26. February 2009 by admin.

I am meeting with Hagit tomorrow and I’m actually not freaking out… this is a nice feeling… I wish I could always feel ready before meeting with her…

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23. February 2009 by admin.

The workshop was AWESOME.
It was like seeing people from the interwebs in person. It was way cooler than the hacker conferences I’ve been to. It helps that I actually know a lot of the people who were here in person.  I’ve never been to something like this before, it was great.
I don’t know what Hagit was thanking us for, all we did is some random little things, we should be thanking her for organizing this whole thing! She is fantastic!

I am writing a letter of recommendation for Marina I hope she gets the scholarship.  

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19. February 2009 by admin.

Nervous is the wrong word, I’m upset. I’m upset at myself, at my time management, and at my inefficiency. I am working harder than I’ve ever worked before, but that’s just it, I didn’t work hard enough before, and this is why I’m not efficient now, because I have to make up for ‘lacunes’ from before… I am very mad at myself… but I don’t have time for this, so I’m just posting this to get it off my chest, and getting back to work… I’m not going to be ready enough tomorrow… I wonder if I’m completely disapointing or if this is normal… I hope it’s normal… 

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18. February 2009 by admin.

I meet with Hagit on Thursday and I still don’t have anything ready… she didn’t like what I did last time, so I’m changing the whole thing again… and it’s taking longer than I want it to… I am so nervous…

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15. February 2009 by admin.

Tom finally officially proposed
He picked me up at the airport on Friday February 13th (Friday the 13th), we drove home, and he gave me my valentine present: a Play Station Portable.
I opened the box and took it out, and looked for the on button, turning it upside down, I noticed a metal plaque on the back. I looked at it, and it said in fancy font:

SarahWill youmarry me?  

I turned around confused, thinking he’s proposing to me with a game, I find him kneeling behind me with a box and a ring… and the rest is history
Enough chitchat, he’s the pictures:PSP    RingRing 2  My 2-dozen roses The chocolate and roses

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12. February 2009 by admin.

I met with my advisor today - she’s fantastic - have I mentioned that before?

I am feeling much better now. She just wanted me to re-organize the thing so it would look more like a paper, and actually write down all the stuff I’ve been saying in Semantics. I don’t know why I perceived it as much more than it was. It’s not such a big deal, I don’t know why I was freaking out so much last night and all week…

I am going to try to get this finished by 7 am this morning.3 more hours… I’m getting back to work now.

Oh, I just realized I need to explain the title - I think I need a google ear-piece when I talk to my advisor - she’s the only person I’ve ever met in the US who uses language that I have to google - for a foreigner she sure uses a lot of idioms and metaphors!
I should probably cut down on saying “I don’t know what that means” and just write things down and google them when I get home…

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11. February 2009 by admin.

So I’ve been sleepless since last Thursday (I only slept on Monday night)… though I had a great thing going with Barry on Monday, I still haven’t done what Hagit told me to do… and I feel like shit about it.
I sent my advisor a “freaking out” email - asking her if we could meet briefly today to talk about what I’m supposed to do for tomorrow because I’ve been completely unable to “start” with any of the tasks she told me to do to. Now I feel completely pathetic - I mean she’s quite clear, I don’t know why I don’t know where to start… I don’t know what’s wrong with my intro so I don’t know how to fix it, I don’t know how to finish a semantics section - she told me to postpone critiquing Sorin to a later point in the paper so that my position wouldn’t be viewed in a defensive way - and I think that’s great advice - but I don’t know how to show my view without showing what I’m contrasting it with, it just doesn’t make sense in my mind that way…
so now all I have is 4 trees, 2 derivations (out of like three thousand), and a bunch of bullet-points on why it would work… and I’m not even sure what I have makes any sense… I want to check it with Elena before I “write it up”. It’s weird, usually the laborious part for me in writing a term paper is reading, then I just write with ease… in this paper, because it actually matters, I keep reading, and I don’t mind reading, but writing seems to be painful - and scary.

(Agreeing with Nelly) I have serious self esteem issues… I need to get better at this and be more confident about it… Or… (agreeing with Canan) I need to take up drinking…

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9. February 2009 by admin.

I just met with Barry, and we had a FANTASTIC meeting. Seriously.
We talked about something that had seemed to me at first, to be marginal to my topic, but after talking about it, I realized a lot of really really cool stuff going on with it, and that it’s very NON-marginal! woohoo!
I should bike home and sleep now because I’ve been up for over 24 hours, but rock on! yay! 

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9. February 2009 by admin.

I’m tired and sleep deprived. I have to finish the semantics section of the paper and fix the introduction by Thursday - well actually by Wednesday noon if I want my advisor to be able to read it before we meet.I spent the weekend reading the first chapter of Heim’s dissertation and parts of Barker’s dissertation and three papers by him - it didn’t help me much with my immediate task, but I know more stuff than before so it was good for me. I’m tired though.I feel like I’m supposed to do more than I perceive myself as being able to do. But I’m glad I have this deadline, I know it will happen by Wednesday, I will definitely become more ‘productive’ tonight and tomorrow because the deadline is coming up. But right now I need a long -long- nap.  I just got an email from housing telling me I’m even lower on the priority list that I had thought. I’m giving up on it. I’ll stay in that hotel downtown by the time I find something nice.I’m not having a good day, I need 11 am to come already so I can meet with my professor who I have an appointment with and discuss what I’ve done so far, and try to ask him all the questions I have in mind. I just need to remind myself - it will become easier - it has become more “natural” than before, and it’s only getting better. I love what I’m doing, being tired shouldn’t discourage me.

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8. February 2009 by admin.

The following is a conversation between two graduate students, myself and a colleague. The names have been abbreviated to preserve the privacy of the speakers and the people mentioned. C is my colleague, she and I are both advisees of H.

     10:19 PM me: I’m having another one of those “H. must think I’m a complete idiot” moments10:20 PM C: it is my default state    me: haha C: if you are having just a moment i think that is fine    me: I have it on and off C: just accept it and don’t worry aobut it anymore   10:21 PM that is what i have done sometime ago10:22 PM me: haha I should do that too…  it hurts my ego every time I think about it, I should just accept it… C: absolutely     that helps a lot  so that you are not trying to prove that you are smart    me: yeah… because that won’t work10:23 PM C: not to H.  me: sometimes I understand something she said 2 days later (like now) C: i know  i understood what she said last year last week    me: hahaha   For the LOLs. 

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6. February 2009 by admin.

Today was a fantastic day. I went to school at 10, and came back at 7 - long day, but great day.Here are the two words that made my day: “much better” said by my advisor while pointing at something I sent her. I also fell into a puddle, like the whole of me, not my foot.. it was quite funny… I had to wear a blanket to class for the rest of the day :D 

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5. February 2009 by admin.

I’m feeling lonely in a different way this semester.. I mean I used to feel hormonally lonely when I was on the pill… now I feel lonely in a different way that I can’t express well… I think I need to meet some Lebanese linguist to talk to… I miss talking about what I’m working on to people… but no one knows what the shit I’m talking about… Maybe I should email Lina… she hasn’t replied to my last email so she must be busy…I wish I was more comfortable talking to my advisor… I wish I could email her random thoughts about my paper…I wish I was teaching. Then I get to talk about Arabic more…

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2. February 2009 by admin.

I am so used to being the smart one, it’s really hard to compare myself to the people I want to be like… It’s like a hard lesson in modesty…
Screw mensa - high IQ my ass - I’m an idiot compared to some of the people here…
I want to work hard, for the first time in my life, to have enough knowledge to be able to compare my intelligence to that of the people I want to be like. I want to know if they’re really that much smarter than me, or if they know so much more and that makes them seem immesurably smart.

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2. February 2009 by admin.

I wrote my abstract, and I feel a bit better now that I’ve defined what exactly I’m focusing on. I hope this lasts.

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1. February 2009 by admin.

I feel like a child in a grown up world. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m scared, I’m lonely, I’m trying as hard as I can… I can’t catch up. I’m scared of the possibility of getting kicked out… I really love linguistics… I don’t know what else to do with my life. I’d be a very miserable person if I had to go back to computer engineering.

I didn’t learn any syntax in the last 3 semesters, and now I’m supposed to use what I learned… but I learned nothing. What the hell do I do now? I am such a fake. I know I’m not fooling anyone by not saying it out loud, but I’m too scared to admit it… and I’m scared it might be too late. Maybe going to the LSA would help.

I am going to sit in on Elena’s class to review my semantics, because I’m even not fluent in that… and that’s “my thing”… I love semantics… and Elena’s great…

Every time I talk to my parents I cry. My mother is either embarrassed or paranoid about everything I am or do. I am bisexual. I am dating an American. I am scared of being kicked out. I am for peace in the middle east. I don’t want to pretend I don’t have an opinion. And there’s nothing wrong with stating any of these facts in front of the world… they’re who I am.

I know it’s great to get a PhD… but I’m not doing this to have these three stupid letters next to my name. I am doing this because I want to be able to do this linguistics thing for the rest of my life. I love it. I am doing this because I want to be like those people (HB, EG, BS, JR,…) one day. And hell yeah I’m scared of being kicked out. It’s not about looking like I belong, I want to actually belong.

Xiao and Canan and I were talking today about what we’d be doing if we had a million dollars.
If I had a million dollars, I’d probably still be in grad school doing linguistics. I’d probably have Tom here with me though… that’s the only thing I’d change.

Sarah

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