east of omaha

highways @ 2013-01-29T15:26:00

2013-01-30T01:45:21Z

I made another Tumblr for linguistics related things!

I also totally screwed up my first assignment this semester, which was supposed to be a short paper on any topic of phonology of any Austronesian language in any of the regions randomly assigned to me, which were the islands of Taiwan, Sumatra, and Java, basically. So when I discovered the Javanese script -- writing systems geek that I am -- I was like, booyah, I'll write about Javanese phonology and how Javanese phonological rules are expressed with it. That sort of thing is super awesome and interesting to me, especially since the writing system is derived from Indic writing and was not at all designed to work with Javanese.

... Yeah, it turns out that's not exactly the kind of paper you just bang out in a couple weeks. Hell, nearly all the literature on Javanese appears to be in Dutch and German, thanks to the colonial history of the region, and even working with the materials I was able to find in English (a couple of hand typed dissertations from the sixties, mostly) it's not exactly a simple topic. I could probably write a term paper on this. Or not, since I'm kind of starting to doubt my own competence, here.

But, yeah, sigh. You live and learn, I guess. I hope the prof respects the fact that the idea was (in my opinion) pretty damn cool, because I have no idea what I'm gonna actually be able to present in terms of hard facts this Friday.

I'm not the greatest at grad school, I'm pretty sure.

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highways @ 2013-01-15T13:33:00

2013-01-16T00:24:35Z

I survived the semester! Started a new one, still don't have funding. I have a nice scholarship, though. My sister thor is starting the process of transferring to my university, and will hopefully be living with me and starting classes as soon as May. I still live in a beautiful apartment in a rundown neighborhood and own no furniture to speak of. I work in the Center for Interpretation and Translation, and am still pretty obsessed with Super Junior.

Not a lot has changed! I'm a lot more comfortable with my life in Hawaii than I was, though. Which is good, because I've got another three semesters to go, here.

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我不怕什麼危險

2012-10-19T07:51:51Z

I moved!

The day I signed a lease for my new apartment, I came home from work to hear that we have to be out of here, TONIGHT, from one of the roommates moving with me. Apparently the landlord wasn't too thrilled about our plan. About forty minutes later I had all my stuff thrown into my suitcase and into the back of a friend's car and that's the last I saw of any of them. I got to the new place at around midnight and there I've been ever since.

It's nice. We moved into the place with no furniture whatsoever and ... I still don't have anything, so I've been sleeping on the fake wood floor every night for the last week, which ... actually has been great for my back (my air mattress at the old place was really shitty), and the apartment is newly renovated and beautiful. It's about a block from Honolulu's Chinatown which, if you know Honolulu, isn't a great neighborhood, but it's better than Kalihi for sure, plus it's got all sorts of tourist attractions and neat stores and restaurants nearby. Nightclubs, too. And the fruit market! It's awesome.

And I feel like I'm back in grad school again! I was still going, before, I just haven't felt present for a while, and I was essentially doing the bare minimum required of me for a couple weeks there. Now I'm submitting proposals for my final projects and it's exciting but frustrating, a little bit. I'm trying to write papers on endangered sign languages, mostly, and thanks to that I've been having weekly meetings with a very well known name in the field, which is exciting as hell, and I'm learning so much.

I'M GONNA BE A REAL LINGUIST SOMEDAY.

Probably.

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the (terrible) music of Super Junior.

2012-09-22T02:26:48Z

Yeah so in the last few months Super Junior has basically become my main fandom. My life is kind of stressful at the moment, I guess, and busy, so I don't have time to like write anymore and I can barely keep up with any rp but it's still fun to look up performances or have my sister text me pictures of adorable boy bands being adorable (it helps that I'm only like three months older than Sungmin so I'm in the literal middle of all their ages and I don't feel like too much of a weirdo, either.) AND SO, A POST OF MY FAVORITE SONGS.

Nearly everything in here is going to be Super Junior covers, Super Junior remixes, or done by subgroups who are in fact only a fraction of the band. Not that this is indicative of what I think about most of their music, or anything.

( i'm sorry sorry sorry sorry )

AND SO.

I have some taste. I think. Maybe.

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你要相信你就是你的Hero。

2012-09-03T20:34:11Z

monday 9-2 substitute teaching availability

tuesday 10:30-11:45 syntax
tuesday 1-2 seminar: weekly guest speaker
tuesday 2-4:30 monitor the literature reading room

wednesday 9-2 substitute teaching availability
wednesday 3:30-6 seminar: topics in biocultural diversity

thursday 10:30-11:45 syntax
thursday 12-2 language documentation training center
thursday 3-6 seminar: introduction to documentary linguistics

friday 9-2 substitute teaching availability

unscheduled 4 hours/week coursera: introduction to sustainability
unscheduled 3 hours/week data entry for ELCat
unscheduled ~25 hours/week cashiering for office depot

So this is my schedule of hard commitments made thus far, and also some of it overlaps, like I'm planning on doing the ElCat work while I'm sitting in the reading room. The sub position is probably a blessing is disguise, because obviously I'll only need to go in when somebody else calls out, which is damn good money when they do and a nice block of study time when they don't.

Being overwhelmed is probably inevitable, especially when those seminars start expecting my presentations, but now that I've got my schedule finally hammered out I've pretty much spent the weekend on the beach. I'm going to regret this tomorrow, since I'll have to stay up tonight reading for class next week, and since I'm one of the publicity officers for LDTC I need to have some advertisements done by 10 tomorrow morning -- but I'll probably be working every weekend for ~~the rest of my life~~ rest of this semester, and c'mon, I live in Hawaii.

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ellos tienen el credo, y nosotros nuestro sudor.

2012-08-27T09:17:02Z

My first week of classes has been exhausting, and my homework and reading has already kept me holed up in my room for an entire Saturday, so I think my roommate thinks I'm either antisocial or just lazy and weird. To make matters worse (or better), I've got a job interview tomorrow morning, for a part time position teaching ESL at a school downtown. Not only would this be super exciting—I'd actually be using my degree, not something I was ever sure I'd be able to do—it's also the only callback I've gotten of any sort, after sending out a not insignificant number of resumes and hopeful emails.

So, uh, wish me luck.

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you make my heart heart heart beat! everybody lets pa-pa-party!

2012-08-20T21:44:03Z

Damn, have I really not made a real update in two months?

I live in Hawaii, now! I've lived here for about three days? I've walked an average of maybe six miles on each of those days, and not doing fun touristy stuff, more like trying to register for classes or how to get to Walmart to buy essentials. I did find a beach in Waikiki yesterday, and stood in the ocean for a minute or two (I don't actually own a bathing suit at the moment) and I walked aimlessly around the giant Ala Moana mall that I guess is a bit of an attraction. Mostly though I've been tired and somewhat miserable, which sounds super ungrateful when, hey, I live in Hawaii, but the adjustment's been pretty surprisingly rough.

Not helping is the fact that I forgot a lot of stuff in Arizona. Like, for instance, the power cord to my laptop.

I'll update more about my living arrangements later, I guess -- I live in a very crappy house in one of the more terrible sections of Honolulu, apparently, but there's some cool stuff too. Like the languages. In my neighborhood you hear a lot of Korean and Indonesian, and on the island in general there is a fuckton of Japanese, it's awesome.

Today I have to take a final exam I haven't studied for -- it's in phonetics, so I technically got an A on a similar test before ... like, a year and a half ago. Aha. If I can get a B or better I get to take something cool in addition to all my introductory courses, and if not, well, introductions are fine, too.

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[TRANSLATION] 小丑面具 Clown Mask

2012-07-03T00:38:38Z

thor asked me translate Han Geng's new song and so I did. Lyrics are all in simplified characters even though I usually use traditional, because I could only find it in simplified and I didn't want to manually change them all or run them through Google translate. The pinyin is generated by Google translate, though. Typing pinyin out is terrible.

Naturally I am not a native speaker and there could well be mistakes. There's another translation floating around that's pretty good but more figurative (and makes me wonder if I'm just understanding it completely wrong) but this is more literal. IT IS STILL MISSING SOME PARTS but brb gotta rewatch the MV ten thousand times.

( 面具上画着小丑不是一只老虎 )

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別可憐我反正我從來不會痛

2012-06-10T05:44:23Z

I still hate Joss Whedon.

I thought Prometheus was pretty hilariously bad, like, bad to the point of loud laughter in the theater at multiple points, but this appears to be a minority opinion. I might have actually liked it anyway, there's tons of terrible campy scifi movies in my favorites lists, but it's so pompous it's hard to actually enjoy on, well, any level, except I guess visually. The effects are pretty good. But, seriously, this is a film in which characters with any sense of self-preservation whatsoever are basically painted by the narrative as freaks. I could argue for calling nearly every onscreen death a suicide.

Speaking of stupid science fiction, I have high hopes for the Total Recall reboot.

The romance subplot on Legend of Korra sucks a lot and it's actually killing my interest in the show. I'm starting to hate it whenever Mako does anything, because it's always gonna be a romance related thing and ick. And Asami's fabulous and deserves better than this jealousy bullshit okay.

Me and thor watched 華麗的挑戰 (Skip Beat!) just to watch Choi Siwon and Lee Donghae's glorious faces for fifteen episodes, and mission accomplished, we finished it this afternoon. Now I'm not sure what drama to start next, either 痞子英雄 (Black and White) or 籃球火 (Hot Shot). The first one is actually supposed to be good; the second one has Show Luo and Wu Chun. Hmm...

My Chinese is actually improving, I think, but go figure, I do hours of Chinese stuff every day, even if it's just watching dumb clips of 100% Entertainment on Youtube. I'm not sure I'll even be able to afford to take more Chinese courses at UHM next fall, but I do know my Chinese isn't nearly where it's gotta be. 加油, self, 加油.

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have you figured it out? you can't win this fight.

2012-05-09T18:12:57Z

So I had a long, long entry written out, then my computer crashed and DW didn't save my draft. (DW has been betraying me a lot today, since all my icon meta data got wiped out this morning.) So! Much shorter, this time, and without my thoughts on Legend of Korra or the Avengers.

I WAS MOSTLY BEING CRITICAL, ANWAY.

I'm still pathetically taken with Super Junior, it's pretty sad. Only their Chinese stuff, because I don't speak Korean—and, well, most of them don't really speak Chinese, either, but somehow that makes them more endearing to me. I don't mean that in a patronizing way; more like, I can so relate to this situation. My favorite is Kyuhyun (圭賢 in Chinese) and he endeared himself to me by being so intensely determined to express himself in Chinese even when he's sucking at it, and I am like, kid, you're a rock star, I love you.

I'm moving in a couple weeks, my friend unicorn is coming Saturday to stay with me and climax for a week and a half, my internship wraps up tomorrow—basically stuff is ramping up to be really busy in the next few days, which means I need to get off my ass and clean shit. And laundry! And probably throwing a ton of crap away, because I'm basically moving into a closet at the end of the month, and then Hawaii in August. The more useless things I can shed, the better.

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只要説一聲OK，就跟我走，so take my hand and baby don't let go

2012-05-03T22:21:18Z

I spent most of last week sick in bed, and since whatever cold I had was somewhat triggering to my asthma (which, due to finances, I currently manage with a combination of self-diagnosis, other people's medication, and hope) I've spent quite a lot of time lying in bed recently. This is how I learned that walking through a doorway causes your memory to basically do a soft reset, which is easily one of the most revelatory facts I've ever read. ("What did I go to my bedroom for, again? Didn't I need something in here?") I've also taken this time to become embarrassingly invested in the Legend of Korra and in the Mandarin speaking branch of Super Junior. I've written fanfiction and made myself a new Tumblr.

So, all in all, I've been incredibly productive ... if we define productivity as the complete opposite of what it actually means.

But that's likely going to continue, since I have absolutely nothing serious scheduled in the near future. My internship ends next week, which is straight up bizarre, and this weekend I'm going to see my family because my father, mother, and brother's birthdays are all within the next week. And tonight is the Avengers! The MCU was my main fandom for a while but Joss Whedon is my mortal enemy, and I am still cautiously pessimistic. Regardless, I'm seeing the midnight showing with climax and chelicerae. Hopefully it won't make me want to put out my eyes or cry endless tears!

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can you feel my world, 真實的我沒辦法偽造

2012-04-23T07:24:48Z

I got into the University of Hawaii! I got my acceptance email last Friday. If everything else goes according to plan, I'll be moving to Honolulu in August to get my Masters in linguistics, and I'm planning on specializing in language documentation, Chinese linguistics, and the languages of the Pacific. I was probably one of the last people they let in, but I'm okay with this. Lucking into grad school by the skin of my teeth on Friday the 13th pretty much fits the pattern of what I've come to expect.

I had more to say about it but I'm too tired. Needless to say, I am pretty excite.

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now slightly more reasonable.

2012-03-17T19:24:20Z

I heard back from UHM, and was basically told that while they'd normally take me, but since they've gotten a ton of applicants this year they've put me on the wait list. ANXIETY, GET. I thought maybe by now I'd have figured out something else I'd want to do with my life if I'm rejected but, uh, nope, looks like that hasn't been the case. So if I'm rejected I'll probably email the professors there and try to get another couple of letters of recommendation and reapply for Spring 2013 admission.

I'm basically constantly drowning in anxiety all the time it's super awesome. I'm trying to write to pass the time but I'm unfortunately one of those headclutching, this is so bad why isn't this working sort of writers so it's really not helping ... at all.

In the meantime, I still have two months left on my internship and work for my father, I guess. As soon as I move back to Flagstaff -- happening sooner rather than later, our lease is up in May -- I'll try to find a second job again. EXCITING LIFE PLANS.

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yeah we know you love LA, there's nothing left to say

2012-03-07T18:18:09Z

JUST TELL ME IF I GOT IN

OR

IF I DIDN'T GET IN

EITHER IS OKAY

PLEASE

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i made the bed you're in.

2012-02-28T04:44:10Z

highways: why is this the focus of your story
highways: maybe it should be
highways: something
highways: nay, someone!
highways: else
thor: i should make the whole paper a montage of you getting hit in the face
thor: god, i could imagine it now
highways: ...

Los Angeles was an adventure—the train ride went more or less fine, except I didn't get any sleep, really, thanks to people waking me up. I made it to the job site fine, until I passed out in the car, then got woken up about fifteen minutes later ... but not really. Delirious and still effectively unconscious, I shambled across the parking lot carrying equipment back and forth, blocking traffic and staring blankly into space, and at some point became convinced becoming a zombie had had no discernable effect on my life and oh god, I continued this train of thought, why am I no different from a zombie?! And then about half an hour later I woke up sitting on a sidewalk going, wait, what?

(The next day, my brother whined about me making him work when his feet hurt. Me: "You made me work when I was sleepwalking yesterday." Him: "But that was funny!")

Our trip required us to stuff three adult six-foot-ish people into the cab of a two person pickup, and visit some of the worst neighborhoods in Los Angeles. We surveyed a bunch of Hollywood stars—like, the ones in the ground, they were on our job so we had to measure them—and got detoured by the Oscars. We got lost about four times, mostly due to me and my brother forgetting we were supposed to be watching the GPS, and told each other horrible gross out stories for entertainment because due to our proximity nobody could fuck around on their laptops or sleep. We were there from Friday until today, and I basically came crawling home, because god, I am so tired.

I've actually been writing, which is excited! But yeah I think I'm going to spend the rest of my night in bed reading comics or something else that doesn't require any brain power whatsoever.

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if you got a problem, love to help you solve them.

2012-02-22T06:39:40Z

I work everyday for like the next thirteen days and supposedly part of that involves an overnight train ride from Tucson to the station by LAX (having worked a nine hour shift at my internship immediately before departure and beginning a ten hour shift surveying immediately after pickup). I don't think I'm gonna get a real job, or, at least, not anytime soon.

Technically I could get shit done tonight, especially since I don't gotta be at my desk until after noon—thirteen hours from now, pretty much forever—but yeah, all I did was watch television and fuck around on the Internet. My social life is basically nonexistent because whatever time I actually find myself at my apartment I spend lying on my side staring blankly at some screen or another. I keep thinking of like, changing that, since I mean I don't even need to get up to do that, I can talk to local people from the same laptop I use to contact my family or long distance friends.

Just ... so ... tired.

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une heure, j’ai pas sommeil, deux heures, j’ai pas sommeil, trois heures, j’ai pas sommeil.

2012-02-13T08:42:56Z

So I'm not doing so good on my inkingitout word count goals, as in I've been struggling to write anything at all whatsoever. Finally, tonight I've finally managed, you know, something. A dumb fic for my dumb fandom, but at this point I'm pretty glad to be writing anything.

Weirdly though it is not turning out as I hoped. Or how I am actually typing it.

Yes, Google Doc's collaboration feature surely is a boon to writers everywhere.

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i never thought about no future, it's just a roll of the dice.

2012-01-23T20:29:07Z

I'm not sure why I go through the effort of maintaining such large and meticulously organized icon collection, I guess it is just ... habit, from back when everybody comment spammed on LJ. ALSO THEY ARE PRETTY? I don't know how often people use screenreaders for icons, but I thought the field was a neat idea so I tried to fill it out in as useful a way as possible.

My roommate climax asked me if I wanted to maybe roleplay with her again, since I'm, you know, graduated, my schedule is wide open. So I said sure that sounded fun, and I apped at exitvoid and have rediscovered all my love for Devil May Cry, it is super embarrassing. And just in time, too, I guess, since they're rereleasing all the games in March. I don't think I can afford them but reign can't play them all at the same time!

My worsening asthma messed up my sleeping schedule something fierce this weekend. I was having trouble breathing Saturday which left me in tired and disoriented, so I used my nebulizer to do a round of albuterol which left me breathing but even more disoriented and also shaky and pissed off, so I staggered to my room and slept until eight pm. So then I was up until five that fucking morning and this is all gonna be awesome when I have to get up at six-thirty tomorrow for work. I don't think I updated about this but during finals week last December I woke up choking, completely unable to breathe (at the time, I considered it God's last chance to try and sabotage my Chinese grade) which was an awesome experience that I loved. That hasn't happened since but I haven't really gotten better either. I don't want to go to the doctor and can't afford to either, but I don't want to end up in the ER (which is apparently where I should've gone when I woke up choking, but GDI I was not missing my Chinese final.)

The litany of small stresses is also causing my OCD symptoms to worsen slightly. Instrusive thoughts are never fun but luckily they're only at the point where I can go, "Haha, you crazy brain, you."

Basically tl;dr, MY LIFE, IT DOESN'T OUTRIGHT SUCK it is just uncomfortable in a boring way right now. I guess.

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no we can't stay here.

2012-01-21T21:13:58Z

Today's the first day in forever I don't have to either be at my internship or the job site in Chandler -- my dad actually wanted me to go home to Flagstaff this weekend, but I seriously didn't want to add another eight hour round trip on top of everything else. My folks want me to find a job in Flagstaff, which'll require me to commute between the two cities twice a week (they're more than 250 miles apart). Insane as that sounds, I'm actually considering it, FTR. I'm only in Tucson for four more months, and I'm not sure I'll be able to find anything that'll keep me on for that short a time. Applications for anything are always online these days anyway, so I'l do some applying I guess over the weekend.

It wouldn't be that different, in all honesty. I haven't really lived anywhere since 2008. It's actually why I picked this username. The subtitle should be, MY LIFE: IN TRANSIT.

The internship is going pretty great, I'm all kinds of competent! Well, not really. I prefer answering the phones to any kind of data entry, but I do a lot of both. I'm shit at offering a sympathetic ear but nobody's complained so far. I did 21 hours over three days there, which isn't usually going to be happening. I hate the formal clothes I have to wear. (I wear heels! Every day!) But I really feel like I'm helping people with what I'm doing, even if all I'm doing is connecting people with the other people who will actually do the helping.

unicorn got me this book called Internet Linguistics for Christmas, immelmanturn had pizza sent to our apartment last night in honor of my graduation. This means -- YES, YOU GUESSED IT -- pizza and reading all day, that is my plan. And maybe some laundry and completely thoughtless video games.

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in this life there's no surrender, there's nothing left for us to do.

2012-01-15T16:42:39Z

Yesterday I moved back down to my digs in Tucson, with help from thor, and after we got here she and my roommate climax played Mass Effect and Fallout and I ... mostly slept, I think. I barely remember yesterday, honestly. I got trained up for my internship and passed out on my living room floor and that's about it for my accomplishments. I guess I was more tired than I thought.

Regular work at the internship starts up Tuesday -- before that, I have that project in Chandler to finish up with my dad and brother, and hopefully I can maybe submit some applications to jobs which pay money. I got some money for work done over winter break but I'm so broke it's not even funny. I OWE SO MANY PEOPLE MONEY. OR THINGS. MONEY OR THINGS. If I find a job, any job, I'll probably throw myself to the ground and pay thanks to the job gods for bequeathing upon me this glorious job. And then I'll probably start complaining about it.

I joined one of the RP games that moved to Dreamwidth! So far it's been pretty fun.

I need to clean my room. Christ, past!me. What did you do to this place.

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these links might not work because AO3 is sort of not loading today for some reason.

2012-01-02T21:26:01Z

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Drop a link to your post in the comments. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom and maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

[FIC] Something Different by tsukinofaerii
Iron Man. Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov. I have this one on my Nook; it's a beautifully written, mostly everyday interaction-focused fic that lets Pepper and Natasha have way more of a role than the movies will probably ever allow.

[FIC] Not Quite A Typical Day (But Pretty Damn Close) by Settiai
X-Factor. Rictor/Shatterstar + everybody else. A day-in-the-life fic that could probably have been an issue of the comic, there is a CASE and ADVENTURE and SARCASTIC COMMENTS.

[ART] Dungeons and Dragons by felipemassafera
Dungeons & Dragons Animated. This is just a really stunning painting of the whole gang that still manages to pay homage to the art style of the cartoon.

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face à face le sang se glace, le temps passe et tout s'efface.

2012-01-02T05:54:05Z

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator.

For the Fandom Snowflake Challenge, which I am attempting to do in honor of my New Year's Resolution to write more! A lot more. I also joined inkingitout. I am going to write the shit out of this year, and if I fail I will totally hate myself.

My favorite three fics I think are "Don't Touch That Dial" (Transformers/Supernatural), "Word Association" (Iron Man) and "Back In 2256" (Star Trek XI).

Starting tomorrow we have a huge project in Chandler, Arizona, that my brother and I are both going to help with, which means I'm not going home until, geez, at least two weeks from now? I had no idea I'd be staying with my family for almost a month. The only reason I'd probably be going back when I am is I have an internship starting on the 14th. I'll talk about that later, probably behind a flock, since I honestly have no idea if I should be talking about it on the Internet publicly or not.

I submitted my application to the University of Hawaii! I still need to send them my paperwork, and I'm still so nervous about my grad school prospects (or lack of them, it feels like) that I could just die. Excellent!

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This entry! Requires exclamation points!!

2011-12-31T06:58:48Z

( 2011 IN PICTURES )

AND THAT WAS MY YEAR.

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i don't know where i'll be tomorrow.

2011-12-29T18:08:25Z

Heading to Phoenix to take the GRE (I'm probably gonna bomb the math, boo) and then I guess my dad has work in Malibu? So maybe I'll get a fancy meal tomorrow. The hotel should have Internet, at the very least.

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I WONDER IF I'LL END UP EVEN USING THESE??

2011-12-27T20:54:51Z

( list of rp journals, not super exciting )

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