the rest of it

Today I went to a wake for my friend Julie Coultas, who died on the 3rd of August. It was lovely to have the opportunity to sit with others and hear Julie stories, which has helped crystallize in my mind the things that I owe Julie.  I started to get to know Julie in mid-2000 when I was invited to join a small group of COGS (School of Cognitive & Computing Science at Sussex) women who went out for dinner at the then-modest Brighton institution Food for Friends. (We called the weekly event 'Food for Friends' long after the restaurant went upscale and we relocated to Pizza Express. It was still food for friends.) I was brand-new to England, and those dinners were a huge part of my enculturation. Often, Julie would tell me that she loved my accent. You know, I can't think of another Englishperson who's ever said that to me—certainly not repeatedly. I was pretty self-conscious about being an American teaching about English to the English at that point. The compliment di...

Having reviewed last year's resolutions , it's time to make new ones. In my traditional categories: A habit A health habit I'm going to start very basic with a health resolution this year. If it's going well, I might step it up partway through the year. But I'm starting with: spend some time on the floor each day. I hate lying on the floor. This is kind of dumb, but it grosses me out a bit and my avoidance of it keeps me from doing many kinds of exercise. So, I'm just going to say that I have to spend some time on the floor each day.  Maybe while I'm down there (here: I'm doing it as I write), I'll try sitting in positions that stretch me a bit. Maybe I'll lie down and do an exercise or two. But at the very least, I should get better at getting down and getting up.  Today I learned the phrase mobility snacks from item 61 in  this Guardian piece (which I liked very much), and I want to keep that phrase in mind as I go through the days. An interpe...

Mixed success for last year's resolutions: "Add weekly yoga or Pilates to my online fitness class regime." Failure. I just found it way too boring to spend a whole 45 minutes on such classes and found some of them too advanced for me, so it just didn't go far.  "have my hearing tested." Minor success . I did an online test that said I probably didn't need a full test. "make a spreadsheet of all my regular outgoings, including charity donations, subscriptions, direct debit bills": Success . I saved hundreds of pounds in cancelling subscriptions I no longer used and getting rid of duplicates. try to use the adjective  grand  more often. Minor success . I made it my Wordle starting word, until it paid out and I got Wordle in 1. I then switched to GRIND. ____________________________________________________ Other stuff Doing the Zoe programme has been super interesting. My weight has gone down a tad, but I can't say I've been trying to los...

[updated 30 Dec] Books Not a great reading year. During the autumn term from Hell, I gave up entirely. So, I ended on 13 finished books, two of which were graphic novels and six of which were linguistics. (It was better than last year, though! ) The only fiction was for work: Station Eleven , which I enjoyed but had some quibbles with.  Sticking with me months later: Pyongyang by Guy Delisle (2004) Most inspiring : Ten Lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar by Martin Hilpert (2021) Honorable mentions Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (2007) Why Is This a Question? by Paul Anthony Jones (excellent lay linguistics book; 2022) Written  by Bec Evans and Chris Smith (2023) and The Reader's Brain  by Yellowlees Douglas (2015) (both useful books for writers) Films 38 films this year (down on last year), many excellent ones. If I have to pick a Best Picture, I'm going to go with Past Lives (Celine Song), mostly because I find Greta Lee absolutely mesmerising, wherever she ap...

 another one from my 2006 academic blog... the student-eye view I've recently finished reading  My Freshman Year  by "Rebekah Nathan",  an ethnography of American university student culture written by a 50-something-year-old anthropology professor who went undercover, becoming a freshman in her own university. She was subjected to the induction, took courses, lived in the dorms and ate in the dining commons. While on the one hand I really enjoyed reading it, on the other hand it ended up being something of a disappointment. I can't say that it told me a lot that I don't know (students have pragmatic, career-oriented outlooks toward university, many cheat, they glorify belonging while thinking of themselves as individualists), but it would've been more interesting and given more insight, I think, if there had been more of the students' voice in it. In an epilogue, Nathan talks about the restrictions she put on herself in writing about the people she lived a...

Blogger has just told me that they're retiring a blog I haven't logged into since 2006. It's the anonymous academic blog I wrote (and no one read) before Separated by a Common Language. The economics of higher education are worse than then, but I think it still holds up.  I may move more of these posts over to this blog as I go through it... economic determinism A friend pointed out  an article in Slate  that discusses an economic study of what happens to PhDs who graduate to a good job market versus those who graduate in a bad market. The upshot is: in good job markets, talented people get hired by good universities and have productive careers. In bad markets, talented people get hired by mediocre universities and don't produce much. Not really a surprise--the people at the 'top 50 universities' (i.e. in the US) they're talking about generally have much lower courseloads than those at Podunk State--not to mention more pressure to produce and the infrastruct...

Time for the resolutions, in my traditional categories: A habit Last year, my plan was a plank a day, but I only made it part way through the year. I'm going to stick with the theme of weight-bearing exercise and go with this: Add yoga or Pilates to my online fitness class regime. I've signed up for the first one, so I'm on my way! I already pay for the Frame online membership, so this costs me nothing but time. (And if it replaces a dance class, then it's not even costing me time.) A side-resolution: If I manage to attend fewer than three live classes in a week (or if I fail to sign up for a live yoga/Pilates), then I have to do an on-demand class. A 'one and done' project I have two things I want to do under this heading. The first, and simplest, is: have my hearing tested I doubt it's bad enough to do anything about, but it won't hurt to have it checked. The more involved one is: make a spreadsheet of all my regular outgoings, including charity donat...