So a few days ago, I received a package from my university.
Said package was your standard slightly squashy padded envelope, bent in half because our mailman does this thing where he is determined to fit everything into our very small mailbox, even if it involves, like, origami. ANYWAY. In this envelope I discovered two tassels. You know, the kind you wear on your cap when you graduate. From college.
Maybe this is just further proof that I'm actually slowly losing my mind, but ever since I opened that goddamn envelope and pulled out those two (two? why two? do they think I'll lose one?) knots of silken cord, I have not been able to stop thinking about them. I think it's because they are the first tangible proof I have that in a month and a half I will be done with school. I don't have a class ring, after all, or a cap and gown (yet), or a diploma (also yet, you know, in theory) - but those fucking tassels have like invaded my brain. I abandoned them on my desk for a few days, refusing to deal with them - yesterday I hid them away in a drawer of my dresser in the hope I would forget about them, but had dreams about them anyway. Now they're hanging on the corner of the mirror of my makeshift vanity. I still can't stop thinking about them.
They're soft, real silk or something like it, and heavy - not like the crappy ones we wore in high school. In all honesty, they sort of look like they really belong on cushions or curtains - certainly not on something that goes on my head, I mean. Each one has a little purple, white and gold medal on it attached to a metal band that ties all the little strands together. They are so innocuous yet I am so preoccupied by them. I'm sure a psychologist could give you a bullshit reason regarding the fixation; my reason is that my mindset right now is "Eek I'm graduating - better not fuck it up now!" and that's what the tassels represent. Or something.
So, yeah. I have tassels. I'm graduating. The world is increasingly bizarre, and I'm not sure I know how to deal with it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
T-minus five days, oh my godddddd
This is me doing the dance of I-never-have-to-devote-another-weekend-to-this.
Sunday:
Finish all my stats/math stuff, update my paper accordingly
Write an extra section about the maintained distinction
Monday:
Screw with my numbers in Excel in an attempt to make plots of them
Write an abstract, apparently I need one (oops)
Tuesday:
Meet with my adviser for his comments
Make any changes he wants
Wednesday-Thursday:
Print off a draft, carry it around compulsively for editing purposes
Friday:
SUBMIT IT and rejoice.
Sunday:
Write an extra section about the maintained distinction
Monday:
Write an abstract, apparently I need one (oops)
Tuesday:
Meet with my adviser for his comments
Make any changes he wants
Wednesday-Thursday:
Print off a draft, carry it around compulsively for editing purposes
Friday:
SUBMIT IT and rejoice.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Ahahaha oh god
Sometimes I feel like the internet can read my mind. A recent xkcd comic:
Credit: xkcd, duh
You guys you guys, this is what I do all the time, I don't do anything else anymore on this blog, I am a blog failure. What has happened to me, everybody knowwwwwws.
Of course, if the internet could actually read my mind, it would mostly look like this:
Credit: hell if I know. LOOK, DUCKS.
Credit: xkcd, duh
You guys you guys, this is what I do all the time, I don't do anything else anymore on this blog, I am a blog failure. What has happened to me, everybody knowwwwwws.
Of course, if the internet could actually read my mind, it would mostly look like this:
Credit: hell if I know. LOOK, DUCKS.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
We are
Ode
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties,
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration,
Is the life of each generation.
A wondrous thing of our dreaming,
Unearthly, impossible seeming-
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising.
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.
And therefore today is thrilling,
With a past day's late fulfilling.
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of tomorrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing;
O men! It must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry-
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the corners
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers,
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamt not before;
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties,
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration,
Is the life of each generation.
A wondrous thing of our dreaming,
Unearthly, impossible seeming-
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising.
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.
And therefore today is thrilling,
With a past day's late fulfilling.
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of tomorrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing;
O men! It must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry-
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the corners
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers,
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamt not before;
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy
More invented words
"Articulatory correlates of ambisyllabicity in English glides and liquids."
The above is the title of a legitimate paper I am citing in my thesis.
Ambisyllabicity? For real? Just saying, right now my computer is underlining that word in red...
Oh god I am so close to being done, arghhhhhhhh...
The above is the title of a legitimate paper I am citing in my thesis.
Ambisyllabicity? For real? Just saying, right now my computer is underlining that word in red...
Oh god I am so close to being done, arghhhhhhhh...
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Insignificance
God, okay, I swear I do other things besides bitch about my thesis. (I've forgotten what these things are, but people tell me I at least used to do them.)
BUT.
I'm now in the stage of determining whether or not my results are Significant. It is very important to be Significant when it comes to things that involve math and data and... things. The process of determining Significance involves more statistics than I have ever exposed myself to, and now I'm realizing why. However, I think the best part of this whole ordeal is the word choice. Results, you see, are either Significant or Not Significant.
The number of times I have typed "insignificant" is uncountable at this point. I'm sure there are still some of them in there, hiding. I feel so good typing out the fact that this ENTIRE THING IS INSIGNIFICANT.
Oddly, the more Not Significant my results are the better I feel. It's probably because the more Not Significance I have the less work I have to do. Yes.
BUT.
I'm now in the stage of determining whether or not my results are Significant. It is very important to be Significant when it comes to things that involve math and data and... things. The process of determining Significance involves more statistics than I have ever exposed myself to, and now I'm realizing why. However, I think the best part of this whole ordeal is the word choice. Results, you see, are either Significant or Not Significant.
The number of times I have typed "insignificant" is uncountable at this point. I'm sure there are still some of them in there, hiding. I feel so good typing out the fact that this ENTIRE THING IS INSIGNIFICANT.
Oddly, the more Not Significant my results are the better I feel. It's probably because the more Not Significance I have the less work I have to do. Yes.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Literature
This post brought to you by I Hate My Thesis.
The book I am reading: In a response that will surprise nobody, I am currently re-reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte because it is the novel of my heart, forever.
The book I am writing: Well that depends on your definition of "book," really, but it's either the one about a messy, discordant Long Island family over the weekend of the memorial service for their dead patriarch, or the one about the three twenty-somethings living together in a house in northern California and their various dysfunctions and hilarities. Or the one about telephones, but that one has no literary pretensions whatsoever.
The book I love most: Mmmm tricky. It might be Wuthering Heights but I think the book I actually love the most would be The Lord of the Rings because I am, in fact, incredibly cool.
The last book I received as a gift: The Collected Works of T.S. Eliot from my mother, because she wanted her own copy back.
The last book I gave as a gift: I recently re-gifted my copy of a city guide to Madrid to a friend, does that count?
The nearest book: A Course in Phonetics, fifth edition by Peter Ladefoged (ugh thesis!) is sitting directly on top of my roommate's copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman, both next to me on the couch. I feel like this is actually quite telling.
AND NOW: back to work!
The book I am reading: In a response that will surprise nobody, I am currently re-reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte because it is the novel of my heart, forever.
The book I am writing: Well that depends on your definition of "book," really, but it's either the one about a messy, discordant Long Island family over the weekend of the memorial service for their dead patriarch, or the one about the three twenty-somethings living together in a house in northern California and their various dysfunctions and hilarities. Or the one about telephones, but that one has no literary pretensions whatsoever.
The book I love most: Mmmm tricky. It might be Wuthering Heights but I think the book I actually love the most would be The Lord of the Rings because I am, in fact, incredibly cool.
The last book I received as a gift: The Collected Works of T.S. Eliot from my mother, because she wanted her own copy back.
The last book I gave as a gift: I recently re-gifted my copy of a city guide to Madrid to a friend, does that count?
The nearest book: A Course in Phonetics, fifth edition by Peter Ladefoged (ugh thesis!) is sitting directly on top of my roommate's copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman, both next to me on the couch. I feel like this is actually quite telling.
AND NOW: back to work!
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