Seeing policemen in Starbucks with bike helmets hanging at their belts.
Seeing the mist just beginning to clear over the Berkeley hills as I bike to campus in the morning. The existence of the hills themselves is not visible yet, but the flashes of sunlight off the windows make sparkles in the drifting fog.
My field methods class. Everything about it is wonderful. The professor is smart and friendly and helpful and interested in the class, the other people are smart and good and presenting interesting analyses of the language, the consultants are helpful and friendly and eager to teach us the language, which means that when I recognize what they mean when they say, "ima shutita kangi," and I know that I have to respond, "nyuka shutimi philena," I get a big smile.
Teaching. You know this comic?
I love to be able to respond to emails, "That's a great question! We just spent three hours discussing it in my graduate seminar on exactly that topic! Make sure to tell me what you think when you hand in your homework."
My bike. I like biking.
My office. I mentioned that already, but I still like it.
My office mates. They're nice, and they keep me from getting lonely.
The people in the office next door. They're nice, they keep me from getting lonely, and they have a tea kettle and a coffee maker and a refrigerator.
Holding office hours. This is related to the teaching bullet: I know that the people who come should be the people who need help, not the people who would be doing just fine on their own, but when the latter type come, we can start going into all those issues that are related to the over-simplified story they hear in class that's glossed over before it can get confusing. Like syllables. Syllables are a huge bucket of worms, which the lecturer cannot ignore, so he usually includes the bucket and leaves out the worms. But in office hours we can start going fishing.
My phonetic theory class. I absolutely love reading about the approaches that people take to experimentally evaluate a theoretical claim. It just makes so much sense! It's like doing real science, which is kind of a sore spot among linguists.
Using all the new software I've installed---namely, the transcriber program, filezilla, for sftp transfers, and the phonetic keyboard that one of my undergrads found online, which makes typing in the IPA way easier. We're going to be starting using FLEX soon. I can't wait! Software is cool!
Knowing that the BLS office is up to date. I hate actually going there and doing things, but it's really satisfying to know that I've just sent off a bunch of invoices that will bring us in hundreds of dollars, assuming that our deadbeat client really means to start paying us.I really can't wait to shove that task off onto next year's cohort in May
My sister's blog. Have I recommended it before? You should totally read it, if you haven't.
