?) with Lisa, Jordana, Rachel, Melissa & Kristen. I like doing things out in the world. And I like all those girls a whole lot. I'm happy to be here.

Last night I helped a lady make a deposit at the ATM and she just kept telling me how glad she was I was a woman and not a scary man, because she wouldn't have asked a man for help, but she didn't understand how to use the machine. I told her it's very mysterious to me, too. Really - I hate putting checks in at an ATM - I always wait until I can go when the bank is open and give it to a real person. It just seems safer that way. How does a machine know that you punched in the right amount? If I said I had a check for $1,000 and I wanted to deposit $20 and get out the rest in cash, but I just put a blank check in an envelope, or a check for less than $1,000, or my grocery list, what would happen? The machine wouldn't know that, but I imagine a real person would figure it out sooner or later. But then what? It seems awfully fishy to me.

Yesterday I finally bought a snowshovel for my car. Everyone's been saying I should get one to keep in my trunk so I can dig myself out if needed, though I don't really want to think about what that would entail. I went to the ACE Hardware on Davis, which is far and away my favorite store I've been to in Evanston (runners up: Bennison's Bakery, which is right next door, and the Spice House on Central). I was trying to find a smallish snow shovel and couldn't. I did, however, find a red kids' plastic shovel, and was walking around the store with it. A guy who worked there was giving me a hard time about me buying a kids shovel until I told him it was to keep in my car. Then he thought I was a genius. I carried the shovel with me down the street to the craft store, and then to the post office, and wouldn't you know that carrying a big red plastic shovel down the street is a conversation starter. Most people commented on what a nice size it was. I felt proud. One other time I was at the hardware store, just browsing around, when I decided I should probably get another kitchen trash can for my recycling, since the bottles and boxes and things usually pile up in the corner until I can take them to the recycling center. What I hadn't thought about was that I had walked to the store from campus. So I took the train home awkwardly carrying a large trash can filled with stuff. It didn't start as many conversations but I got a lot of looks.

I've been working on some small crafty projects, which will hopefully turn into Christmas presents of some sort. Little piles of stuff that everywhere, in addition to needing to do laundry, and clean up from my baking extravaganza, plus some residual "I'm in exam-mode and I can't stop to straighten up my piles of papers and books" mess means that the apartment is a disaster. I did download Spore Origins and Mahjongg onto my ipod yesterday (turns out ipods have games!), so not everything is terrible.

Keep your head down and hold on close to me

2008-12-03T00:02:00.005-06:00

Am feeling a bit of the emptiness setting in. Hasn't happened here nearly as much as I was expecting and fearing. It's not bad yet, though; sort of like an old friend coming to visit. (Well, an old friend who has toned it down a few notches since high school and college.) A comforting familiarity. I haven't quite felt it yet, though. I've only really had glimpses of it and reminders that it exists. In a way it'd be nice to be hit with it head on, just to know that I am still here and still alive and still me.

Conflicted about lots of things, but unable to really make myself be surrounded by their significance and enormity and consequence. Dangerous. I imagine I'll get there, I'm just slow. You'd think I'd have gotten it by now, though.

On a different note all together, happy belated thanksgiving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-wj6ppCYM8&feature=related.

P.S. Fall-on-the-ice #1 happened last night walking home from the train. Legs went out from underneath and butt hit the curb. There was no getting around it. Out of my control. Sad part was I was by myself so no one else got to enjoy it. I would say that my new snow boots must suck because they don't have much traction and I should get new ones, but now at least I have something to blame it on.

One down...

2008-11-30T22:24:00.003-06:00

Semantics exam: turned in. Celebratory beers with Jordana: check. Anything productive getting done tonight: nope.

Had a very nice Thanksgiving in Janesville with Cindy, Tom, some of their friends, and Grandma. Trip involved felting wool mittens and bags, lots of cooking, lots of eating, going out for coffee and to the library with Grandma, going midnight/fluorescent neon black light bowling with everyone, walking the dog(s), trying to do my exam, videochatting with the fam in Raleigh, playing cards, and bringing home a week's worth of leftovers. It felt like a real holiday. I liked it.

It snowed outside like a furious snowglobe for about a half hour earlier today. It has since turned to a sleety slushy freezing rain that makes hissing noises as it falls. Listened yesterday to Bon Iver's cover of Sarah Siskind's "Lovin's for Fools" on repeat. Ordered yoga DVD in mail today. Hopefully not having to leave the apartment to get exercise might actually make me do it, since apparently it's too much to ask otherwise. Talked to Walt for an hour today about his most craziest Thanksgiving ever.

I have about a week before anything real is due again. I'm pretty excited about it. I want to do fun things in the meantime. Like museums and Christmas present making and such. Winter is good for those things. Luckily there's plenty of winter here to go around.

Almost done!

2008-11-26T22:58:00.004-06:00

Today was the last day of classes of my first quarter of graduate school. This quarter business is nuts; it goes by so fast. I have two exams and one final paper and I'm done. Tomorrow I'm driving to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. Em and Dana are both at home. Maybe I'll try to video chat them while Greg is there.

One night last weekend I realized I hadn't left the house all day so I went for a walk around the neighborhood just to get outside. An El train went by that was all dressed up for Christmas. It was amazingly decorated, like to the max. It made me smile, and then I probably said something out loud. I think living by myself has made me talk to myself even more than I used to, and I notice it the most when I'm walking around outside. I should probably get a handle on that before it gets out of hand.

Last night Jordana and I got takeout from the Thai place on my street while we were working on our phonology project, and they spelled my name Chalet on the receipt.

A couple of weeks ago the police found a 90-year-old woman in Evanston who had been living with the dead bodies of three of her siblings in her house. One had been dead since the spring, another for about a year, and another since the early 80s. If someone needed an idea for a scary movie or book, that would be pretty easy. You wouldn't even have to make anything up.

I haven't been very good at sleeping lately. Today I was probably the most tired I've been in a while. This morning I decided to make oatmeal for breakfast... I had already been awake for about an hour, but was fading already. I got excited when I realized that I could use the time that the water was boiling to take a quick nap on the couch, since I knew the tea kettle noise would wake me up. I'm pretty sure I was totally out by the time I heard the whistle. In any case, the accumulated effect of this lack of sleep is that I am going to bed as soon as I finish writing this. It has been all I could do to make it until 11, and I can't make it any longer. Good night.

And so it goes

2008-11-22T20:49:00.005-06:00

Have had social engagements two nights in a row! Last night, the five of us first-years went to Jordana's house for stew and beers. We'd never all gotten together before except to do semantics homework. Those girls are all great. Tonight, Cindy, Tom & Grandma stopped by on their way from the airport to WI. Grandma made it up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, and we all sat around for a while and looked at where all of my free pieces of furniture from Cindy & Tom ended up. Went to Olive Mountain for mediterranean food. Grandma tasted her first Turkish coffee, and, after making an incredibly hilarious face, she announced that it was nothing like real coffee. It'll be nice to see them again at Thanksgiving.

I've had a series of "off" days lately. Example events include: waiting for bus inside bank building because of freezing cold while bus drives by 5 minutes early without stopping, losing parking ticket in parking garage after paying and having to plead with security guard to let me out, carrying a giant and heavy box down the many stairs and down the block to the post office to mail it except that the post office closes at 2 on Saturdays. I could go on. I'm glad I'm recording this now, because I've always had a hunch that my extreme bouts of forgetful/clumsy/inept-ness come and go in waves. Like for two months straight I will spill some sort of liquid on my shirt every day, and then won't do it again for weeks and weeks. Let's see how this phase pans out.

Sleepy...

2008-11-19T00:27:00.006-06:00

Long day today. Woke up at 5am for some reason. On campus from 9am-9pm. Tomorrow will be 9am-5pm; not quite as bad. Brain is tired, and so am I. My days are spent consuming so much information... there is always new knowledge floating around everywhere, and sometimes being forcefully thrown at me, which is stimulating but also exhausting. This all works up to later production and contribution, I suppose. Which is a good goal. In the meantime it's nice to go out to good dinners... tonight I accidentally went to dinner with 2 philosophers, 2 linguists, 1 geophysicist, 1 statistician, and 1 psychologist. At one end of the table were 3-D printers and dark energy, on the other end was Hoover the talking seal and "Bomb the suburbs."

Also, my appetizer was a combination of my two most favorite foods in the world, winter squash and ice cream. I know, right?! I had never even thought of combining them, except for the time that Mike and I made a pumpkin milkshake by putting canned pumpkin into the blender with vanilla ice cream and milk. It was terrible. This one worked out much better. MUCH better. So say you take a small piece of apple pie, put some homemade vanilla bean ice cream on the top, place that in the middle of a bowl, and then pour hot pumpkin soup around the outside. Yeah. Second course was gnocchi (the leftovers of which I left somewhere...), with greens topped with onion rings. (Mike once (or maybe several times) created a sandwich of: kale, onion rings and barbeque sauce. It was delicious, despite my substantial and quite vocal doubts.) All in all, a nice end to a long day.

I believe it is winter

2008-11-17T23:05:00.008-06:00

I rode my bike home in the snow today. I felt sort of like a badass at first - like it was such a crazy idea that anybody would ever consider riding a bike when it is snowing outside! And in the dark! Well, I saw at least 5 other people on bikes on the way home. And, I came to find out that some people here commute by bike year round. I have to get used to things like this. When I see snow, I instinctively think "Yes! School's cancelled for a week!" That's the result of 25 years of conditioning in the south; people in North Carolina just do not function in inclement weather. Even though there is only a light dusting left on buildings and cars, it has been hard for me to concentrate on homework. I imagine this novelty will wear off.

So it was snowing really hard when I first left campus, but it had pretty much stopped by the time I got home. Turns out that mittens are probably a much better idea than gloves for biking. I had to take turns steering with one hand at a time while the other hand was balled up inside my glove for warmth. I also had a hard time figuring out how to keep my head warm and wear my helmet at the same time. I evidently need a hat that's a lot less bulky than my homemade wool ones. Also (a) stopping, and (b) seeing were slight problems. I'll get better at this.

On the subject of bikes, since moving here and purchasing a bike, I've been on a constant quest for solutions to the bring-a-coffee-mug-to-school-on-a-bike dilemma. Some days I have decided at the last minute to take the train to my 9:30 class, which almost certainly means I'll be late, so that I can carry my coffee, rather than bike, get there on time, but have no coffee. It is incredibly painful to sit through my first two classes back to back with no coffee. I did buy a mug from Target that is supposed to not leak, but it won't fit in a regular water bottle holder, so I put it in my backpack inside a ziploc bag. That was a good move; it leaked. In my recent internet search, I came across this website, which claims to be the "earth's greatest authority on conveying coffee by bicycle." Who knew? The site is a little overwhelming to me, and I have yet to sift through all of it, but I bet it has the answer.

Notes from recently

2008-11-16T16:04:00.006-06:00

1. I saw about 12 flurries today!

2. This morning, I was thinking about how awesome I was that I could carry my full laundry basket and a cup of coffee at the same time, until I had to open the door to my apartment building with the key and there was nowhere to put down my coffee.

3. I like counting mass nouns.

I know it's ridiculous

2008-11-16T13:33:00.003-06:00

According to my syntax professor, one of the criteria for a successful theory of grammar is that it adequately "captures the infinity" of human language. He says this all the time, and I can rarely get the phrase out of my head. It would be a pretty hilarious name for an album, but in the meantime it'll be the name of this blog.