The bright side of writing my syntax paper all day today...

... is that it may result in me taking a trip to Illinois in May! Let me explain.

So we have a syntax paper to write this semester. Anyone who has ever talked to me about linguistics will know that I am not a big fan of syntax, to put it mildly. But I tried to pick a topic that I find somewhat interesting, and I wasn't too terribly bummed about it anyway. I'd rather write a paper than our normal homework assignments. The main thing is that we have a rough draft due Thursday, we have the day off school today for Veterans' Day, and I'm basically going to spend the whole day reading and writing (after I finish this blog entry, run with the dogs, eat, and shower).

The cool part is that the department here sent out a call for papers for a conference taking place at the U of I in late May, and my paper idea can very easily be adapted for presentation at this conference. So now I'm feeling more inspired; I can write the bulk of it today, fix it up for the end of the semester, submit an abstract to see if I can present at the conference in May (I think I have a very good shot of getting in for a variety of reasons - I can tell you more about that if you like), and then I'll just do a little supplementary work on the thing (which I have a really fun idea for) before hopefully going home to present it in May. Isn't that all very fun?

I will try to keep all of these cools ideas in mind today when I'm getting increasingly bummed out about spending the day writing a paper about syntax.

Here is where I'm going running in a minute: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2388662

Cool, eh? We're the very last house on Curtis street. If you zoom in, you can see the big redwood tree on the front/side of our house!