Oh fall

you are beautiful and I will walk in you
until my feet are tired and wet and drooping
dragging/floating across the concrete sidewalk
like so many fallen leaves

I will clench my sweatshirt a bit tighter
and relish the long, slanted rays of your orange sunshine
I will drink hot chocolate with melty marshmallows
I will stay in bed for twelve extra minutes in my cold, California house

if I am very still, I will hear tiny droplets of water spraying against my roof
and I will miss thunderstorms
and still I will be sure that snow is just around the corner
and I will be wrong for yet another year

Oh fall
you are lovely and glowing,
a tinge of bittersweetness at the end of one season,
but hiding the smoldering promise of a new beginning
in the palm of your hand

time marches on

Oh my goodness, how is it the middle of September?  Oh my goodness, I'm going to be leaving for San Diego and Boston and needing to prepare a poster and a conference talk and turn in my prospectus-question-musings before I know it.  Oh my goodness, I have so much reading to do and I should be grading right now instead of blogging.

But oh! I have a piano again, and I can't stop playing it, and it suddenly feels like fall for some reason - despite that fact that it nearly always feels like fall here - but there's something about the light and the breeze and the (subtly changing) leaves that makes me just want to go for a stroll in my Illinois hoodie, drink some tea, and hang on to this fleeting "season" for a little longer.  I remember complaining to one of the older grad students when I first came here that there are no seasons to speak of, and she told me, "No no, we have seasons, they're just subtle."  I will still complain all the live long day that there are no seasons to speak of, but I also know what she was talking about now.  Something about the last week has started to feel like fall, which makes me think of how it's almost my birthday again, and I'm in my fourth year of grad school now (fourth!) and time just keeps marching on.

I ran into a very dear friend of mine from high school in the grocery store the other day (well, she ran into me, as I was trying to decide what kind of chocolate to buy) and it was so good to see her and we talked about how it's so silly that we don't get together more often, but it's partially a problem with time, and not with us.  We talk about getting together for lunch, and I know we both honestly intend to, but then we blink and six more months have gone by.  Oh, time, you silly thing.

Speaking of time, I finally got my haircut, after about four months that somehow flew by since the last time, and it feels so nice!  I would put up a picture, but I haven't taken a shower yet today, so it's kind of greasy and unimpressive right now. ;)

I suppose I should also mention that I taught my first sections of phonetics last week, and I had a really good time doing it!  It's funny, you just act like you know what you're doing, and people assume that you actually do.  I feel like that's a very useful life lesson to have learned.  I also think part of "knowing what you're doing" is convincing yourself that you do, in fact, know.  There I was, standing in front of a room full of undergraduate students, explaining how the vocal tract works and realizing that I do actually know a fair amount about that, and that most people don't, so in that case it wasn't too hard to fake it.  It's a little weird to hear yourself explaining things with some intellectual authority and seeing that people are writing down what you're saying, and may go back and study it later for a test on what you told them.  But I think they can sense my enthusiasm for the material, and so far, that seems to be keeping them somewhat engaged.  I hope that trend will continue.

Well, speaking of phonetics, I should grade some homework.  Happy Fall and much love to all.

Someone is murdering bunnies!

I'm sure animal control just loves hearing from this person.

The 'random pictures with phone camera' thing is working out well so far, don't you think?

I've had a pretty great weekend. It feels so much like fall here, which is somewhat surprising considering it pretty much always feels like fall here. But right now is especially fall-like. September and October have got to be the best months in Berkeley, because it's generally pleasantly cool instead of slightly unpleasantly cool. And there's even the possibility of it being actually warm, which is a bonus. Although I've heard that our weirdly cold weather is going to continue... but it's supposed to get up to 78 today, so I'm hoping that continues.

I had a great run yesterday! I was a little worried because a small group of us went out on Saturday night partly just for the heck of it, partly for a friend's birthday, and I was out until 11:30 and did a little too much celebrating. I only had like 2 or 3 beers, but that's actually a lot when you're supposed to run 20 miles in the morning. Then I woke up at dawn on Sunday and couldn't get back to sleep, so I eventually figured I might as well get out of bed and hit the road and see what happens. I was a little woozy, but I drank some water and ate a pancake left over from Saturday's breakfast and decided to go for it.

I've been taking the dogs with me for part of my long runs lately. It works out really well because they're good and tired after 10 miles or so, and then I can stop by home to drop them off, get a drink, maybe change clothes, and do some more. And then for the second half I don't have to worry about dogs and I can either let my mind wander or listen to music. Yesterday I had mapped out a run down and around Lake Merritt in Oakland, which comes to about 14 miles. So I decided to do 6 miles in North Berkeley with the dogs and then do the Lake Merritt part by myself.

I was a little worried at first because my stomach wasn't very happy for the first mile or so, but then I started feeling really good and finished the first 6 feeling great. Dropped the dogs off, ate some pita chips (mmmm salt), filled up my water bottle, and hit the road again. Let me try to find a picture of Lake Merritt...

There you go. That's what it looks like from up above. It's really pretty big - one lap along the water's edge is a little over 3 miles. And it's about 5 miles from my house to the lake, so running down and around it and then back home comes out to about 14. It was totally and completely worth it, though. When you run down College Avenue and then Broadway towards Oakland, it's mostly slightly downhill, so you see the small patch of tall buildings in the distance and then as you get closer to them, you start to see the lake and the beautiful trees and parks surrounding it through the buildings, and suddenly you're in this lovely little oasis in downtown Oakland.

I told you Oakland is nice!

So I am definitely doing that run again. (And again.) I also had the nice surprise of making a running friend. I ran into him just after passing the Rockridge BART station, so just on the border between Berkeley and Oakland, and he smiled and said "hello! beautiful day for a run!" or something like that, and I said something like, "it is, isn't it? I'm headed down and around the lake, how about you?" And he was too, which was somewhat surprising because we were still about 3 miles from the lake at that point. He was going considerably slower that I was, but I slowed down a bit and he sped up a bit and we chatted for a while, and he was a very, very nice guy. Probably about 50 or so, big bushy beard and smiling eyes, and he's been running for literally decades. So we talked running, and then we talked life, and he asked me about linguistics, and we talked about the differences between Chomsky and Lakoff, because that was the only passing knowledge he had about linguistics. It's funny for me to talk about Chomsky and Lakoff. First because I think Chomsky's an idiot and a jerk, but he's usually the only connection people have to linguistics. And second because Lakoff is also... a controversial figure, let's say... although I'm much more closely aligned with him linguistically than with Chomsky. And third because I know George Lakoff, like we stop and chat in the hallway when we see each other, and I say this not for the name-dropping aspect, believe it or not, but because "George Lakoff" the philosopher-linguist-politician is a totally different person from George, the guy I chat with in the hallway, and it's hard to talk about him as "George Lakoff", if you know what I mean. So I found myself having this conversation about "Lakoff" where I couldn't call the guy by his last name, like you're supposed to when you talk about a Big Thinker's ideas. I'm like, "Yeah, Chomsky basically thinks A B C, but George is like, no no no, X Y Z." But then I felt kinda like a jerk for calling him "George" instead of "Lakoff". Like, I wouldn't call Chomsky "Noam". Whatever.

And fourth, this conversation was particularly weird because generally I don't care or think about Chomsky or Lakoff. That's just not what I do. But it's hard to explain to people that I'm interested in sound patterns and models of learning and category abstraction... kind of a conversation stopper, usually.

Anyway, Martin With The Bushy Beard was really nice, and we did a lap around the lake together and exchanged email addresses before I headed home, so we might get together again in the future. The miles go by so much more quickly when you've got company.

The rest of my run was fine too. Although the slight uphill for 4 miles back into Berkeley kind of sucked, and I neglected to fill up my water bottle before leaving the lake area, and of course didn't see any water fountains on the way back home. As I ended the uphill portion and turned west toward my house, I found myself thinking, "Hmm, I kinda don't feel that good. My stomach's a little upset and my legs are kinda tired." And then I thought, "Dude, I just ran 19 miles. If I were feeling any better, that would be positively weird." So with that perspective, I realized that I felt pretty fantastic and I could suck it up for less than a mile back to my house.

And I feel so good today! This was my first 20-miler of this training cycle, and I thought it would knock me out more, but I didn't even stiffen up at all yesterday and am only very slightly stiff today. So I don't know what happened, but I'm feeling totally ready for this race (knock wood) and like life is pretty sweet.

Now I should probably get off of the computer, because I need a shower, and I'm going to the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park today! Life is pretty sweet.

My Weekend (In Pictures)

I realized that one thing I really like about other people's blogs is when they post pictures. And I also realized that I have a perfectly fine camera phone. So I decided to try to take more pictures with my phone, just for fun, and to post them here.

I therefore present you with my weekend, in pictures.

This is just me playing around, waiting for the bus and pretending to be artsy and alternative. I like this time of year in Berkeley, when the summer flowers are still blooming, but the light at the end of the day is starting to make it feel like fall.

On Saturday I went to the farmers' market, and there happened to be a great little bluegrass duo playing at the park downtown. So I sat down in the grass for a while and enjoyed the sweet warm sunshine and the cool sea breeze and thought about how bluegrass sounds great no matter where you are.

Today I went to the Eat Real festival in Oakland with some friends. It's sort of like the Taste of Champaign, with an emphasis on (extremely) local foods and vendors. I snapped this pic of a sign at a bus stop in downtown Oakland. For the record, I really like downtown Oakland. I really like all of the good parts of Oakland, in fact. But it has such image issues. It's like... "Ohhhh, Oakland. You will never be as pretty as San Francisco and people will never love you, but *I* love you."

This is a HUGE vat of paella at Eat Real. I didn't eat any, unfortunately, because I had just finished running right before this and I was feeling kind of nauseous. All I wanted was cold, fruity, slushy things, so I had some melon sorbet and then some limeade, both of which really hit the spot.

Now, this is what you can expect to find at an "Eat Real" festival in Oakland. A vegan, gluten-free Indian food stand with a blender powered by a bike. I'm so not kidding.

And that was my weekend! Plus a party on Saturday night where I got to speak some French (and downed an impressive amount of wine, if I do say so myself).

Time to watch True Blood!

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.

Much Ado About Nothing Much

Partially against my better judgment, I'm going to make a blog post! It's almost 10:00 a.m. as I sit down to write this, and I have to leave to go to Phorum soon (our weekly phonetics-phonology discussion group). Today is going to be weird... I have a weird schedule lined up. I already did my morning run with the dogs, and I normally have French practice on Mondays from 9:30 to 10:30 or so, but my conversation partner canceled on me today, and I now I don't quite know what to do with myself.

I have a ton of reading to get through this week, so I should probably be taking this 40 minutes to get to work on it, but I don't know if I could really get into a concentration groove enough to make it worth it. Phorum is 11:00 - 12:00, then I guess I'm going to come back home and do some reading, then there's a talk this evening from 4:00 to 5:30, followed by a wine and cheese reception. It's always hard to sneak out before the reception, so I'll probably hang around at that for a while and then come home to walk the dogs and do more reading.

I have a big paper due in the next two weeks that I'm so not ready to write. That's what all the reading's about. If I actually do background reading this week, writing the paper next week won't be quite as painful. I hope.

I had a good long weekend. Hardly did any work, which probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was nice to just hang out. Roger picked up a new router and two new video games at Best Buy, so he hooked up his Xbox to the router and the video projector and played video games all day Sunday. It was strangely comforting, having video game background noise!

I wasted some time at Barnes and Noble on Saturday, stopped by Joann Fabric and bought some new yarn, and started making myself a hat. This was probably also not the greatest idea, because now I'm slightly obsessed with finishing my hat (and scarf! and gloves!) right when I should be doing a lot of reading. But it's going to be so pretty and match the raincoat Roger got me for my birthday...

I also made a huge pot of chili yesterday, which totally hit the spot. Unfortunately, we're out of saltines, but it's been pretty darn good, just the same.

I kind of want to talk about running, so bear with me. The weather here is so unbelievably fantastically perfect for running, and I've been doing a lot of lit lately. Well. "A lot" is all relative, now isn't it? My mileage is still considerably lower than when I'm marathon training, because that one 15+ mile run every week makes a big difference in total mileage. But I'm doing 5 or 6 days a week, usually 4-6 miles at a time with one slightly longer run of 7 or 8 miles. Yesterday I did just shy of 7, and it was so nice. The fall leaves are just now starting to be really vibrant here, and the mornings are crisp and chilly, and something about the low angle of the sun just makes me feel... special when I head out for a run. I know that sounds really weird, but when I'm running with my dogs through the chilly, leafy Berkeley neighborhoods in the early morning, when hardly anyone else is out and I can see my breath and feel my skin tingling, I kind of feel like, "All of this is mine," like the fact that I'm out appreciating the beauty of it all means it belongs to me, and like I could conquer the world one run at a time if I really set my mind to it.

I'm getting much better at the hills, too. I used to avoid the hills at least a few days a week to give myself a break, but that's really hard to do around here. The only way to avoid them is to stay within a half mile radius immediately north and west of here, and that gets boring pretty quick, let me tell you. Also, all the rich people live in the hills, so that's where all the nice neighborhoods with the pretty leaves are. It also means fewer major streets and less traffic up there. So anyway, I've been hitting the hills almost every day, and I can feel it working different muscles and slowly getting easier. On the way up, I can feel it in my calves and my hips (running uphill strengthens your hips, isn't that funny?), and on the way down I feel it in my quads, since they do the bulk of the shock absorption.

But it's kind of like starting running all over again; maybe that's why I'm learning to love the hills. Running is hard at first. I remember starting out and only being able to go for about a mile at a time, and then being so sore and even sick to my stomach afterwards! I'm so stubborn, though. When I first started, I went every single day, which is pretty much the opposite of what you're supposed to do when you're starting out, but I was 15, so the rules are probably different. I would run down to the end of the street, which was about a mile, and then walk back. Then I got to the point where I could run down, turn around, and come back about halfway. Pretty soon, I could run all the way down and back, and then I had to start branching out.

I remember what it's like when you first catch your breath while you're running. When you first start out, it's miserable hard work, and you can't fathom how anyone could ever enjoy it. And then, one day, you're running, and you realize you've managed to catch your breath. And suddenly it all makes sense - this is why people can keep going for so many miles - they're not completely miserable the whole time!

It's easy to become complacent, though. On the one hand, I still love it that I can just head out for a run, and I feel very lucky that I find it so enjoyable and easy. On the other hand, it's very easy to quit pushing yourself. You find a comfortable pace and a comfortable distance, and that's where you stay. I put in my 4 - 6 miles every day, right around an 8:45/mile pace, probably, and that's that.

So the hills are good for me. Working different muscles and getting out of breath (even though I'm starting to catch my breath on the hills too!) is good for me. I am a big proponent of shaking things up.

Well, it's time for me to get ready to go. Lots of reading to do this afternoon, lots of chili to eat and tea to drink. I hope you're enjoying your fall too.