Entry tags:
prairie-dogging, briefly
whole mess of french-speaking high school kids in town the past few days. rar, crowds of teenagers. rar.
had a good meeting with Young Phonology Professor today. talked about tutorials for next term, and got further reassurance that i'm not out of my depth, directionless, etc., etc.
met with Incomprehensible TA for an hour to talk about syntax assignment due monday (for which read friday, as i'm getting on a plane saturday YAY and can't e-mail a handwritten problem set). he was less incomprehensible than usual. i think trying to explain things to a whole room full of people makes him a little anxious?, or something. it's obvious even in a whole room full of people that he knows the stuff awfully well -- maybe he knows it too well, as he's always telling us (eventually; it takes him five minutes to complete a sentence, because he derails and goes back to the beginning so often that by the time he finishes and says "do you know what i mean?" we can only say "we have no idea what you mean, dude") what we need to know and then flying off on tangents about how since the textbook was written, the theory has undergone the following changes, some of which are generally accepted and some of which haven't really caught on, and -- yeah, we kind of want to go "HEY! listen, tell us what we need to know, in one sentence, without starting over: go. ... good, now stop! okay, thanks." (add to all of this that, while his english is very good, he's not a native speaker. grar.)
back home now, and about to tackle the essay that left me in tears last week. [holds nose, takes plunge]
had a good meeting with Young Phonology Professor today. talked about tutorials for next term, and got further reassurance that i'm not out of my depth, directionless, etc., etc.
met with Incomprehensible TA for an hour to talk about syntax assignment due monday (for which read friday, as i'm getting on a plane saturday YAY and can't e-mail a handwritten problem set). he was less incomprehensible than usual. i think trying to explain things to a whole room full of people makes him a little anxious?, or something. it's obvious even in a whole room full of people that he knows the stuff awfully well -- maybe he knows it too well, as he's always telling us (eventually; it takes him five minutes to complete a sentence, because he derails and goes back to the beginning so often that by the time he finishes and says "do you know what i mean?" we can only say "we have no idea what you mean, dude") what we need to know and then flying off on tangents about how since the textbook was written, the theory has undergone the following changes, some of which are generally accepted and some of which haven't really caught on, and -- yeah, we kind of want to go "HEY! listen, tell us what we need to know, in one sentence, without starting over: go. ... good, now stop! okay, thanks." (add to all of this that, while his english is very good, he's not a native speaker. grar.)
back home now, and about to tackle the essay that left me in tears last week. [holds nose, takes plunge]
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