east of omaha

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.

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.

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.

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.

JUST TELL ME IF I GOT IN

OR

IF I DIDN'T GET IN

EITHER IS OKAY

PLEASE