Rolling with it.

Indeed I am rolling with it. Even though my 20-miler last weekend (as in, 8 days ago) went swimmingly and I wasn't sore or anything, I decided to take the day off running yesterday. Just for the heck of it. I ran 5 days last week, only taking Monday and Thursday off, for a total of around 40 miles for the week. That's a lot for me. And then on Saturday night, I had a mini adventure with some friends and found myself thinking, "I don't really feel like running tomorrow." And since my 20-miler had gone so great and I'm feeling pretty ready for this race with about a month to go, I decided to take the lack of enthusiasm as a sign that my body wanted some rest, and I just plum took the day off.

About that mini adventure. My friend John and his girlfriend found this crazy little thing called "Forage SF", which is a group of self-appointed foragers that collect food in the Bay Area. Basically there are so many fruit trees and edible plants here that it truly is a shame to not take advantage of it, so this underground market thing has sprung up to ameliorate the situation. Roger said eating stuff that fell off of trees is pretty much "against everything he stands for"... and it is... so a small group of us went to check it out without him. It was fairly interesting, and quite good, but also fairly expensive and quite packed, so I have no plans to go back. Fun to do once, but not worth the hassle of doing it again.

Anyway, they had this sign there.

It made me picture little kitties in harnesses, pulling a plow or something. But I didn't actually catch a glimpse of any working cats, so I unfortunately can't fill you in on any details there.

We have a working dog, though.

I don't know if you can tell what that is, so I will explain. Roger accidentally broke the dogs' water container the other day, and threw it outside so it didn't soak the whole living room. Rye decided he liked the challenge of working for his water, so he's been lying down and sticking his little tongue in as far as he can to get at the water. He has a new water bottle, mind you, he just likes the challenge, I guess.

And this is one of those pictures that makes me wish I had a better camera with me. The light was so lovely this evening, with the pink fog settling on the hills as the sun went down. It truly, truly feels like fall.

Why am I so tired?? I got a good amount of work done today, so that's good, but I didn't get quite as far as I wanted to on one project, so I've been staring at the computer for several hours now. I recorded stimuli for my qualifying paper experiment today (exciting!) and then I managed to find some scripts that split the words up into lots of individual sound files so I didn't have to do it by hand. Maybe half an hour of fiddling with scripts, but it saved me several hours of labeling and naming by hand, so it was totally and completely worth it. Now I need to edit the files so that they're all the same length and loudness, and that's the part I'm having trouble automating. (And no way am I editing several hundred sound files individually.) I think if I tackle it with fresh eyes tomorrow, it'll be easier.

I took a break to do some cooking this evening, and it was really nice. I made an Italian-style fish and bean stew (friggin' delicious) and some pesto to go with the loaf of bread I baked yesterday. Miss Suzy Homemaker, right here!

Well jeez. I'm pooped. I'm gonna stretch out my legs and go to bed.

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!

I made this.

Hey, look at what I just finished!

My first full size sweater!

In somewhat sad news, the awesome psychology seminar I was going to take got moved to a different time, and now I can't take it. But on the bright side, this means I should have plenty (?) of time to work on my qualifying paper this semester.

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.

Petite Crise

Well dios mío, I managed to bring some heat back to California with me from Illinois! It is legitimately hot today, for the second day in a row! (Crazy!) I love it. Granted, I feel a little gross and a lot sweaty, but at least now I feel like we had a teensy bit of a summer, whether we end up getting some more heat in September and October or not (that's normally our summer here).

Anyway, Illinois. I tell you what, living in California for two years has turned me into quite the Midwesterner. It's like having the contrast makes me realize what it means to be from the Midwest. Not to wax poetic or anything, but summer in the Midwest means wide open spaces and grass and humming cicadas and humidity and corn fields and sweat dripping down your back and melty ice cream and lovely, dear friends and family that you have missed so much more than you realized. I'm not going to lie; it was really hard being home. Much harder this year than I expected. It just wasn't long enough... only long enough to remember how very much I love everyone and wish that I had a few more days to spend with them. This is probably because I only spent about three days in C-U and then two days in Chicago, which ended up being somewhat unsatisfying and temporarily minor crisis-inducing.

Here is a story that sort of sums it up. In Chicago, I went out to dinner with George and Matt, my two best friends from studying abroad in France. We've all been very good about keeping in touch the past few years, despite the fact that I usually only see them about once a year now. We went to this fantastic Moroccan restaurant. George and I used to cook pseudo-Moroccan food on Friday nights at the American dorm in Paris, so it was a really nice idea, and the food was fantastic. It was so normal just sitting and having dinner with them, and yet I felt this sort 0f simmering panic underneath it all. Just knowing that it was going to be over way too soon, and I didn't know when I'd see them again, and why did I drag my husband and dogs out to California again and do I even really like linguistics that much, etc., etc. Matt was leaving for grad school on the east coast the next day and somewhat freaking out about that, and we all just sort of looked at each other and said, "What are we doing??"

And what are we doing? Getting out and seeing more of the world, meeting new people and making wonderful new friends to love and keep with us forever, for sure, but also leaving wonderful old friends behind! The world is a smaller place with phones and email and Facebook and whatever, but there's something about physically being in a place with people you love that makes emotions more acute. It's not that I needed to talk more with anyone back home, per se, because I talk to them all the time in various forms. But I sure would have liked more time just being physically in the same place as all of those wonderful folks I love so much. That might have made me a little less emotional about the whole trip, instead of just cramming all of those emotions into a few days and then coming back to California and sitting around stewing about it!

In any case, I knew it would be much better once my friends got back and once school related stuff started picking up again, and it certainly is. It is so nice to see everyone, and I love all of these people too, and they make it feel like home too. They're my little linguistics family and we can sit around and be huge nerds together and have a great time doing it. Yesterday was our annual departmental meeting, where the whole linguistics department gets together and everyone introduces themselves and then we eat cookies and mill about for a while. I also took it upon myself to invite all the grad students out for pizza last night. No one has really been organizing anything for the new students for the past few years, and I wanted to make sure they felt welcome and also give us an excuse to go out together, so I emailed everyone and decreed that we should meet at my favorite pizza place at 7:00 last night. And there was a really good turnout! It was really fun, although I didn't get to talk to all of the new first years because they came in later and sat at the opposite end of the table from me, but it's okay, there will be plenty of time for that.

Afterwards Jess and I thought it would be fun to go bowling, but everyone was tired and only six of us ended up going. But it was fun! I hadn't been bowling since I was like 17, I think. I had a pretty dismal first game and came in dead last, but I somehow managed to win the second game, so it evened out, I guess. Not that the point of bowling is to bowl, really. It was just nice to be with friends, and the "rolling a heavy thing down an oiled lane towards a bunch of pins" thing is pretty secondary.

I think the only other thing I want to add right now is that I ran 18 miles on Sunday and it wasn't even bad at all. I'm not sure which part of that is crazier. My next marathon is October 17th, and I realized that that means I'll be running 26.2 miles on my 26-and-2-days birthday, which is ridiculous but seems to make sense, in a stupid way. Anyway, I guess it looks like I'll be ready by then, I'll just have to get in a few 20 milers in September.

Can you believe I'm going to be 26? I can't. But I say that every year now.

Well, I think it's time to go by the store and buy some ice cream, because I am hot. I hope you all know how very much I love you; the older I get, the more I realize that it's the people in your life that make it worth living, and I am thankful for each and every one of you, whether we talk often or not at all. I have a pretty great life, and no right to complain about any aspect of it, except maybe that whole thing about how meeting new great people entails changing locations and missing old great people. But that is a fairly minor crisis in the scheme of things, n'est-ce pas?

What I want to be when I grow up.

(and up and up and up)

Running... languages... the usual...

I'm not sure where this blog entry is going, because I don't have anything in particular to say, so we'll just see what happens.

Well, for one thing, I had a really great run on Sunday. Sorry if my running talk gets old, but it truly is an important part of my life, so it naturally comes to mind when I think about what I've been doing lately. Not only is it a constant, structuring, stabilizing force in my life, it also serves as a demarcator of sorts; by being one thing that remains constant over the years, no matter where I go or what else I'm doing in my life, I can measure the rest of my life against it, in a way. There is always running, and so how my running is going directly relates to how the rest of my life is going. I go through periods where I don't run very much because I'm too busy doing other things, or because I'm feeling blah and don't have the motivation to get out the door. Thankfully both of those things occur rather infrequently, and for short periods of time, because getting out and moving has a huge impact on my mood. I honestly cannot remember the last time I got home from a run feeling worse than when I left the house.

But anyway, I had a great run on Sunday, because I did some speed work. I haven't done any speed work since we lived in Urbana, and it is so exhausting and so rewarding at the same time. There is something supremely satisfying about pushing your body beyond what it thinks is possible. Like, nanny nanny boo boo, body, I showed you, you can do it. It's such a triumph of will, and leaves you with that wonderfully spent feeling. First I did about 4.25 miles with the dogs so I didn't have to feel guilty about leaving them at home, and also to break up the run. Then I ran up to a middle school track in north Berkeley (2 miles) and did 2 x 400 meters, 3 x 800 meters, and 2 x 400 meters again, as fast as I could, for a total of 2.5 miles of speed work, followed by 2 more miles back home, bringing my Sunday total to somewhere around 10.75 miles. I was a little sore yesterday and today, but in a really great way, and my goal is to keep this up - long runs every other Sunday, alternating with speed work of increasing length/intensity until my marathon in October. The race is a pretty tough course; I've heard it's harder than the San Francisco Marathon, and that wasn't exactly cake, although it wasn't as bad as I expected. In any case, I would of course like to beat my previous PR of 3:54... and as of now, I'm thinking my secret secret goal will be 3:40, but that's probably far too optimistic. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I am getting so ridiculously excited to come home in August. In like, 3 weeks, that is! I am so tired of it being cold here. July in Berkeley seriously blows. I wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt today and I was chilly all day, but I'm still in disbelief and indignant and refusing to wear a jacket or turn the heater back on in July. It's July. Where are the frickin' mosquitoes and miserable temperatures? It all feels so wrong. So anyway, it will be fantastic to be legitimately hot again, even if you poor Midwesterners will probably be quite ready for the muggy 90 degree days to stop by then. I'm also really happy to be able to spend a few days in C-U and a few in Chicago; that's why it took me so long to plan this trip, because I have three very dear friends who will be in Chicago at various times in August, and I really want/need to see them all, so I had to find a time when all of our schedules could overlap. It will be a very quick trip, for sure, but I need some Midwest love before I embark on another year in California. Just gotta recharge those hometown batteries sometimes.

So here is something really great. I accidentally did a minor Amazon.com splurge the other day, and my books all got here today! I realized it was high time to get a real Spanish dictionary, since I think the Spanish thing is more than a passing phase and is hopefully here to stay, and then I saw this really fun looking book called "Street Spanish" that's all about slang in the different parts of the Spanish speaking world and comes with a CD! So of course I had to get that, I mean, come on. And then, (then!) I only needed to spend 60 cents to qualify for free Super Shipper Savings or whatever, so I had to get a book about French slang to complement my Spanish one. Mi pobrecito francés! No pude olvidarlo! (My poor French, I couldn't just forget it!) So today after I finished my Spanish homework I learned/was reminded how to say all sorts of inappropriate things in French, and it was quite fun.

I was also extremely pleased with myself today when we had a surprise in-class essay, and I filled up nearly a whole page, no dictionary, no problem. I probably made a few mistakes or said some things in a weird way, but it is so exciting to know that I have gone from being able to say next to nothing in Spanish just four weeks ago to being able to give a reasonably lengthy answer to the prompt, "Have you ever visited Latin America? If so, where have you been and what did you do? If not, where would you like to go and why?" Boo. Yah. Present perfect, imperfect, preterite, present, future, and conditional tenses all in one essay, baby. Now that is progress.

I'm also excited (and this part is a little silly) because I scheduled my next haircut today, and I'm totally going to practice my Spanish on my haircut lady. She is the cutest, sweetest little woman from Mexico, and she's so adorably self-concious of her English, and it's really not that bad at all. But the next time I see her, I'm gonna bust out the Spanish and let her laugh at how I have to say things in a weird way because I have no vocabulary, and it should be a good time, I think.

Okay, that's enough for now. Je vous aime tous et j'ai vraiment hâte de vous voir au mois d'août! Gros gros gros bisous!

Momentum

It's funny; I am a creature of momentum, as it turns out. I guess I already knew this about myself, but now that I'm back in class after a few weeks off, the effect has been more exaggerated than I remember. I know I have this problem where when I have no structure in my life, it's very easy for me to do absolutely nothing. If I have a whole day with very little that I actually need to do, I tend to do almost nothing. Whereas if I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I get so much done, and it's self-perpetuating, in a way.

The Nothingness Problem has become more evident to me since starting grad school. Over winter break and spring break, I tend to re-check the same websites over and over again, stare into space, and end up watching mindless TV. Or sometimes good TV (Dexter, Mad Men, House, etc.). But the fact remains that if I don't have anywhere to be or go at a certain time, I can't even manage to get the most basic things done around the house, e.g. loading the dishwasher, doing a load of laundry, running the vacuum cleaner.

On the other hand, when I have way too much to do, I just do do do. Now that I'm taking this 4 hour per day Spanish class, I'm getting all kinds of other stuff done, too. I'm back in the lab, running tons of experimental subjects, reading articles, learning some more programming... doesn't that seem backwards? It seems like 4 hours of Spanish should leave me burnt out and ready to zone out, and instead I'm like, gee, what else can I do today? It's like the sense of accomplishment spills over into other areas of my life. Especially this week, I've been realizing how much better I feel when I feel productive. I wonder if that Northern European work ethic is genetic or something... centuries of German and Swedish ancestry converging to make me feel like a better person when I actually get some work done.

I'm also realizing that this is something I need to be in tune with over the next few years, as my required classes become fewer and fewer and I have to be my own driving force to get any work done. I guess I'll have to get better at imposing deadlines on myself and creating my own structure, or I'm never going to be able to write a dissertation...

Another thing I've been thinking about recently is how gosh darn much I love learning new languages. Taking this Spanish class is really reminding me why I got into linguistics in the first place. Language acquisition and historical language change are totally where it's at, dudes. I am completely fascinated and in love with learning Spanish. I do not know why I didn't try harder to really learn it earlier, but maybe that's a good thing, because it's been a great pick-me-up this summer. I love, love, love seeing the differences between Spanish and French and trying to figure out how they got to be how they are. There is so much that is so similar, but today we started to dig deeper into the Spanish tense system, and it's significantly different from French. French has undergone so many radical simplifications, both phonologically and syntactically (although these are sometimes related, I think) that it's a really asymmetrical system in a lot of ways. I realize this may be nonsense lingua-babble to whoever is reading this, but bear with me. From what I can tell thus far, Spanish has a much more "symmetrical" grammar than French, which means it makes a theoretically "prettier" system in a lot of ways, but there are way more forms to learn.

I think the main example I'm thinking of is the fact that modern French just doesn't have a simple past tense. It has a "composed past", meaning the past tense is made up of co-opted forms of the present, in a way. So in French, you can't say, "I ran", you have to say, "I have run" (j'ai couru). But the way you say "I have run" is also "I have run". And there's no difference in the forms for "I run" and "I am running" (je cours). So you have a lot of the same forms doing multiple jobs in French, which is partially what I mean about it being asymmetrical. But in Spanish, there are distinct forms for all of those things. And I have to memorize them this weekend. :) But it's really interesting to see two systems that are clearly very closely related historically, but that have diverged in really interesting ways over time. And someday - someday! - I will speak Spanish. I will.

So much for that. Man, today just feels like a Friday. My brain is tired and I'm having trouble concentrating, which is why I'm blogging instead of working. But I got so much done this week! Time for a justly merited evening off (as opposed to a lack-of-momentum one).

Wait, no, it's time for the announcement: I will be in Illinois in August, and I cannot wait! Just. Can't. Wait. Champaign August 12-15, and Chicago August 15-17. Mark your calendars and make some time to remind me why I miss my beloved Midwest so very much! I need lightning bugs and starry skies over empty cornfields, friendly folks and familiar places, and probably some Custard Cup. Very very much looking forward to it and can't wait to see as many of y'all as I can.

The Banshee of Live Oak Park (y otros cuentos)

Wow, have I got a story for you. And then I'll tell you how my summer is going.

On Sunday, I was running with the dogs, as per usual, and I decided to go through this beautiful little park in North Berkeley. It's called Live Oak Park, and it's up in the Berkeley Hills, full of very tall trees and cute little paths and a babbling brook. It's very nice, and I hardly ever run through it, because it's a bit of a trek to get up there. I guess to set this up properly, I should also mention that North Berkeley/the hills is where all the rich people live, and it's generally an extremely safe area. It's kind of like southwest Champaign, or Sandy Ridge in Mahomet or something. Very bourgie.

Anyway, I'm running through this lovely little park with the dogs, admiring the trees with the sunlight streaming through them, thinking about what a nice, crisp, clear morning it is, when I am ruthlessly snapped out of my reverie by the most god-awful bloodcurdling scream/cackle I have ever heard. To my right, directly next to me on the ground is this woman who decided it would be nice to hide amongst the brush and literally shriek at me as I passed her. Well. More precisely, I had come to this part of the path that narrowed, and I suddenly found myself stuck between a huge tree and an insane screaming woman sitting 3 or 4 feet to my right at the foot of a small hill. The thing about it was, the path was really narrow, and the dogs were right in front of me and were totally freaked out too. So they stopped to check her out, and I couldn't push them ahead or turn around and pull them behind me, because we were bottlenecked in this little piece of path between the tree and the foot of the hill.

Let me tell you, I honestly do not remember the last time I was so frightened. Running along, la la la, what a nice day, blood curdling scream. Freeze. Realize I'm cornered by a crazy person. And then, in between cackles, as I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do, she looks right at me and says, "I'M A BIG GIRL NOW! A BIIIIIIIIG GIRRRRRL NOW! AHH HA HA HAHA! THE JOKE'S ON YOU!"

Did I mention how terrifying this was? Never before in my life have I been in such proximity to someone who is quite literally a raving lunatic. The scariest part was her eyes - they were this milky, translucent color, and just burning with insanity, there is no other way I can think of to describe it. She was very clearly not on this planet, mentally. I don't know if she was schizophrenic or what, but this is the kind of person in the kind of state where... well, I could imagine something terrible happening. I honestly was somewhat expecting her to punctuate her "the joke's on you" by lunging at me or something.

And Huck. Huck is trying to give the insane woman a kiss. If there were any doubts about whether that dog loves everyone and everything, let them be assuaged.

So after a few seconds of panic that seemed like an eternity, I pushed passed the dogs and started running again. Once I got a hold of myself, that's all I could do, is take off and run run run away. I was completely shaken up for a good half hour after that... adrenaline pumping, replaying the scene in my head, being so glad that nothing bad happened. Another thing that was so terrifying about it is that it came out of nowhere. I would have been somewhat more mentally prepared for it if we hadn't been in the nicest part of Berkeley. Like, you can kind of be on guard for crazy bums when you're downtown, and you can see them coming from further away when you're more on guard and not enjoying the peace and quiet of running through a lovely little patch of trees.

Man. I don't think I'll ever run through that park again now. Quite a shame, because it's so darn pretty.

So that was my Sunday. Monday was the start of my Spanish class! Yay Spanish! It really is like a full time job... I have to remind myself that this is what I signed up for, and it is going to be so good for me. Already, my comprehension has gotten pretty decent... I can parse words really well, and I'm picking up all the little grammatical turns of phrase that let you put together real sentences. Things like "because" and "the thing that..." and "if you want to..." and all the little pieces that make the difference between "me Tarzan, you Jane" and "Hello, my name is Tarzan, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Jane." Not that I'm anywhere near that suave yet. But I can understand other people when they're that suave, and that's the first step. I'm still stuck saying things like, "My name is Melinda. I am 25 years old. I have two dogs. I like my husband very much. He has a head that is shaved. How nice!" But whatever, it'll come.

Speaking of husbands and dogs, they're all doing great, by the way. Roger's still getting home pretty late, but he came home so happy and excited last night; he had had a really fantastic meeting with the CEO of his company who had only glowing things to say about him, and I know it was a real morale booster. So even though he's still working a lot, it's going really well, and he seems pretty happy most of the time (when he's not completely exhausted).

Rye pulled a bag of hamburger buns down off the counter while I was in the shower this morning, somehow managed to open the bag without damaging it at all, and was madly trying to choke down the last one when I discovered him. So basically the dogs haven't changed. Huck tries to kiss everything that moves, and Rye finds really weird stuff to chow down on when he gets bored enough.

La vida es asi, mis amigos! Time to brave these 58 degrees temps and walk those perros. Mil besos a vos y hasta pronto!