Update de la semaine
Yeah, when I said "No deep reflection here. That stuff happens in private," I was kinda lying, wasn't I? I do that here sometimes. But not yesterday, dammit, and not much today.
Nice birthday yesterday. Work was work but overall pretty tolerable. Home was relaxing. A little TV while cuddling with radiantbaby onna couch, then yummy stew for dinner, then a little prezzie opening (Books and music! Yay!), more cuddling and sleep. I was pretty tired. It's been a long week. Good long.
In my Wednesday traffic and math post, I alluded to a decision to start digging into computational linguistics. The math actually wrapped up a little before I got to work, you see, and my brain started bopping about looking for something to grab onto. So I started thinking about life and where it's going. (I know, I promised not much depth. This won't go far, I promise.) I've been aiming toward going back to school and waffling on what to study. I enjoy learning about many topics, though linguistics and religion are near the forefront of my brain lately. With an occasional intrusion by math. Thing is, financial stability is also important to me, and I really can't see how a degree in religion can contribute to that. Hell, I'm not sure it can even pay for itself. So I want to study that one for personal reasons, but I have a tough time studying it alone. That means to me that I pretty much have to study something commercially viable along with it. That hints at linguistics. Not that I'm resisting that urge, mind you. Not in the least. Linguistics as a broad topic holds my attention better than most other topics combined. And in thinking about how to apply it commercially, my decade-or-so of experience in computers really shoves me toward applications in computational linguistics. Best of all, that's something I can start on even before formally entering college, since there's a bunch of information and software already available on the net. In all honesty I don't know if I'll still want to work in CL once I've got degrees under my belt -- I may go into research or teaching or something else with linguistics, or I may even grab that religion degree and do something completely different -- but CL feels like a good ramp back into college, and it's perfectly justifiable to this attitude of commercial viability that's plaguing my mind lately. So that decision was the last few minutes of my drive into work Wednesday.
Toward that end, I found The Association for Computational Linguistics during the day on Wednesday, and just today Google found for me LinguistLIST's list of professional linguistics societies. Now to determine how many I can afford to join. *gurgle*
Wednesday evening was a nice night with radiantbaby. We had O'Charley's for dinner, and then watched an old TV series she recently got on DVD and cuddled on the couch. Nice, comfortable evening.
Thursday evening was a nice night with riff_77. We wanted to have dinner at a nice Brazilian steakhouse near her place, but it closed just a little before we got there. So we drove around for a while and eventually found ourselves at a nice little Mexican place. Yum! Then to a Caribou for chatter and tea and smoothie, and then more chatting after they kicked us out. Fine, fine evening.
Friday was birthday! Yay! Work was work. After work was some nice chatter with walkingbear. On the way home I stopped at Border's. I've been doing that a bit lately. Bastards stuck it right on the way home. There's a B&N on the way, too, evil bastards. Anyway, so I've been stopping at the bookstore not-infrequently on my way home, and last night I decided to buy myself a prezzie. I found Make Magazine. It looks nifty. Nifty stuff to build as I gradually learn electronics. Speaking of electronics, Friday at work included me digging through board schematics to find bugs in software. There may be some annoying things about my job, but digging through hardware schematics for software errors is pretty damned nifty.
Anyway, after the bookstore was stewie dinner at home and a night of relaxation. Turned in early, even, from all the week's excitement. A good birthday indeed.
I think I responded individually to everyone who wished me a happy birthday here, but a big collective thanks again to all of you. It was indeed a good day, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing folks at my party (6pm Sunday at Dominick's! Yum!).
(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: LinguistLIST -> Unsightliest)
Nice birthday yesterday. Work was work but overall pretty tolerable. Home was relaxing. A little TV while cuddling with radiantbaby onna couch, then yummy stew for dinner, then a little prezzie opening (Books and music! Yay!), more cuddling and sleep. I was pretty tired. It's been a long week. Good long.
In my Wednesday traffic and math post, I alluded to a decision to start digging into computational linguistics. The math actually wrapped up a little before I got to work, you see, and my brain started bopping about looking for something to grab onto. So I started thinking about life and where it's going. (I know, I promised not much depth. This won't go far, I promise.) I've been aiming toward going back to school and waffling on what to study. I enjoy learning about many topics, though linguistics and religion are near the forefront of my brain lately. With an occasional intrusion by math. Thing is, financial stability is also important to me, and I really can't see how a degree in religion can contribute to that. Hell, I'm not sure it can even pay for itself. So I want to study that one for personal reasons, but I have a tough time studying it alone. That means to me that I pretty much have to study something commercially viable along with it. That hints at linguistics. Not that I'm resisting that urge, mind you. Not in the least. Linguistics as a broad topic holds my attention better than most other topics combined. And in thinking about how to apply it commercially, my decade-or-so of experience in computers really shoves me toward applications in computational linguistics. Best of all, that's something I can start on even before formally entering college, since there's a bunch of information and software already available on the net. In all honesty I don't know if I'll still want to work in CL once I've got degrees under my belt -- I may go into research or teaching or something else with linguistics, or I may even grab that religion degree and do something completely different -- but CL feels like a good ramp back into college, and it's perfectly justifiable to this attitude of commercial viability that's plaguing my mind lately. So that decision was the last few minutes of my drive into work Wednesday.
Toward that end, I found The Association for Computational Linguistics during the day on Wednesday, and just today Google found for me LinguistLIST's list of professional linguistics societies. Now to determine how many I can afford to join. *gurgle*
Wednesday evening was a nice night with radiantbaby. We had O'Charley's for dinner, and then watched an old TV series she recently got on DVD and cuddled on the couch. Nice, comfortable evening.
Thursday evening was a nice night with riff_77. We wanted to have dinner at a nice Brazilian steakhouse near her place, but it closed just a little before we got there. So we drove around for a while and eventually found ourselves at a nice little Mexican place. Yum! Then to a Caribou for chatter and tea and smoothie, and then more chatting after they kicked us out. Fine, fine evening.
Friday was birthday! Yay! Work was work. After work was some nice chatter with walkingbear. On the way home I stopped at Border's. I've been doing that a bit lately. Bastards stuck it right on the way home. There's a B&N on the way, too, evil bastards. Anyway, so I've been stopping at the bookstore not-infrequently on my way home, and last night I decided to buy myself a prezzie. I found Make Magazine. It looks nifty. Nifty stuff to build as I gradually learn electronics. Speaking of electronics, Friday at work included me digging through board schematics to find bugs in software. There may be some annoying things about my job, but digging through hardware schematics for software errors is pretty damned nifty.
Anyway, after the bookstore was stewie dinner at home and a night of relaxation. Turned in early, even, from all the week's excitement. A good birthday indeed.
I think I responded individually to everyone who wished me a happy birthday here, but a big collective thanks again to all of you. It was indeed a good day, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing folks at my party (6pm Sunday at Dominick's! Yum!).
(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: LinguistLIST -> Unsightliest)