school's out

Papers are all finished!

stay tuned for adventure.

status report

Since Lindsay's run yesterday, here is what has been happening:

-dinner party
-wine
-Flight of the Conchords
-coffee
-Ultimate Frisbee (Lindsay)
-paper about word order and copying in ASL (Cecily)

Research starts tomorrow!

introducing: LINDSAY

So- isn't it just super nice that Cecily let ME be a part of her blog awesomness? I think so. But, anyone who knows Cecily knows she's a rockstar like that. Ahem.

BACK TO THE POINT PEOPLE (although Cecily being a rockstar is a perfectly acceptable point in and of itself)... The impetus for this blogging debut is that I recently finished my FIRST EVER RUN ON AFRICA.

go ahead, take a moment to read that last part again-- I know I'm still adjusting.

For any of you who know me, you know I have a thing about running on all seven (it is seven right?) continents. And, now, thanks to Rwanda (and Cecily's dad), Africa has been checked off my list. And, I have to say, it was soooooo much better than my most recent running adventures in in Asia (China) and South America (Brazil). I was dealing with some things there that'd I'd rather not remember.... ::shudder::

Anyhooooo-- this afternoon, Cecily's dad took me to run with the Hash Harriers of Kigali. Interestingly enough, this was my first ever hash run too. It just keeps getting better. We met at a bar somewhere in the city (i'm not oriented yet) and then after a while, we set on our way. The course was about 6-8kms depending on who you asked, and the scenery was very new and exciting. Oh, and it was high. I don't remember the exact number but Kigali is way higher above sea level than DC...or Georgia. Oh and there were hills too. Usually I'm not a fan of hills, as some of you know, but today I just didn't mind it.

The weather was not too hot either, which was nice. We started off and were soon on trail/ road/ something that people walked along. Kids called out 'Mzungu mzungu!' and ran beside us. They were laughing. I decided to laugh too, because then it was like we were laughing together and not them at us. I saw chickens. I saw cows. I saw goats. YAY- farm animals! (I did not touch them however, b/c well 1. I was running and 2. i'd have to mark the 'yes' box on the American customs/ immigration form on the way back that asks if you have come in contact with farm animals-- and there's NO WAY IN &%*! that I'm doing that.)

The flour marked trail led us through fancy areas with big houses inside big gates and not so fancy areas where the houses (made of mud/ clay?) were small and very VERY "basic." We got odd stares often. "Why are those crazy people running," I imagined them saying to themselves. Hah, or maybe they did say it out loud-- my kinyarwanda is a bit lacking.

We finally wound our way back-- after an hour or so through fields and over creeks. What a lovely run--Full of people, and flowers, and animals, and...and...and I recommend it to any traveller to Kigali. Oh- and I found out there's a marathon tomorrow. The Kigali Marathon. Perfect timing right?! WRONG-- there's no way I could run a marathon right now-- crazy people. crazy talk.

Now, me and Cecily are drinking beer. She's been working too hard on a syntax paper. She probably needs beer more than me--but I never leave friends to drink alone. Plus, I need to celebrate my recent accomplishment. Now all I have left is Antarctica....

BRING IT!

Vortex!

My uncle's friendly neighborhood Aeronautical Engineer tells us about the airplane science:

My initial thoughts were that it was a pair of vortices coming off the engine nacelle or off the end of a leading edge flap (called a slat). This photo appears to have been taken at low altitude during takeoff or landing. You see only sky in the photo, no ground or horizon, so it was either at high angle of attack during a climb out after takeoff or was in a banked turn to the right either after takeoff or to maneuvering for a landing approach. Also, you generally only see a vortex in a high humidity environment, which is usually at low altitude. The vortex becomes visible only when you have condensation within the vortex as you do in a high humidity environment. The vortex motion drops the pressure and temperature within the vortex and the air becomes supersaturated causing the condensation.

He is right, it was during takeoff and landing. Both! On the flight between Addis Ababa and Kigali. The picture's from the landing takeoff part.

we still haven't left the house

It's a little ridiculous. But I'm still not done with my homework.

I finished one of two papers and Lindsay finished one of ONE paper (Lindsay's a way smarter worker than me) so now we have to go out for Indian food.

Later I'll upload you a picture. But not right now, the internet is too slow and I am too hungry.

Update:

OKAY IT'S LATER!

not done yet

We didn't leave the house yet. Maybe tomorrow! Fingers crossed!

nous sommes arrivées

Hey sciencey types. What is going on in this picture?



It intermittently appeared for a long time during our flight from Addis Ababa to Kigali this morning. I've never seen anything like it before.

So we're here! Hi! Flight to Ethiopia was long. Ethiopia was full of thunder and lightning and rain. Rwanda is hot although I mainly stared blankly at things and then slept all afternoon.

Tomorrow: drinking coffee on the balcony; finishing my final paper; drinking coffee on the balcony; finishing my other final paper; drinking beer on the balcony.

later gators.

Getting bored is not allowed. Sometimes I comb my hair with a fork.

Just kidding. Everyone knows I never comb my hair, period.

Lindsay and I leave for Africa in a week. LESS than a week! SIX DAYS!

This means that very soon I'll be all totally on top of updating this thing. Because I'll have so many exciting stories to tell you. Stories about sitting on the balcony drinking beer, and stories about eating very small delicious bananas, and probably some stories about my parents' ridiculous dog. Then if you guys are good, I'll throw in some stuff about Rwanda. Maybe.

Anyway so right, we leave Monday night next week. I'm excited cause we have an overnight in Addis Ababa and it's more than twelve hours so we have to get visas and the only reason I ever do ANYTHING is to get extra fancy stamps in my passport.

Meanwhile, and by "meanwhile" I mean "starting a week ago", I have so many things to do before I leave that I barely have time to sit in my room and cry about it. So don't hold your breath for any more posts between now and . . . I'm gonna go with Wednesday the 7th.

For your entertainment while you pine away for me, here's a picture of my favorite friend Rory, wearing lots of ultraviolet marker and not holding very still in the blacklight. It's Science!

18 years ago

Science!

Okay guys I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news is, the sea monkeys hatched! I can totally see them swimming frantically in little spirals through the magnification part of their little plastic jail. They are UBER scientific. I haven't named them yet because I can't quite figure out how many there are but that is bound to be a fun party activity.

Lindsay gave me sea monkeys for doing a good job on my Oral Comprehensive Exam last week. Sea monkeys and two cases of beer. Lindsay's my main squeeze.

Okay, but, the bad news, well, it's bad. Sit down and take a deep breath.

The beakers and ultraviolet markers I had on order might not make it to the party.

Don't cry! They MIGHT make it! We have to talk to some UPS people. Because the box is in DC, somewhere, it just isn't scheduled to be delivered to my house until Monday. Monday! Monday is too late. Anyway I haven't given up. I'll do some problem solving tomorrow when there are hearing people around to fob off the phone calling onto.

In other science-related news, we are starting to have big piles of science laying around all the time. Microscopes and goggles and lab suits and aprons and glow in the dark floam and whatnot. I heard a rumor today that one party guest may be bringing a real live geiger counter. He'll be the guest of honor!

Also I bought diet coke and mentos and borax and baking soda and cornstarch. All staple necessities. We're so ready.

Anyway, everyone should keep their chin up for the sake of the sea monkeys who will probably DIE if anyone is upset about any of the other stuff. They have fragile egos, those little guys, or so I hear.

***

completely unrelated to science: I'm going to Rwanda in May. Lindsay and I'll be gone the 5th-29th. Let us know if you need anything from there.

kisses,
Cecily

5 weeks out

to the semester's end seems like very not enough.

Tomorrow morning (Friday) is my big scary Oral Comprehensive Exam. I halfway expect my nice supportive friendly professors to suddenly have sharp teeth and big eyebrows and general Viola Swamp demeanors.

Assuming they don't (well, even if they do, really), then I will be drinking beer with Lindsay (and you if you would like to come) in the afternoon. And possibly the evening. Maybe even the nighttime!

Then: Back to work, you lazy girl!

I have to finish getting my act together for my impending-with-the-speed-of-doom trip to Rwanda. May 5, we leave. Ask me if I'm ready. No wait, don't ask me that. Ask me anything else! If it's about Phonology or Optimality Theory or Generative Syntax or Narrative Discourse Analysis, I will be all practiced up for answering you so go right ahead.

Plus, you know. Homework. Homework abounds.

And most distractingly of all is my Science Birthday Party which will be on April 12 and which is destined to be the best one yet. That's why I have to keep ordering scientific things from the bathtub; I'm multitasking! Who knows where I can get a helium tank?

I'll take a deep breath one of these days and then maybe I'll have something slightly more coherent to say.

trucky trucky

So, a year ago I bought a truck. Then I painted it.



Then, I was sorry that I had chosen Sharpie Oil-based Paint Markers as my weapon of choice, because they faded to white in no time at all.



However, due to the fact that I am extremely lazy busy, I left it with the boring white lines for a long time.

Then, I bought new weatherproof lightfast markers. Then, Big Bear had an easter party. It was so wonderful. There were little children and challah loaves with colorful eggs baked in and lots of glasses of wine.

So, it being a very heartwarming neighborhood environment, I told all the little children they could help me draw on my truck. Also I told all the drunken adults they could also help me draw on my truck.

Me: I really like this as a neighborhood activity! It's fun!

Lana: Yeah and it's a good activity for when your're drunk, 'cause you're even better at drawing the swirly things!

I'm not completely convinced that she's right about that, but my truck looks really great again.



and everyone had a really great time.

break time is over!

So, I was on Spring Break last week. It was kind of cold and I just spent the whole week in a coffee shop doing my homework, so your standard traditional "SPRING BREAK WOOOO!" activities did not really take place in my world.

Now Spring Break is over, so I am working hard on all the things I am supposed to be accomplishing in the near future.

Or, I will be working hard as soon as I finish taking a bath and reading Wuthering Heights and ordering invisible UV markers and blacklights on the internet.

Cecily! Don't order things on the internet from the bathtub! That's dangerous! And you'll drop your book!

Okay, I wasn't really doing all of those things at the same time. Calm down.

with a capital T that rhymes with D that stands for Dante

I have not had any exciting or entertaining adventures for quite a while, mostly because I've been all bedridden and behind in my scholarly duties for what seems like years.

So, I will beguile you with tales from long ago, when I was young and reckless and had adventures worth beguiling people with. (What's that? You don't like my sentence constructions? Well too bad for you. You're in time out!)

Here is something that happened to me in high school: I got in Trouble. It was the first day of my senior year. Before class had even started I was in In-School Suspension.

The reason I got in trouble was: me and Abe hung a banner over the front entrance of the school, with secret signalling accessory-to-the-crime participation from Melissa and Vanessa and Trisha about whether or not the banner was even and if it was draping in an aesthetically pleasing way.

The banner was made out of sheets, and it had words painted on it.

The words said "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

This was a Hilarious Joke, because do you know what the name of my high school was? I will give you three guesses. (Don't really guess please because that ruins the banter.) Do you give up?

The name of my high school was Hellgate. Hellgate High School.

Isn't that a funny joke?

Well, the Janitor did not think so and he got out his walkie talkie and radioed to the other janitors and the Vice Principal and they all chased us down. Abe went one way and I went another way but there were too many grim old men with walkie talkies for the likes of us and we were captured. And taken into separate rooms and made to write out confessions about what we had done. And our Parents were Called at Home.

The thing was, was that Abe's parents weren't home. (Actually Abe's dad was at City Hall because Abe's dad was the mayor. No fooling.) So the Vice Principal left a message on the machine (this was back in the days of land lines and answering machines) and Abe erased it later when he got home.

(Abe's parents, do you read this website? Did you know this story already? Hi!)

The other thing was, when they called my mom, they also didn't get the reaction they wanted. Because my mom had helped us make the banner. Because she thought it was a Hilarious Joke.

So she yelled at the Vice Principal for wasting his time on such literate and well-intentioned young people as me and Abe, and by the way did he get her letter complaining about the armed security guards? She yelled at him about that too. My mom's a spitfire.

Abe and I were suspended for two days. We had to sit in rooms and be quiet instead of going to classes.

Then we got out of our punishment with a new found Respect for Authority and we have been living on the Right Side of the Law ever since.

The End.


(hey. I noticed that I got a little carried away with the Meaningfully Capitalized Noun Phrases, there, in that story. I think it's from reading Mary Poppins. I'm not really sorry, though. I'm sure you'll get through it somehow.)

Update: Meaningful Capitalization of Noun Phrases is apparently a Genetically Inherited Trait. My dad, on the President's Recent Visit to Rwanda:

If I recall from planning for The Big Conference last June, there are 580 rooms in Kigali, but that includes some Decidedly Local hotels, which would not be suitable for Travelling Official People. There might be 250 or so that would work. The German President was visiting, and most of the advance team couldn't come until after he and his posse were gone.

For more evidence, see also my sister's comment below. And also her Guest Blog Post from a couple years ago.

idioms, idiolects, idolatry?

My Advanced Topics in Syntactic Theories class only has two students in it: me and much-deserving-of-sympathy C L-G. C L-G is the kind of guy who will go WAY out of his way to follow up on a ridiculous pun. For example, one time we were giggling about a silly joke from the internet. The joke was about inappropriate innuendo and the phrase "nut-dust". A week later, I got a text message. C L-G was coming over to give me something. So what happened? C L-G showed up in the lab with a plastic cup full of peanut dust! Just for me.

So, he's my favorite. This makes it a fun and funny class. There are other reasons that it is a fun and funny class too. And guess what! I will tell you about those reasons!

For one thing, the class is held not in the cozy old Linguistics Department building, but in a fancy new technotastic room which is set up for all kinds of sophisticated technology-assisted learning. In particular, a lot of cameras in the walls record our every comment and then the whole thing gets uploaded to a website so we can rewind and rewatch the lectures. Like for example if we were too busy drawing cartoons on our homework assignment to catch what somebody just said. This means that every time anybody wants to say anything we have to press the button on the remote control which is velcroed to the table nearest our current position. That tells Big Brother which camera to go to. We can tell if we pushed the button hard enough by looking at one of many giant screens all over the room that show the current feed. It's like being the star of a really sedate movie that is all about Noam Chomsky and his Various Theories of Syntax. Five stars! Two thumbs up! The perfect movie for certain occasions.

So, okay. Yesterday we were all talking about Raising versus Control. This is an issue which I will not explain in detail unless I am asked, and we are at a bar, and I get to draw you diagrams on napkins, and you feign enthusiasm long past the point where you are really very sorry you brought it up. But anyway, it's an issue of linguistics and we were learning about it in class yesterday. Particularly we were learning about, how do you know if you're dealing with a Raising situation or a Control situation? It is very hard. You have to do tests on sentences.

One way that SOME people think you should figure it out is to start substituting idioms willy-nilly for whatever boring sentence you're talking about. This is not a way of which I approve. Apparently, some people have intuitions about acceptability that are much stricter than my own. This is why I will never be a syntactician; I am the lone speaker of an idiolect that is so full of annoying jokes that I don't know how I even have any friends.

Also, the result of any discussion that involves idioms and me is inevitably a lot of snickering on my part. You'd think my professors would know better by now and send me out of the room on some trumped-up errand. "Take this blank piece of paper to the Dean's Office! It's important!"

Here's what I wrote on my notes from yesterday:

The cat is out of the bag.
The cat seems to be out of the bag
The cat really wants to be out of the bag
That cat is ASKING to be out of the bag

Bob kicked the bucket
Bob seems to have kicked the bucket
Bob keeps trying to kick the bucket

The cat's out of the bucket.
Bob kicked the cat.
Bob bagged buckets of cats.
Well, the cat's out of the bucket and Bob won't stop kicking it.
Bob kicked the cat out of the bucket.
The cat kicked the bucket and now Bob's out of the bag.

Poor kitty.