Crise Résolue

A minor update to my minor "crisis" post. I had a fantastic day today, for many reasons. It was the first day of classes, and it was just a breath of fresh air. I'm taking phonology with a professor I've never had before, and she is fantastic. I normally am not a big fan of traditional phonology (or anything traditional in linguistics, really), and I didn't get much at all out of our last phonology course, so I was a bit worried about this one. But I'm taking it because 1) they changed the requirements on us and I basically have to, 2) I thought it would be good for me, since if I'm going to be a proper phonetician I should know more about the big talking points in phonology, and 3) I've talked to this professor several times and really like her, but I'd never had the opportunity to take a class with her.

So anyway, we had our first class meeting today, and I found myself getting really excited about the class. All of the topics we're covering are interesting, and she's chosen a great selection of articles that I know are going to be very helpful and interesting to me. I might even enjoy some of the readings!

Then I had a pow-wow with my advisor and it went so well. He is so great. As you know, I think, I had been waffling on whether to change my qualifying paper topic, and he was totally supportive and encouraging of my new idea and said I should go for it. And I am so relieved. I am so excited about this new project, and I think it'll be super interesting and much more in the direction I'd like to go with my "academic career". Because yes, my doubts about staying in academics are way down after my great day today, and I might even stick with the professor thing after all. (We'll see. I have to like, write a dissertation first.)

Also. Ok. This is totally silly, but I'm going to put it out there anyway. So we have this new grad student from France and he is so, so nice and seems really interesting, and I told my friend John a while back, "man, I really hope he's willing to speak French with me, but I don't want to be a weirdo about it." And all of that is true. I would love to be able to speak some French again, and I don't want to be a weirdo about it. I don't want the poor guy to think I only want to talk to him because he's French; that sucks. He seems like a really cool guy too, like in addition to happening to be French. But anyway, John and I were talking to him at the departmental meeting on Monday, and John totally outed me, saying, "Hey, Melinda really wants you to speak French with her, so I'm telling you that because she probably never will." And then I blushed. And I was like, "Ummmmm welllllllll yes. Thanks John." But when I passed him in the hallway today he said bonjour and it completely made my day. Like, to a ridiculous extent. I think I said this before, but I didn't realize how much I missed French until I started taking Spanish, and then the bonjour in the hallway today totally confirmed it. French, I have missed you.

Then I got home and one of my friends sent me a text message to say that apparently my syntax professor mentioned the paper I wrote for her class (2 years ago) in class today. I was really surprised because I hate syntax and I thought that paper was kind of crap, but apparently she wasn't just being nice when she gave me an A. So that was a pleasant surprise too.

And finally, I would like to direct you all to this website, http://lennonmurdertruth.com, which is all about how Stephen King killed John Lennon and the government has been covering it up but also leaving secret clues about it in nationally circulating periodicals for the past 30 years. This dude was rocking out on campus today, standing in between a guitar and a boom box blaring songs from the 60's, screaming along to them, with a sign that said "lennonmurdertruth.com" on one side and "DARE TO CARE" on the other.

Ahhhhhhhh Berkeley. I gotta admit, it's fun being back.