Suboptimist

The Tool show was epic.

I am not talking about it here, though.

Interestingly, Sasha’s most recent comment motivated me to write a long response on site, which basically turned into my statement. So, yeah, thanks Sasha.

I guess since I have disappeared for the last little bit, I should give a few quick updates. First, my final list of schools I am applying to is University of Arizona (in Tuscon), University of Washington (in Seattle), UCLA (in…LA), Northwestern University, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Ohio State University (Columbus). Sorry, Emily, but not UT. So, with the application fees and costs of sending transcripts and the cost of the GRE and the extra score reports…roughly 740 USD just for the simple privilege of being considered. Applying to grad school is great.

Planning and carrying out my experiment for advanced phonetics and phonology has become a full-time job for me. I’ve spent most time in the back of the classes I don’t like preparing stimuli and writing the introduction section of the paper. It’s funny I am spending so much time working on it, since it’s doubtful it’s going to be any good (by publication standards). In fact, my professor said as much to us when she assigned it. We’re expected to kind of stumble through it, ask her for help, and continue screwing it up.

I finished Assassin’s Creed over the Thanksgiving break. Wow, that game blew me away. It’s the kind of game that keeps me up the night I finish it researching all the symbolism. Take any Metal Gear Solid story and multiply the weirdness by seven. It was pretty awesome. Maybe I’ll write a review someday. The other game I picked up is Mass Effect. Chances are good that I won’t have the time to play it until the non-denominational-winter-coinciding-with-Christmas break, but when I get a chance to really get into it, I will report. Space opera, ftw.

Anyone living in Utah over the age of 18 who has not taken any Arabic care to be a research subject for me?