Somehow, chatting on Skype with JM in Cambodia damaged my productivity and during two and a half hours of morning in the office, all I did was three pages (not even!) on the Lutheranian Reformation and the beginnings of the literary development with the Sorbs of Lusatia. Which is really interesting but it being in German doesn't help.
16 February 2006
13 February 2006
Things
AL thinks I should update, so here goes.
Lots of things have been happening, but then again, not really. Sounds paradoxical, but that’s how it feels. There’s disagreement over a complaint letter to EUSA about the ceilidh fiasco, we moved AF’s belongings up four flights of stairs in Tesco carrier bags (skip!), and the joint New Scotland and Dunedin team won the display at the Newcastle Festival. Probably because I was injured and couldn’t participate.
I had an ‘aargh!’ session at Language in Context on Wednesday, and it seems like they didn’t understand why I needed to go ‘aargh!’. I have my topic, I have my case studies, I have my hypotheses, I have my methodology, I have an idea of my sources – what was I complaining about... I guess I needed people to tell me what I needed not to focus on. Fair enough.
The Olympics have started and so far have been going relatively to my liking. Generally the nice people win, the not-so-nice people don’t. I got a wireless card for my laptop, not quite with the purpose of being able to watch the NOS’s live streams in the office, but it’s a nice extra. It has the nasty habit of kicking me off a couple of times during the day but I can deal with that.
In between all of that I’ve been trying to sort out this humongous feelings thing. The whole MG and TT thing may not have helped much in that department, there’s been a lot of theory input that I’m not sure about. MG’s theory about liking being a spontaneous feeling but loving being a conscious act may be supported by the θ-roles required by the Faroese verbs dáma and elska, but I’m not sure it is that simple. Then there’s the thing MG said to me a couple of weeks ago: I deserve someone who’s going to make me the centre of his universe. Yay! I would like to be the centre of someone’s universe. But doesn’t that implicate that I have to make that someone the centre of my universe? I don’t know that I have the attention span to do that. I guess that’s what MG means by loving being a conscious act. On the whole, I’m a bit worried about the whole idea of ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’. I’m not confident I will be able to do enough.
On a more abstract level, I just don’t know what all these things that I feel mean. (How MM’s quote that hangs over my desk as a reminder to not just take any explanation for given, gets additional meaning here...) But maybe I shouldn’t want meaning and should just go with what I feel. But will I ever get past dáma then?
WB left a copy of the novella Brokeback Mountain on his desk in the office, so I read that during ice prep breaks on Sunday. After the movie hype, I found it a bit disappointing. I guess if you expect a lot you let yourself no other option than to be disappointed. I think the biggest downpoint was that the whole thing again started with sex. Oh, it’s cold, well sod those sheep and come into my sleeping bag, they shag. I just don’t have that drive and constantly getting messages of physically initiated relationships makes me feel inadequate. I liked Willem Melchior’s De onhuwbaren so much better. Sure, there was this physical side there as well, but it was much more about the emotional and mental side. Of course it is also ten times as long as Brokeback Mountain so more space, my expectations weren’t as high, I gave it my full attention and was probably in a better mood when I read it. Gosh, it sounds like I hated Brokeback Mountain. I don’t... It just doesn’t portray my feelings. (The movie’s got Heath Ledger in, so possibly better than the book.)
I had a Skype chat with JM this morning. Don’t remember exactly what she said but it supported me a lot in what I was thinking. I need to figure out what I want to happen, and then try to make it happen. (JA told me something along those lines last year with the whole DJ thing, and it isn’t as easy as it sounds.)
Jag hoppas att du havt något att läsa... men nu måste du tillbaka till ditt arbete! :)
Lots of things have been happening, but then again, not really. Sounds paradoxical, but that’s how it feels. There’s disagreement over a complaint letter to EUSA about the ceilidh fiasco, we moved AF’s belongings up four flights of stairs in Tesco carrier bags (skip!), and the joint New Scotland and Dunedin team won the display at the Newcastle Festival. Probably because I was injured and couldn’t participate.
I had an ‘aargh!’ session at Language in Context on Wednesday, and it seems like they didn’t understand why I needed to go ‘aargh!’. I have my topic, I have my case studies, I have my hypotheses, I have my methodology, I have an idea of my sources – what was I complaining about... I guess I needed people to tell me what I needed not to focus on. Fair enough.
The Olympics have started and so far have been going relatively to my liking. Generally the nice people win, the not-so-nice people don’t. I got a wireless card for my laptop, not quite with the purpose of being able to watch the NOS’s live streams in the office, but it’s a nice extra. It has the nasty habit of kicking me off a couple of times during the day but I can deal with that.
In between all of that I’ve been trying to sort out this humongous feelings thing. The whole MG and TT thing may not have helped much in that department, there’s been a lot of theory input that I’m not sure about. MG’s theory about liking being a spontaneous feeling but loving being a conscious act may be supported by the θ-roles required by the Faroese verbs dáma and elska, but I’m not sure it is that simple. Then there’s the thing MG said to me a couple of weeks ago: I deserve someone who’s going to make me the centre of his universe. Yay! I would like to be the centre of someone’s universe. But doesn’t that implicate that I have to make that someone the centre of my universe? I don’t know that I have the attention span to do that. I guess that’s what MG means by loving being a conscious act. On the whole, I’m a bit worried about the whole idea of ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’. I’m not confident I will be able to do enough.
On a more abstract level, I just don’t know what all these things that I feel mean. (How MM’s quote that hangs over my desk as a reminder to not just take any explanation for given, gets additional meaning here...) But maybe I shouldn’t want meaning and should just go with what I feel. But will I ever get past dáma then?
WB left a copy of the novella Brokeback Mountain on his desk in the office, so I read that during ice prep breaks on Sunday. After the movie hype, I found it a bit disappointing. I guess if you expect a lot you let yourself no other option than to be disappointed. I think the biggest downpoint was that the whole thing again started with sex. Oh, it’s cold, well sod those sheep and come into my sleeping bag, they shag. I just don’t have that drive and constantly getting messages of physically initiated relationships makes me feel inadequate. I liked Willem Melchior’s De onhuwbaren so much better. Sure, there was this physical side there as well, but it was much more about the emotional and mental side. Of course it is also ten times as long as Brokeback Mountain so more space, my expectations weren’t as high, I gave it my full attention and was probably in a better mood when I read it. Gosh, it sounds like I hated Brokeback Mountain. I don’t... It just doesn’t portray my feelings. (The movie’s got Heath Ledger in, so possibly better than the book.)
I had a Skype chat with JM this morning. Don’t remember exactly what she said but it supported me a lot in what I was thinking. I need to figure out what I want to happen, and then try to make it happen. (JA told me something along those lines last year with the whole DJ thing, and it isn’t as easy as it sounds.)
Jag hoppas att du havt något att läsa... men nu måste du tillbaka till ditt arbete! :)
05 February 2006
Quotes
From Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club, translation by Annemieke Oltheten — chapter 4, p. 49.
Het was misschien eenvoudiger, peinsde ze, om jezelf niet toe te staan verliefd op iemand te worden; om gewoon alleen te blijven, immuun voor pijn die jou door een ander wordt aangedaan. Er waren een heleboel van zulke mensen die tevreden leken met hun leven – of misschien toch niet? Ze vroeg zich af hoeveel van deze mensen vrijwillig alleen leefden, en hoeveel er alleen waren omdat er nooit iemand in hun leven was gekomen die hen van hun eenzaamheid af had geholpen. Er was een verschil tussen een berustende acceptatie van een eenzaam leven, en een bewuste keuze om alleen te blijven.
The (tacky 1980s) chorus from Freiheit’s Keeping the dream alive (1989).
The hopes we had were much too high,
Way out of reach but we had to try.
No need to hide, no need to run,
’Cause all the answers come one by one.
The game will never be over
Because we’re keeping the dream alive.
30 January 2006
Time flies...
...when you’re having fun. Seeing as a week has gone by since the last update you’d think time had flown, and maybe it has. Or maybe I’ve just been too busy and too preoccupied with other things to notice that time hasn’t exactly been flying at all.
Some time ago I read on the news that the past week would have seen the most depressing day of the year. (I can’t find the original article but this’ll do.) Not sure if this psychologist guy picked the right day, but it’s certainly been the right week. Drama for me over the weekend, not a weekend filled with happiness either for MG. MvD said she didn’t have a good weekend. ZB topped the list with a dead cat, another cat diagnosed with aids (no shit) and her granddad in hospital. LG was buried in work for all of the week. And finally, AL needed support on Thursday because her boyfriend had fired a range of clichés at her. It wasn’t her, it was him – she deserved to be with someone who could spend more time with her, etcetera.
I think AL summed up the situation quite nicely. ‘It was nice, I liked nice, I want nice.’ Although I’m sure she experienced a more intense degree of niceness, I can totally relate to that. Big bits of what didn’t happen in the end were nice, I liked nice and I’m sorry nice didn’t happen. I’m glad we’re still okay together though.
I managed to get out of the Newcastle Festival dem. I didn’t want to be in it in the first place, but JF seems to have problems interpreting negation particles in his own native language, so suddenly I was on the dem team for both New Scotland and Dunedin. Then came Dunedin on the Wednesday night and a most painful experience dancing Bubbles in the Pond with RW. Her diagnosis was shinsplints, and the only remedy is rest. So I didn’t dance on Thursday, and also at the Annual on Saturday I only did four dances. Garry Strathspey (with GD) was maybe not the best choice, seeing as it was a strathspey and involved Highland Scottische setting. Ouch. The two fast dances I did – Kelpie (with YK) and Fiona’s Party (with AL) – were easier to stomach (or shin, whatever), and waltzing with MM resulted in dizziness rather than sore shins and ankles. Anyway, injury is a good enough reason not to have to commit to the Newcastle Dem. And incidentally, it also gives me a lot of sorely needed spare time!
My dad’s in hospital after falling in the bathroom. Apparently he damaged a disk. My mom says I needn’t worry. So I won’t. But it adds to the most fantastic week ever...
So yeah, the only really good thing to come out of last week – apart from still being good friends with VP – is... Swedish sociolinguistics! (Warning: messy story coming up, but it makes sense in the end.) WB is doing this course called ‘English Language, Society and Culture’ and they were talking about language planning. Homework for that course, at least for the undergrads, was to read a random book on language planning from the library. WB picked a book by Wardhaugh (1987), Languages in competition. Sounded interesting, so yes it is now on my desk but still on his loan. But anyway, I decided to take a look at that particular shelfmark in the library and found a book called Språkbyte och språkbevarande (by Hyltenstam & Stroud, 1991). It is genuinely the best introduction to language shift I’ve read so far, and not coloured by irritating RLS stuff like Fishman’s books. They also mentioned a model for describing language shift that no one’s picked up before. Quite possibly because it was developed in a Swedish study of the Swedish-to-Finnish language shift in Finland (Tandefelt, Mellan två språk, 1988). Took out that book as well, but I haven’t gotten to the chapter on the model yet. (Reading several books at once to maintain sanity.)
Oh, I also got an e-mail from CT. I lost his e-mail address before so it’s nice to hear from him again. Quite a typical style, very enjoyable. Apparently he sees a future for a Tocharian rap group. Must remember to send a more lengthy e-mail back in the very near future.
Some time ago I read on the news that the past week would have seen the most depressing day of the year. (I can’t find the original article but this’ll do.) Not sure if this psychologist guy picked the right day, but it’s certainly been the right week. Drama for me over the weekend, not a weekend filled with happiness either for MG. MvD said she didn’t have a good weekend. ZB topped the list with a dead cat, another cat diagnosed with aids (no shit) and her granddad in hospital. LG was buried in work for all of the week. And finally, AL needed support on Thursday because her boyfriend had fired a range of clichés at her. It wasn’t her, it was him – she deserved to be with someone who could spend more time with her, etcetera.
I think AL summed up the situation quite nicely. ‘It was nice, I liked nice, I want nice.’ Although I’m sure she experienced a more intense degree of niceness, I can totally relate to that. Big bits of what didn’t happen in the end were nice, I liked nice and I’m sorry nice didn’t happen. I’m glad we’re still okay together though.
I managed to get out of the Newcastle Festival dem. I didn’t want to be in it in the first place, but JF seems to have problems interpreting negation particles in his own native language, so suddenly I was on the dem team for both New Scotland and Dunedin. Then came Dunedin on the Wednesday night and a most painful experience dancing Bubbles in the Pond with RW. Her diagnosis was shinsplints, and the only remedy is rest. So I didn’t dance on Thursday, and also at the Annual on Saturday I only did four dances. Garry Strathspey (with GD) was maybe not the best choice, seeing as it was a strathspey and involved Highland Scottische setting. Ouch. The two fast dances I did – Kelpie (with YK) and Fiona’s Party (with AL) – were easier to stomach (or shin, whatever), and waltzing with MM resulted in dizziness rather than sore shins and ankles. Anyway, injury is a good enough reason not to have to commit to the Newcastle Dem. And incidentally, it also gives me a lot of sorely needed spare time!
My dad’s in hospital after falling in the bathroom. Apparently he damaged a disk. My mom says I needn’t worry. So I won’t. But it adds to the most fantastic week ever...
So yeah, the only really good thing to come out of last week – apart from still being good friends with VP – is... Swedish sociolinguistics! (Warning: messy story coming up, but it makes sense in the end.) WB is doing this course called ‘English Language, Society and Culture’ and they were talking about language planning. Homework for that course, at least for the undergrads, was to read a random book on language planning from the library. WB picked a book by Wardhaugh (1987), Languages in competition. Sounded interesting, so yes it is now on my desk but still on his loan. But anyway, I decided to take a look at that particular shelfmark in the library and found a book called Språkbyte och språkbevarande (by Hyltenstam & Stroud, 1991). It is genuinely the best introduction to language shift I’ve read so far, and not coloured by irritating RLS stuff like Fishman’s books. They also mentioned a model for describing language shift that no one’s picked up before. Quite possibly because it was developed in a Swedish study of the Swedish-to-Finnish language shift in Finland (Tandefelt, Mellan två språk, 1988). Took out that book as well, but I haven’t gotten to the chapter on the model yet. (Reading several books at once to maintain sanity.)
Oh, I also got an e-mail from CT. I lost his e-mail address before so it’s nice to hear from him again. Quite a typical style, very enjoyable. Apparently he sees a future for a Tocharian rap group. Must remember to send a more lengthy e-mail back in the very near future.
23 January 2006
Zieleroerselen
(Use Babelfish for a vague idea and a good laugh at the pitiful standards of computer translation.)
Ik ben aan’t bijkomen van de wervelwind aan emoties van de afgelopen week. Wat er nou precies gebeurd is, weet ik niet; wat ik ervan vind weet ik al helemaal niet. Het begon allemaal in de nacht van zaterdag op zondag vorige week, toen ik op MSN zat met VP. Op een gegeven moment kwam het hoge woord er dan uit: ik vond hem eigenlijk best wel leuk. Een echte uitspraak of dat wederzijds was kwam er niet, hij wilde me eerst beter leren kennen. Dat hebben we toen eerst maar afgesproken. Eng was het wel, want wat als ik nou de verkeerde keuze heb gemaakt? Hoe zeker was ik er nou van? En als het fout ging, hoeveel zou er dan kapot zijn?
Maandag dan samen geluncht en een beetje in de Meadows gekuierd. Ja, lief lachje en zeker knuffelbaar. Dinsdag na dem class vlug die kloterige cd-speler thuis afgeleverd en naar de Human Be-in gegaan, waar hij was met de mensen van de Asian Friends Society. Een beetje gemengde gevoelens hier. Hij was nog steeds zeker knuffelbaar maar dat initiatief moest wel van mij komen, denk ik. Jammer alleen dat er nogal veel in het Chinees gepraat werd. Maar goed, dat hoort er vast bij, dat is het doel van die hele Asian Friends Society. Op het Chinees praten na was dit toch wel een fijne ervaring, de enige domper was dat ik naar huis liep met iemand die blijkbaar ook in VP geïnteresseerd was.
Woensdag was er een vergadering van de organisatie van de Postgraduate Conference, waar VP ook bij was. Naderhand in het keukentje van 14BP nog wat gezeten, maar dat was weinig diepgaand. Ik denk dat ik toen op zoek was naar het gevoel van dinsdagavond, maar dat kon ik niet terugvinden. Wel MG op de hoogte gebracht, die nog in Amerika zat en die avond op het vliegtuig terug naar Schotland zou stappen. Na Dunedin vlug naar huis in de hoop dat er nog wat te MSN’en viel, maar hij was niet meer online.
Donderdag met de lunch in geuren en kleuren verteld aan MG wat er speelde, en ’s middags na een saai college afgedaald naar VP zijn kantoortje. En weer die gemengde gevoelens. De persoonlijke aandacht was fijn, de gesprekken over het werk lieten ook zien dat we genoeg dingen gemeenschappelijk hebben, maar toen hij minutenlang zijn Japans ging oefenen met een van de Japanners op zijn kantoor, was er toch weer de twijfel. Is dit onbeleefd? Zelfs als hij sorry zegt? Of was het positief en probeerde hij juist indruk te maken? Het engste was misschien nog wel dat er vlagen bij waren dat er geen vonken over sprongen. Hoort dat erbij, bij verliefd zijn? Periodes van warme wind die om je oren stormt afgewisseld met gevoelloze leegte? Hoe moet ik dat nou weten, ik heb dit toch ook nog nooit eerder gedaan... Toch ’s avonds bij New Scotland nog maar aan MG gevraagd, en die vond het geloof ik wel normaal.
Vrijdag dan een eerste echte date. Of zoiets. Naar de film met een hele lading van zijn vrienden. Opdat het niet helemaal een uitwedstrijd zou zijn, heb ik MG en TtT ook meegevraagd. En dat MG mee was, was maar beter ook. Gedurende de hele film (en zo goed was de film nu ook weer niet) heeft hij niet één keer naar me gekeken, en de hele avond schonk hij meer aandacht aan zijn Chinees sprekende vrienden dan aan mij. Op zoek naar een pub of club om uit te gaan, zijn MG en ik er maar vlug tussenuit geknepen. (TtT was al weg.) Vanaf de bioscoop tot Chambers Street, waar we ons afscheidden van de groep, was het ook één en al Chinees wat de klok sloeg en was het tussen MG en mij vooral stil. Na Chambers Street heb ik de tranen nog tot het festivaltheater weten binnen te houden.
Pas binnen keihard janken. Maar waarom? Omdat de liefde niet wederzijds was? Omdat de liefde eigenlijk bij mijzelf ook niet aanwezig was en ik een stomme inschattingsfout had gemaakt? Omdat er aan de eenzaamheid geen einde kwam? Omdat ik dit hele verliefd zijn-gebeuren niet onder de knie heb? Omdat ik geen idee heb waarom ik hem nou eigenlijk leuk vond en wat ik nou eigenlijk van hem wilde? Alles. En niets. De leegte.
De volgende dag eerst niets aan mijn moeder verteld, maar er later toch maar een e-mail aan gewaagd. Het lieve antwoord dat daarop kwam is misschien nog het beste dat hieruit voort is gekomen.
Maar nog steeds is er dat verlangen. Naar de lieve lach, naar de genegenheid van dinsdagavond, naar het gevoel dat alleen zijn niet hoeft. Als ik dit alles rationaliseer, denk ik dat VP en ik allebei naar hetzelfde op zoek zijn, en dat we dat verward hebben met naar elkaar op zoek zijn? Niet iedereen past bij elkaar, en dat hebben we maar te accepteren. Vervelend is het wel, maar wat niet is, is niet. (En toch is-ie leuk.)
Nou is het oppassen dat ik de muren om me heen niet nog hoger en sterker opbouw, maar dat ik mensen toelaat. Ik ben benieuwd hoe dit afloopt.
(Misbruik van deze informatie zal leiden tot zwaar fysiek geweld.)
Ik ben aan’t bijkomen van de wervelwind aan emoties van de afgelopen week. Wat er nou precies gebeurd is, weet ik niet; wat ik ervan vind weet ik al helemaal niet. Het begon allemaal in de nacht van zaterdag op zondag vorige week, toen ik op MSN zat met VP. Op een gegeven moment kwam het hoge woord er dan uit: ik vond hem eigenlijk best wel leuk. Een echte uitspraak of dat wederzijds was kwam er niet, hij wilde me eerst beter leren kennen. Dat hebben we toen eerst maar afgesproken. Eng was het wel, want wat als ik nou de verkeerde keuze heb gemaakt? Hoe zeker was ik er nou van? En als het fout ging, hoeveel zou er dan kapot zijn?
Maandag dan samen geluncht en een beetje in de Meadows gekuierd. Ja, lief lachje en zeker knuffelbaar. Dinsdag na dem class vlug die kloterige cd-speler thuis afgeleverd en naar de Human Be-in gegaan, waar hij was met de mensen van de Asian Friends Society. Een beetje gemengde gevoelens hier. Hij was nog steeds zeker knuffelbaar maar dat initiatief moest wel van mij komen, denk ik. Jammer alleen dat er nogal veel in het Chinees gepraat werd. Maar goed, dat hoort er vast bij, dat is het doel van die hele Asian Friends Society. Op het Chinees praten na was dit toch wel een fijne ervaring, de enige domper was dat ik naar huis liep met iemand die blijkbaar ook in VP geïnteresseerd was.
Woensdag was er een vergadering van de organisatie van de Postgraduate Conference, waar VP ook bij was. Naderhand in het keukentje van 14BP nog wat gezeten, maar dat was weinig diepgaand. Ik denk dat ik toen op zoek was naar het gevoel van dinsdagavond, maar dat kon ik niet terugvinden. Wel MG op de hoogte gebracht, die nog in Amerika zat en die avond op het vliegtuig terug naar Schotland zou stappen. Na Dunedin vlug naar huis in de hoop dat er nog wat te MSN’en viel, maar hij was niet meer online.
Donderdag met de lunch in geuren en kleuren verteld aan MG wat er speelde, en ’s middags na een saai college afgedaald naar VP zijn kantoortje. En weer die gemengde gevoelens. De persoonlijke aandacht was fijn, de gesprekken over het werk lieten ook zien dat we genoeg dingen gemeenschappelijk hebben, maar toen hij minutenlang zijn Japans ging oefenen met een van de Japanners op zijn kantoor, was er toch weer de twijfel. Is dit onbeleefd? Zelfs als hij sorry zegt? Of was het positief en probeerde hij juist indruk te maken? Het engste was misschien nog wel dat er vlagen bij waren dat er geen vonken over sprongen. Hoort dat erbij, bij verliefd zijn? Periodes van warme wind die om je oren stormt afgewisseld met gevoelloze leegte? Hoe moet ik dat nou weten, ik heb dit toch ook nog nooit eerder gedaan... Toch ’s avonds bij New Scotland nog maar aan MG gevraagd, en die vond het geloof ik wel normaal.
Vrijdag dan een eerste echte date. Of zoiets. Naar de film met een hele lading van zijn vrienden. Opdat het niet helemaal een uitwedstrijd zou zijn, heb ik MG en TtT ook meegevraagd. En dat MG mee was, was maar beter ook. Gedurende de hele film (en zo goed was de film nu ook weer niet) heeft hij niet één keer naar me gekeken, en de hele avond schonk hij meer aandacht aan zijn Chinees sprekende vrienden dan aan mij. Op zoek naar een pub of club om uit te gaan, zijn MG en ik er maar vlug tussenuit geknepen. (TtT was al weg.) Vanaf de bioscoop tot Chambers Street, waar we ons afscheidden van de groep, was het ook één en al Chinees wat de klok sloeg en was het tussen MG en mij vooral stil. Na Chambers Street heb ik de tranen nog tot het festivaltheater weten binnen te houden.
Pas binnen keihard janken. Maar waarom? Omdat de liefde niet wederzijds was? Omdat de liefde eigenlijk bij mijzelf ook niet aanwezig was en ik een stomme inschattingsfout had gemaakt? Omdat er aan de eenzaamheid geen einde kwam? Omdat ik dit hele verliefd zijn-gebeuren niet onder de knie heb? Omdat ik geen idee heb waarom ik hem nou eigenlijk leuk vond en wat ik nou eigenlijk van hem wilde? Alles. En niets. De leegte.
De volgende dag eerst niets aan mijn moeder verteld, maar er later toch maar een e-mail aan gewaagd. Het lieve antwoord dat daarop kwam is misschien nog het beste dat hieruit voort is gekomen.
Maar nog steeds is er dat verlangen. Naar de lieve lach, naar de genegenheid van dinsdagavond, naar het gevoel dat alleen zijn niet hoeft. Als ik dit alles rationaliseer, denk ik dat VP en ik allebei naar hetzelfde op zoek zijn, en dat we dat verward hebben met naar elkaar op zoek zijn? Niet iedereen past bij elkaar, en dat hebben we maar te accepteren. Vervelend is het wel, maar wat niet is, is niet. (En toch is-ie leuk.)
Nou is het oppassen dat ik de muren om me heen niet nog hoger en sterker opbouw, maar dat ik mensen toelaat. Ik ben benieuwd hoe dit afloopt.
(Misbruik van deze informatie zal leiden tot zwaar fysiek geweld.)
21 January 2006
14 January 2006
Weekend!
It’s unbelievable how quickly this week has gone by. Suddenly it was Friday already, and I don’t have the feeling I did anything near what I should have done in the course of a week. It seems like more people are having that feeling, so maybe it’s just the holidays that have messed up our ideas of what is a normal amount of work to do in a week?
I handed in a piece of work on Wednesday. It wasn’t anywhere near good, and there were a lot of gaps, but it was driving me crazy so I decided that handing in what I had was a better option than going crazy over trying to perfect it. LC was saying that it’s actually pretty normal to maybe not quite know what you’re doing and trying to find out which way to go. Meeting with AM next Thursday so we’ll see what we can come up with.
Honours courses are alright. Historical linguistics is nice but I’ve done it before, Linguistic reconstruction and language classification is interesting but maybe not particularly relevant and depending on the amount of work I’m supposed to do for it, I may not come to every class and only take the ones on contact. Another downside is that most of the courses seem to be turning into the DC show. Apart from the fact that I find his appearance and the sound of his voice extremely annoying, he constantly butts in with all these only distantly relevant comments. The undergrads may be impressed, but I wish he’d just shut his face and let AM and RC get on with their lectures.
Two great tutorials on Friday, especially the last one. The goal was to get some discussion going on what is a language, what is a dialect, how do you define them, etc. GT had dropped a bombshell in the lectures by saying that “English does not exist”. One girl was almost in tears, ‘cause if English doesn’t exist, how come she was studying English Language? So I went a bit ahead of schedule and explained that maybe there are no linguistic criteria to define English language, but there were social criteria and that was the whole point: English as a social construct.
The other good bit was talking about prototypes. They had to define Cockney, also by social criteria. Once they’d been told they did not have to be politically correct, there was a nice list of words associated with Cockneys. East London, East Enders, Del Boy, dodgy deals from the back of a truck, Burbery, chavs, uneducated, male, Tottenham Hotspur fans, short-fused... Good thing there weren’t any Cockneys in the group. But I think all the things about social constructs, identity conveyed by language etc. hit home. Bounce!
I did forget to tell them about this essay writing course the university is having for undergrads. Unfortunately it’s only one day before the deadline for the EL1 essay, but I may tell them about it anyway. Somehow somewhere some of them seem to have picked up the idea that vomiting out a bit mush of long words is a good idea. That’s going to bite them in the back when I’m going to have to mark their essays.
Spent most of yesterday evening online chatting to VP, which was nice. Apparently my name in Cantonese is 嵐歌 which translates as ‘the song of the wind in the mountains’. Very poetic. I also got invited to go to the cinema on Sunday but unfortunately I can’t go because there is a NS committee meeting that night. Expletives suppressed.
Only nine weeks left as NS secretary. And after saving the Annual (I hope) earlier in the week, I also saved the Student Festival cèilidh. It seems like we’re now part of Rukkus which is some form of charities’ night in Teviot. I also hope that RK managed to get us involved in that cèilidh on the Society Oscars night, otherwise we (read: RK) will have upset a lot of people and gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. I wonder how heated the meeting tomorrow will be; that’ll kind of depend on the newlyweds’ attitudes to power and leadership. We don’t have MG there to be the counter-alpha female so we’re going to have to try to fend for ourselves....
I handed in a piece of work on Wednesday. It wasn’t anywhere near good, and there were a lot of gaps, but it was driving me crazy so I decided that handing in what I had was a better option than going crazy over trying to perfect it. LC was saying that it’s actually pretty normal to maybe not quite know what you’re doing and trying to find out which way to go. Meeting with AM next Thursday so we’ll see what we can come up with.
Honours courses are alright. Historical linguistics is nice but I’ve done it before, Linguistic reconstruction and language classification is interesting but maybe not particularly relevant and depending on the amount of work I’m supposed to do for it, I may not come to every class and only take the ones on contact. Another downside is that most of the courses seem to be turning into the DC show. Apart from the fact that I find his appearance and the sound of his voice extremely annoying, he constantly butts in with all these only distantly relevant comments. The undergrads may be impressed, but I wish he’d just shut his face and let AM and RC get on with their lectures.
Two great tutorials on Friday, especially the last one. The goal was to get some discussion going on what is a language, what is a dialect, how do you define them, etc. GT had dropped a bombshell in the lectures by saying that “English does not exist”. One girl was almost in tears, ‘cause if English doesn’t exist, how come she was studying English Language? So I went a bit ahead of schedule and explained that maybe there are no linguistic criteria to define English language, but there were social criteria and that was the whole point: English as a social construct.
The other good bit was talking about prototypes. They had to define Cockney, also by social criteria. Once they’d been told they did not have to be politically correct, there was a nice list of words associated with Cockneys. East London, East Enders, Del Boy, dodgy deals from the back of a truck, Burbery, chavs, uneducated, male, Tottenham Hotspur fans, short-fused... Good thing there weren’t any Cockneys in the group. But I think all the things about social constructs, identity conveyed by language etc. hit home. Bounce!
I did forget to tell them about this essay writing course the university is having for undergrads. Unfortunately it’s only one day before the deadline for the EL1 essay, but I may tell them about it anyway. Somehow somewhere some of them seem to have picked up the idea that vomiting out a bit mush of long words is a good idea. That’s going to bite them in the back when I’m going to have to mark their essays.
Spent most of yesterday evening online chatting to VP, which was nice. Apparently my name in Cantonese is 嵐歌 which translates as ‘the song of the wind in the mountains’. Very poetic. I also got invited to go to the cinema on Sunday but unfortunately I can’t go because there is a NS committee meeting that night. Expletives suppressed.
Only nine weeks left as NS secretary. And after saving the Annual (I hope) earlier in the week, I also saved the Student Festival cèilidh. It seems like we’re now part of Rukkus which is some form of charities’ night in Teviot. I also hope that RK managed to get us involved in that cèilidh on the Society Oscars night, otherwise we (read: RK) will have upset a lot of people and gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. I wonder how heated the meeting tomorrow will be; that’ll kind of depend on the newlyweds’ attitudes to power and leadership. We don’t have MG there to be the counter-alpha female so we’re going to have to try to fend for ourselves....
11 January 2006
Passed the test!
My EL1 marking got approved. A big sigh of relief, because I really wasn’t looking forward to spending another 20 hours reading bad English and overt lack of insight into the grammar of English. The one student I suspected of having copied pieces from a book – he suddenly changed register spectacularly – got away with it, as they haven’t had proper plagiarism warnings yet. Oh well...
New Scotland is slowly getting started again. BW’s class yesterday had no beginners, there were like seven old people. Dem class wasn’t much better and after having had to do BW’s class, I can’t say we were all too attentive or motivated. I managed to book AK for the Student Festival cèilidh. He’s upped his rates again, but it’s short notice so I decided we should go for it. Also called James Gillespies again, as I hadn’t heard from them. Turns out they’d sent a confirmation ages ago, that I didn’t receive. Good thing I called, ’cause they had us down for the wrong date! Major disaster narrowly avoided...
It’s lonely in the house without MG or TtT.
New Scotland is slowly getting started again. BW’s class yesterday had no beginners, there were like seven old people. Dem class wasn’t much better and after having had to do BW’s class, I can’t say we were all too attentive or motivated. I managed to book AK for the Student Festival cèilidh. He’s upped his rates again, but it’s short notice so I decided we should go for it. Also called James Gillespies again, as I hadn’t heard from them. Turns out they’d sent a confirmation ages ago, that I didn’t receive. Good thing I called, ’cause they had us down for the wrong date! Major disaster narrowly avoided...
It’s lonely in the house without MG or TtT.
08 January 2006
Back to work
Okay, I am recovering from the amazement at RK and AI’s wedding plans. This came as a massive surprise not just to me; disbelief seems to be the most common reaction among everyone I’ve been speaking to.
I finished the last bit of the EL1 marking. I still had some comments to write on some of the scripts. These were the first scripts I marked, when we were still told (erroneously) that we weren’t supposed to write on them. So I made little summarizing comments on a notepad while marking that I now copied onto the scripts. I think there may be some minor inconsistencies in the marking, but no more than two points and if need be I can take those two points away somewhere else...
Also been working a bit on a first write-up, but not very much has been happening on that front. I have lots of bits and pieces, but it’s yet to be transformed in a flowing story. The goal is to have it finished by the end of the week; with EL1 and some honours courses to do I’m not sure how viable that goal is, but we’re going to try.
I also seem to have acquired another flatmate in MG’s absence. TtT came yesterday morning and hasn’t left. It’s actually quite nice and we’re having a nice relaxed bit of Netherlands in Edinburgh.
Current reading: Wijdlopige, brede en waarachtige beschrijving van de ongelukkige reizen van het schip de Visstick en haar gezagvoerder Kapitein Iglo (‘Wide-ranging, broad and truthful description of the unfortunate travels of the ship the Fish Finger and her commander Captain Birdseye’) by, among others, Windig & De Jong of Heinz fame. It is as good as it sounds.
I finished the last bit of the EL1 marking. I still had some comments to write on some of the scripts. These were the first scripts I marked, when we were still told (erroneously) that we weren’t supposed to write on them. So I made little summarizing comments on a notepad while marking that I now copied onto the scripts. I think there may be some minor inconsistencies in the marking, but no more than two points and if need be I can take those two points away somewhere else...
Also been working a bit on a first write-up, but not very much has been happening on that front. I have lots of bits and pieces, but it’s yet to be transformed in a flowing story. The goal is to have it finished by the end of the week; with EL1 and some honours courses to do I’m not sure how viable that goal is, but we’re going to try.
I also seem to have acquired another flatmate in MG’s absence. TtT came yesterday morning and hasn’t left. It’s actually quite nice and we’re having a nice relaxed bit of Netherlands in Edinburgh.
Current reading: Wijdlopige, brede en waarachtige beschrijving van de ongelukkige reizen van het schip de Visstick en haar gezagvoerder Kapitein Iglo (‘Wide-ranging, broad and truthful description of the unfortunate travels of the ship the Fish Finger and her commander Captain Birdseye’) by, among others, Windig & De Jong of Heinz fame. It is as good as it sounds.
04 January 2006
The phatic function of communication
...is communicating for the sake of communication. Like when a child says, "Mum?" - "Yeah?" - "Nothing." The whole point of this is just to keep the channels of communication open. This is a phatic blog entry. Nothing happened that is noteworthy.
30 December 2005
Net nei it Hearrenfean hjoed
The planned trip to see the skating in Heerenveen has been cancelled. The KNMI has issued a weather warning, and although it should be no problem to get to Thialf, it's not entirely likely there'll be trains back. According to the latest weather predictions, the ice storms won't hit the North before midnight so technically I should be okay, but JH has to go back down South which is likely to be impossible from about 9pm onwards. JH had already left but came back just before I was supposed to leave. And I would only be leaving because I'd told him I'd meet him at Thialf at 3. And he doesn't have a mobile, of course...
So we're going to do the same thing as we did the past couple of days: watch it on tv and discuss it on MSN. It's actually more comfortable and much easier to follow what's going on, but you miss the experience of standing in a crowded stadium and freezing to death. Better luck next year, maybe...
So we're going to do the same thing as we did the past couple of days: watch it on tv and discuss it on MSN. It's actually more comfortable and much easier to follow what's going on, but you miss the experience of standing in a crowded stadium and freezing to death. Better luck next year, maybe...
28 December 2005
Holiday
Boxing day was spent at my aunt's in The Hague. She had organized an afternoon programme, I think mainly because my uncle (her brother) likes the after-dinner party drinks and will then drive back without any problems. Anyway, the food was good: an old-fashioned Dutch Sunday meal of rollade, Brussels sprouts, green beans, potatoes and gravy. Ice for dessert; my mom had brought back a Christmas pudding from Edinburgh when she went to my graduation, but I think that was outvoted in favour of ice, so the pudding will have to wait until some other time. They appear to have use-by dates in the very distant future anyway, so dessert for Christmas 2015 is all settled.
Between the main course and dessert we went on a little walk through the dunes to the beach boulevard of Kijkduin. They had some sort of artsy exposition there, with large milky-glass balls with paintings on, that were illuminated from the inside. They were supposed to be gorgeous. They were okay, but not exactly a life-changing experience. The sea was much nicer.
The train ride back the next day was problematic. Between Gouda and Woerden we had to go really slowly because the tracks were slippery from the snow. Then just after Amersfoort there was another slow stretch because someone was spotted walking along the tracks. After a while we sped up again and they said the person had not been found. A couple of stations on, the same thing. This time we did see the guy being picked up by the police. I wonder what the idea was behind building all these mental hospitals in the woods right next to the railroad tracks...
Today I had to go to the bank. They called yesterday, because apparently I don't qualify for a student account anymore, because they spotted that I no longer receive money from the government. The Bank may need to wake up, cause I haven't received that money since 2001! I now seem to be a young professional, cause that's the package they offered me now. They did say you needed at least €900 a month 'feeding' into your account. Too bad, but I did change the contract to 800 before I signed it. Banks are evil corporations that you really need to keep an eye on. After my mom's problems with her credit card while she was in Edinburgh, they are seriously considering moving all their money away from this bank -- then see how nice they suddenly are...
Radio 2 is currently doing their mammoth Top 2000 broadcast. The best 2000 songs ever as voted by their listeners. It's the seventh year in a row that they do this, it all started in 1999 as a run-up to the new millennium. A chart that runs from midnight into Boxing Day until midnight New Year's Eve, with really a lot of good records! (Currently a very bad hour actually, numbers 965 to 952, the next hour will be better.) After six years with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at #1, it's now Boudewijn de Groot's Avond which has rightly clinched the top spot. Either way, it's a lot better than turning on the tv to any of the music channels. We have three -- TMF, MTV Nederland, and The Box -- and at any given time, at least one of them plays a Robbie Williams song.
A good thing on tv these days is the Dutch qualifying tournament for the Olympics in speedskating. Two days down, two days to go. It's very exciting, they're going really really fast and the results so far are just perfect: enough nice surprises and unexpected results but it's all safe bets that qualify for the Olympics. I'll be going to Heerenveen on Friday with JH and EvL to watch it in person (1000 m ladies, 1500 m men [that's going to be murder!] and 5000 m ladies). Should be good.
Oh yeah, the Christmas present books: three Bommel books by Marten Toonder (De toornviolen, De loodhervormer and De kwade inblazingen), Alexander McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club (in Dutch; set in Edinburgh), and a book with short stories by Eastern European authors with names with hacheks on the S and dashes through the L.
Between the main course and dessert we went on a little walk through the dunes to the beach boulevard of Kijkduin. They had some sort of artsy exposition there, with large milky-glass balls with paintings on, that were illuminated from the inside. They were supposed to be gorgeous. They were okay, but not exactly a life-changing experience. The sea was much nicer.
The train ride back the next day was problematic. Between Gouda and Woerden we had to go really slowly because the tracks were slippery from the snow. Then just after Amersfoort there was another slow stretch because someone was spotted walking along the tracks. After a while we sped up again and they said the person had not been found. A couple of stations on, the same thing. This time we did see the guy being picked up by the police. I wonder what the idea was behind building all these mental hospitals in the woods right next to the railroad tracks...
Today I had to go to the bank. They called yesterday, because apparently I don't qualify for a student account anymore, because they spotted that I no longer receive money from the government. The Bank may need to wake up, cause I haven't received that money since 2001! I now seem to be a young professional, cause that's the package they offered me now. They did say you needed at least €900 a month 'feeding' into your account. Too bad, but I did change the contract to 800 before I signed it. Banks are evil corporations that you really need to keep an eye on. After my mom's problems with her credit card while she was in Edinburgh, they are seriously considering moving all their money away from this bank -- then see how nice they suddenly are...
Radio 2 is currently doing their mammoth Top 2000 broadcast. The best 2000 songs ever as voted by their listeners. It's the seventh year in a row that they do this, it all started in 1999 as a run-up to the new millennium. A chart that runs from midnight into Boxing Day until midnight New Year's Eve, with really a lot of good records! (Currently a very bad hour actually, numbers 965 to 952, the next hour will be better.) After six years with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at #1, it's now Boudewijn de Groot's Avond which has rightly clinched the top spot. Either way, it's a lot better than turning on the tv to any of the music channels. We have three -- TMF, MTV Nederland, and The Box -- and at any given time, at least one of them plays a Robbie Williams song.
A good thing on tv these days is the Dutch qualifying tournament for the Olympics in speedskating. Two days down, two days to go. It's very exciting, they're going really really fast and the results so far are just perfect: enough nice surprises and unexpected results but it's all safe bets that qualify for the Olympics. I'll be going to Heerenveen on Friday with JH and EvL to watch it in person (1000 m ladies, 1500 m men [that's going to be murder!] and 5000 m ladies). Should be good.
Oh yeah, the Christmas present books: three Bommel books by Marten Toonder (De toornviolen, De loodhervormer and De kwade inblazingen), Alexander McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club (in Dutch; set in Edinburgh), and a book with short stories by Eastern European authors with names with hacheks on the S and dashes through the L.
25 December 2005
Yuletide posting
An amazing amount of melted cheese in my stomach, the idea that it's not necessary to eat ever again, and really no good movies on tv for the rest of the night. Time to catch up then on the events of the past couple of days.
The Museum of Falsified Arts is quite nice. Really it's like a stand-up comedy show. We were entertained first by a guy who told us his whole personal history and how he and his wife -- whom he had met in the photocopier room of the high school they both worked at -- started collecting art, how they were conned into buying several pieces of falsified art, and how they decided to start a museum with these. The art was maybe not the most inspiring thing of the museum, it was more the stories surrounding it; how they knew the painting wasn't made by the original artist. They also had some non-falsified paintings, among them a drawing by Queen Wilhelmina and an oil painting by 'B. van B.', which everyone knows is Beatrix.
The other museum I visited with my family was the Hunebed Museum in Borger. Hunebeds are neolithic rock graves. The museum was re-done last year and I hadn't been to the new version yet. The old museum was kind of old and boring, really an old-fashioned museum that didn't "talk" to the visitors anymore. The new one is much more of an "experience", and personally I was impressed by their graphic art (although they should have made sure the notes actually stuck to the exposition cases...). WW took a lot of notes because she found a lot of good ideas for three visitor centres she has to set up in Egypt. One is about the Abapta, a nomadic people; the other ones I think are in Berenike and the Fayum, but I may be wrong.
I've also been marking EL1 assignments. Seventeen down, thirteen to go. Overall, they seem to have been made slightly worse than the first exam, but that one I may still have overmarked slightly and in this one I may be a bit too strict.
I have also been watching a couple of movies, or rather, I've made some halfhearted attempts at watching movies. There is definitely a load of bad Christmas movies out there. Harry Potter II in German is quite a different experience (Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen!) and why is there no channel among the 31 I have on cable that is broadcasting The Sound of Music over Christmas?
The Museum of Falsified Arts is quite nice. Really it's like a stand-up comedy show. We were entertained first by a guy who told us his whole personal history and how he and his wife -- whom he had met in the photocopier room of the high school they both worked at -- started collecting art, how they were conned into buying several pieces of falsified art, and how they decided to start a museum with these. The art was maybe not the most inspiring thing of the museum, it was more the stories surrounding it; how they knew the painting wasn't made by the original artist. They also had some non-falsified paintings, among them a drawing by Queen Wilhelmina and an oil painting by 'B. van B.', which everyone knows is Beatrix.
The other museum I visited with my family was the Hunebed Museum in Borger. Hunebeds are neolithic rock graves. The museum was re-done last year and I hadn't been to the new version yet. The old museum was kind of old and boring, really an old-fashioned museum that didn't "talk" to the visitors anymore. The new one is much more of an "experience", and personally I was impressed by their graphic art (although they should have made sure the notes actually stuck to the exposition cases...). WW took a lot of notes because she found a lot of good ideas for three visitor centres she has to set up in Egypt. One is about the Abapta, a nomadic people; the other ones I think are in Berenike and the Fayum, but I may be wrong.
I've also been marking EL1 assignments. Seventeen down, thirteen to go. Overall, they seem to have been made slightly worse than the first exam, but that one I may still have overmarked slightly and in this one I may be a bit too strict.
I have also been watching a couple of movies, or rather, I've made some halfhearted attempts at watching movies. There is definitely a load of bad Christmas movies out there. Harry Potter II in German is quite a different experience (Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen!) and why is there no channel among the 31 I have on cable that is broadcasting The Sound of Music over Christmas?
22 December 2005
Home Sweet Home
And we're back in the house I grew up in. The travels on Tuesday were fairly painless. It did involve getting up at 5.30 am, getting out of the house at 6.30, taking an airport bus at 7, arriving at the airport at 7.30, then waiting for my flight at 9.30. The flight seemed to be slightly late, but we arrived in Amsterdam on time so I guess there must have been favourable winds. There were no queues to speak of at passport control, and the luggage arrived with whizzing speeds. I hardly had time to get a train ticket from the machine before I could pick up my suitcase and leave. Of course, even with the trip going so smoothly, you arrive in the terminal about 3 minutes after the train has left, so that means another 57 minutes to kill at the airport.
Reading materials for the trip were the latest issue of Time (the English edition, the one with the best news pictures of 2005), the latest BBC History magazine, and the Christmas issue of HP De Tijd.
So far it's a weird mix of work and holiday. I do have a big load of EL1 tests to mark (13 down, 17 to go - and then to compare marks for consistency and give final marks), and AMcM seems to expect a first chapter of some sort somewhere in the first weeks of term. But other than that, I also have enough time to watch television. I have a television, and 31 channels!
Next term I am planning to take two Honours courses just because they are interesting. One is Historical Linguistics, the other one is Language Classification (or something along those lines). I found out one of my class mates for the Historical Linguistics one is going to be SN. That could be interesting...
Today we're going to the Museum of Falsified Arts. It'll be me, my parents and my mom's best friend (partly as a translator, cause the guides there seem only to be able to speak dialect, which is totally unintelligible to those from outside the area). And there we will meet my aunt, my cousin and his wife. They (HB and WW) live in Los Angeles and are over for Christmas and New Year's. They'll be staying with us for the next couple of days, so that should be good.
Thought of the day: It's okay that there should be a prize for the best television commercial, but I don't exactly see the need for a two-hour live televized gala. Also interesting that I knew exactly none of the nominated commercials. Living abroad without a telly may have something to do with that...
(My computer is still on British time though:)
Reading materials for the trip were the latest issue of Time (the English edition, the one with the best news pictures of 2005), the latest BBC History magazine, and the Christmas issue of HP De Tijd.
So far it's a weird mix of work and holiday. I do have a big load of EL1 tests to mark (13 down, 17 to go - and then to compare marks for consistency and give final marks), and AMcM seems to expect a first chapter of some sort somewhere in the first weeks of term. But other than that, I also have enough time to watch television. I have a television, and 31 channels!
Next term I am planning to take two Honours courses just because they are interesting. One is Historical Linguistics, the other one is Language Classification (or something along those lines). I found out one of my class mates for the Historical Linguistics one is going to be SN. That could be interesting...
Today we're going to the Museum of Falsified Arts. It'll be me, my parents and my mom's best friend (partly as a translator, cause the guides there seem only to be able to speak dialect, which is totally unintelligible to those from outside the area). And there we will meet my aunt, my cousin and his wife. They (HB and WW) live in Los Angeles and are over for Christmas and New Year's. They'll be staying with us for the next couple of days, so that should be good.
Thought of the day: It's okay that there should be a prize for the best television commercial, but I don't exactly see the need for a two-hour live televized gala. Also interesting that I knew exactly none of the nominated commercials. Living abroad without a telly may have something to do with that...
(My computer is still on British time though:)
19 December 2005
Omissions
I also meant to say... well, I think I should explain what ticked me off on the whole ‘British Christmas culture is weird’ thing. It’s giving Christmas cards to people you see every day. Or every other day. Or at least very frequently. On my desk I have 11 Christmas cards. All of them were given to me in person – or in one case thrown vaguely in my direction (thanks CA!). And they all say something along the lines of ‘Dear Remco’, pre-printed Christmas greetings, ‘Love, X’.
They become even more personal if you realize that e.g. JW was writing names on already sealed envelopes during the New Scotland Christmas party. RW was a bit more personal, but she went into the hallway every time a new person arrived to write them a Christmas card.
So what’s the point of giving Christmas cards if you can just wish people a merry Christmas in person? Four of them were for charity, maybe that’s the point? (All of this doesn’t go for MM, who has gone through the bother of embroidering something and writing a personal message that goes beyond ‘Dear Remco’.)
Christmas party
The other thing I should have said was about the Christmas party. There was also a highlight while we were still there. This involved HC having rung for a taxi, and when the taxi man arrived, NM (who was already very drunk) answered the buzzer with ‘N’s Sex Services’. I wonder what the taxi driver would have thought of HC.
They become even more personal if you realize that e.g. JW was writing names on already sealed envelopes during the New Scotland Christmas party. RW was a bit more personal, but she went into the hallway every time a new person arrived to write them a Christmas card.
So what’s the point of giving Christmas cards if you can just wish people a merry Christmas in person? Four of them were for charity, maybe that’s the point? (All of this doesn’t go for MM, who has gone through the bother of embroidering something and writing a personal message that goes beyond ‘Dear Remco’.)
Christmas party
The other thing I should have said was about the Christmas party. There was also a highlight while we were still there. This involved HC having rung for a taxi, and when the taxi man arrived, NM (who was already very drunk) answered the buzzer with ‘N’s Sex Services’. I wonder what the taxi driver would have thought of HC.
Travel preparations
Closing up for Christmas is a very complicated process. It seems to take several days and comes with a variety of food and drink substances, and above all a large amount of ritual. For someone who hasn’t grown up with the British Christmas traditions — even with a tradition where Christmas is definitely subordinate to the much more important feast of St Nicholas, the original Santa Claus — it takes a bit of getting used to, I guess.
Thursday morning was a meeting of the prospective organizers of the LEL Postgraduate Conference, which is to take place in April. It used to be TAAL (Theoretical and Applied Linguistics) but after the merger and the creation of the One Big Happy Family of Linguistics and English Language, it’s now LEL. I think we’re quite nicely divided among the subject areas. Anyway, I seem to be the only one comfortable enough with computers, so I got myself involved in doing website stuff and making the abstracts look nice on paper. KM and I were surprised at the absence of VP, very unlike him.
Thursday evening was the final night of dancing for the year. Extended social, with a lot of the year’s favourites. I had some difficulty calling Hooper’s Jig from the Green Book — which ones are the squares again? — but I did Midnight Oil perfectly so that made up for it. ZB’s English dance was manic, even at half speed, but can we please do that again? RK was slightly stressed throughout the night, for a variety of reasons: [a] she had exams the next day, [b] her reason for living chose the Big Monkey Movie over her, and [c] CI had buggered off to Romania without notice. Quite interesting to keep my cool and calm and pretending to be saving the day...
Friday morning was another chapter in Benedict Anderson’s Forestillede fællesskaber, after which lunch and some general tidying in the office. Friday afternoon from 3 was the departmental Christmas party. Organized by MB, the tech support guy, who really put his heart and soul into it. This involved a treasure hunt connected to pass-the-parcel, and an attempt at the world record shortest Strip the Willow. I think a bar and a half of music and not even getting beyond the spinning bit qualifies as ‘world record shortest’, but maybe not as ‘Strip the Willow’?
Friday evening was departmental Christmas dinner, organized by the postgrads themselves. Well, by LC and AP really; quite impressive as they had prepared this after the undergrad lunch on Wednesday, which for the two of them involved drinking from half noon to 2.30am. We went to Buffet King for dinner, all you can eat Chinese for £13 — but they charge for tap water?!
Saturday was the New Scotland Christmas party at TtT’s. The themes were Y and H, which bonus points for combining the two. It was impressive how inventive people were at combining Y and H as an excuse not to dress up. The reactions to the salmiak were interesting, especially YK’s face, but in the end it was about 50/50 positive and negative reactions. The After Eight Game — work an After Eight from your forehead into your mouth using only your facial muscles — was amusing. Congratulations to JW for getting at least three or four of them into her mouth without any problem!
MG seems to have caught a stomach bug from one of the little ‘snot monsters’ at Cameron Toll. They should be glad to see Santa, not infect his elves with nasty little viruses! Food came out of pretty much all holes, not pretty; and we narrowly avoided CM vomiting by-proxy.
The most memorable event seems to have occurred after we left, when JH (in clearly intoxicated state) swapped costumes with NM (also not quite sober, we can assume). There is photographic evidence which was obtained from LF via AF, but for obvious reasons it seems wiser not to publish that here.
Yesterday consisted mainly of playing nurse to MG, who could hardly keep in water. Buying the rehydration drink thing was difficult, as pharmacies aren’t normally open on Sundays. Later in the afternoon I got a visitor, so I spent some time with LG before she went to church. And finally today is a matter of cleaning up, tying up the loose ends, packing etc. I brought out a load of paper for recycling, done most of the ironing (except for the bits that aren’t quite dry yet), and with this also the item ‘update blog’ can be stricken from the To Do list.
Tomorrow morning is the cheap Easyjet flight home. Get up at 5.30am to be home by 4pm. Then it can start snowing.
Thursday morning was a meeting of the prospective organizers of the LEL Postgraduate Conference, which is to take place in April. It used to be TAAL (Theoretical and Applied Linguistics) but after the merger and the creation of the One Big Happy Family of Linguistics and English Language, it’s now LEL. I think we’re quite nicely divided among the subject areas. Anyway, I seem to be the only one comfortable enough with computers, so I got myself involved in doing website stuff and making the abstracts look nice on paper. KM and I were surprised at the absence of VP, very unlike him.
Thursday evening was the final night of dancing for the year. Extended social, with a lot of the year’s favourites. I had some difficulty calling Hooper’s Jig from the Green Book — which ones are the squares again? — but I did Midnight Oil perfectly so that made up for it. ZB’s English dance was manic, even at half speed, but can we please do that again? RK was slightly stressed throughout the night, for a variety of reasons: [a] she had exams the next day, [b] her reason for living chose the Big Monkey Movie over her, and [c] CI had buggered off to Romania without notice. Quite interesting to keep my cool and calm and pretending to be saving the day...
Friday morning was another chapter in Benedict Anderson’s Forestillede fællesskaber, after which lunch and some general tidying in the office. Friday afternoon from 3 was the departmental Christmas party. Organized by MB, the tech support guy, who really put his heart and soul into it. This involved a treasure hunt connected to pass-the-parcel, and an attempt at the world record shortest Strip the Willow. I think a bar and a half of music and not even getting beyond the spinning bit qualifies as ‘world record shortest’, but maybe not as ‘Strip the Willow’?
Friday evening was departmental Christmas dinner, organized by the postgrads themselves. Well, by LC and AP really; quite impressive as they had prepared this after the undergrad lunch on Wednesday, which for the two of them involved drinking from half noon to 2.30am. We went to Buffet King for dinner, all you can eat Chinese for £13 — but they charge for tap water?!
Saturday was the New Scotland Christmas party at TtT’s. The themes were Y and H, which bonus points for combining the two. It was impressive how inventive people were at combining Y and H as an excuse not to dress up. The reactions to the salmiak were interesting, especially YK’s face, but in the end it was about 50/50 positive and negative reactions. The After Eight Game — work an After Eight from your forehead into your mouth using only your facial muscles — was amusing. Congratulations to JW for getting at least three or four of them into her mouth without any problem!
MG seems to have caught a stomach bug from one of the little ‘snot monsters’ at Cameron Toll. They should be glad to see Santa, not infect his elves with nasty little viruses! Food came out of pretty much all holes, not pretty; and we narrowly avoided CM vomiting by-proxy.
The most memorable event seems to have occurred after we left, when JH (in clearly intoxicated state) swapped costumes with NM (also not quite sober, we can assume). There is photographic evidence which was obtained from LF via AF, but for obvious reasons it seems wiser not to publish that here.
Yesterday consisted mainly of playing nurse to MG, who could hardly keep in water. Buying the rehydration drink thing was difficult, as pharmacies aren’t normally open on Sundays. Later in the afternoon I got a visitor, so I spent some time with LG before she went to church. And finally today is a matter of cleaning up, tying up the loose ends, packing etc. I brought out a load of paper for recycling, done most of the ironing (except for the bits that aren’t quite dry yet), and with this also the item ‘update blog’ can be stricken from the To Do list.
Tomorrow morning is the cheap Easyjet flight home. Get up at 5.30am to be home by 4pm. Then it can start snowing.
14 December 2005
Food update
Decent platter of meat (kruwa je luba), chocolate cake for dessert. Not bad. Not bad at all.
We were too late for the fish-eye milkshake. Can’t say I’m too bothered.
Celebrate!
Today was the Date of Dates for MG, the date that’s been hanging over her head like a Damoclean sword for the past months. In other words, thesis due date. But with the deadline met earlier today, stress is over and peace and tranquility can once again take over this household.
It’s really not been that bad. The period from fourteen to seven days ago (ish) seems to have been the one with most stress for MG, and I was afraid that as doomsday neared, the stress would only get worse. Instead, she seems to have gone through a period of intense worry and suddenly, about a week ago, all the pieces of the puzzle shoved into place and it was really just a matter of finishing the product.
I got to be a font nazi yesterday and helped MG decide on the layout for her thesis. Although I did proofread the thing and as far as I can judge human ecology, it all seems to make sense and is presented in a logical way, never mind the contents – at least it looks good. Body text in a 10-point Minion (kudos to Robert Slimbach!), headings in something else that MG had herself and that actually looks quite classy in combination with Minion. That came out very positive, and once MG was done with it, also very purple.
So tonight MG, TT and I are going to celebrate. Dinner in The Apartment. It didn’t get very good reviews in the media, but TT had food there recently and was quite positive so we’re going to give it a go. On the way there, MG is going to pop into Meadowood to get one of her Chinese fish-eye milkshakes. Shudder.
Thought of the day: «Zelena kruwa kupa w ćopłej wodźe.»
It’s really not been that bad. The period from fourteen to seven days ago (ish) seems to have been the one with most stress for MG, and I was afraid that as doomsday neared, the stress would only get worse. Instead, she seems to have gone through a period of intense worry and suddenly, about a week ago, all the pieces of the puzzle shoved into place and it was really just a matter of finishing the product.
I got to be a font nazi yesterday and helped MG decide on the layout for her thesis. Although I did proofread the thing and as far as I can judge human ecology, it all seems to make sense and is presented in a logical way, never mind the contents – at least it looks good. Body text in a 10-point Minion (kudos to Robert Slimbach!), headings in something else that MG had herself and that actually looks quite classy in combination with Minion. That came out very positive, and once MG was done with it, also very purple.
So tonight MG, TT and I are going to celebrate. Dinner in The Apartment. It didn’t get very good reviews in the media, but TT had food there recently and was quite positive so we’re going to give it a go. On the way there, MG is going to pop into Meadowood to get one of her Chinese fish-eye milkshakes. Shudder.
Thought of the day: «Zelena kruwa kupa w ćopłej wodźe.»
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