Sarah's Blog

LSAing and Australia

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:46:19 +0000

So I’m at the LSA right now and it’s fun… I’m meeting new people and I’m taking a bunch of courses, it’s not too intense, but it’s tiring… I also miss Tom a lot

I just got my visa for Australia… unfortunately, my advisor decided not to go… because she would need to make up two classes… I was really hoping she’d go… but Tom said he’d go with me and make a trip out of it… since for me it’s just as expensive to go for a week as it would be to go for the weekend, I figured staying for a week would make the 15 hour flight worth while…

My advisor (very generously) offered to help pay my ticket to Australia with her research grant… I want to accept but I don’t know how to phrase it… “yes please, that’d be awesome” sounds a bit too brief… I’m uncomfortable talking about money… which I should get over…

I would like school to start, funny enough… because I’ve been inefficient with my personal projects, like my paper, and I need the structure that school provides to get this stuff done… I wish Hagit would tell me I need to finish my paper in the next two weeks… because I totally can… I just need to make myself do it. Maybe I should ask her to require me to have the paper done by the beginning of the school year… I do well when there’s a deadline for her… it gives me a time frame to work with, which makes me START

I should get back to doing homework… to get it done and do some reading for my paper…

I don’t like watching movies with Tom when he’s seen them before

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:07:09 +0000

He won’t tell me what happens next. It’s mean! I want to know! but I wuv him.

I haven’t managed to finish the books I had set out to read. I feel like a failure, but I won’t beat myself up. I will do my best over the next month to keep reading. I did find more references on my topic of interest and now I have an even more explicit outline of my second screening paper, but I don’t have the full paper yet, which is meh. I am sure I will have the paper complete before I’m back in LA, I’d be too embarrassed to show up without at least a first draft.

life’s good

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:30:33 +0000

I’m in Tampa with Tom, and life is good… I feel academically lonely, but that’s fine, I should get used to this… I was completely useless for the first week here, then I slowly got back into shape, now I’m working well. I’m reading Hagit’s books, and Hornstein’s book, and Hogi’s book… I decided to give up on reading Adger for now, because I have a bit much on my plate, and I don’t have that kind of attention span. I’m mostly advancing on Hagit’s first book and Hornstein’s book more than the other two because the first is directly related to my screening paper and the latter is crucial for doing syntax at all.Being with Tom is awesome, I get cuddles every night, and I feel so connected… I love him so much… I love the fact that we’re each other’s babies, he’s my baby sometimes and I’m his sometimes… I threw a temper tantrum today when Tom tried to help me with making the plates, because he made my plate ugly unknowingly, it was a cute tantrum, he was mostly confused at first, and amused later… he said i’m a 4 year old… admittedly, sometimes I am heh, especially when I’m doing one of my little “projects” (like cooking a pretty meal)I study all night and sleep in the morning, I get to cuddle with Tom before he sleeps and right before he wakes up (when I go to bed) I wish I could just go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time, but if I try to do that, I end up chatting and talking to my parents all day while he’s at work and I don’t get anything done. The current state of affairs has me sleeping while he’s at work, and hanging out with him when he’s awake, and studying at night, which is a good balance for us… the only down side is that over the weekend, we don’t get to spend all our awake time together because I’m sleepy during the day and he lets me sleep and doesn’t wake me up… he says I’m too cute to wake up :PI’m still waiting for the criminal background paper to come in the mail before I can apply for the Australian visa, it’s quite inconvenient that I can’t book my flight now, it’s like $800 round trip now, it’s definitely going to be more expensive later… meh… oh well… hopefully it’ll go smoothly as soon as I get the paper.I am a bit jealous of the people who went to the morphosyntax workshop in Stuttgart… it looked awesome (and Marijke’s joint submission on diminutives in italian and hebrew seemed cool), I would have wanted to be there… I wish I had something to say about this stuff before the deadline last March…a + tardSarah

back to my sanctuary

admin — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:05:00 +0000

So my advisor and a number of my professors are on my facebook now, so I can’t really be myself as much…
I don’t want them to perceive every whining I do as a cry for help or something, that’d be exhausting…The down side of this is that I can’t express myself on facebook as much anymore… which used to be a relief for me…

Hagit hasn’t responded to my email about the abstract, but then again, give her a break, I only sent it this morning…

I’m moving into Elena’s new place tomorrow… I’m a bit nervous about staying at her place, I’m shy…

I feel like I was a total dork today when I gave the graduates the appreciation presents… i don’t know why i couldn’t think of anything even remotely intelligent to say…I don’t think I’m any more comfortable with Hagit now than I was before, whenever she’s around I turn into a total dork, which is my natural state… but I don’t know why she triggers it…but whatever, i’ll get over it…

i am soo tired…

I dislike lawyers and people who speak like lawyers

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 05:55:11 +0000

I do. I really, really, really, do.

My partner.

admin — Sun, 03 May 2009 08:31:06 +0000

I have been dating Tom for two years now, and we got engaged in February in one of the geekiest and most romantic ways ever

After I had my week of “freaking out” over having gotten engaged, I realized something… I realized that nothing changed that day.

Why hasn’t anything changed? Because we have a healthy relationship, a continuous one, the kind that does not change overnight.

So it‘s true, my relationship with Tom did not change on February 13th, 2009. It changed on many unmemorable days that lead up to February 13th, which we chose to mark as a landmark for romantic reasons. This relationship kept changing after February 13th, and still is.

To explain the title: I normally refer to Tom as my partner, rather than my boyfriend or fiancé.
Some may find this reference unromantic. However, he and I both believe, that it is the most accurate, and most romantic, term to describe our relationship. We are partners, we have chosen each other, to share everything, and to continuously be together, as best friends, companions, and romantic partners.

So when I refer to Tom as my partner, it is not to lessen the romanticism of our fiancaille, but to emphasize the continuity of our friendship, our commitment to always be together, and to always be there for each other.
So this is why I avoid using the provisional terms of reference. Partner is a definite description that changelessly describes Tom for me.

…It is not that our relationship doesn’t change, it is only that it doesn’t change on those days that we decide to celebrate it…

I think I’ll actually call him husband when we get married though, since that is not a provisional term

joint abstract :)

admin — Sun, 03 May 2009 01:06:19 +0000

Hagit and I submitted a joint abstract this week, it was awesome working on it. She did most of the writing, I was mostly thinking of the data and stuff… I really appreciate the fact that she was interested in writing an abstract with me… it was a great learning experience (though she didn’t seem convinced of it) - I learned how to control the paradigm, I got to see how she thinks, and I got to talk about my favorite topic to her for hours! it was great

Tom is here, and I’m on cloud 7 because of that I love this guy soooo much! He’s the bestest. (I am now on his EEE pc on campus because my internet broke)

End of semester fun

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:25:06 +0000

I had a small disagreement with C. - it’s weird that since we had that argument it’s been like a relief… I guess hanging otu with her was a downer… though that’s not a nice thing to say… she’s not terrible… anywhoo… doesn’t matter much

My plans are to spend June in Tampa… which is making me feel guilty towards my parents… I’m also spending the rest of May in Los Angeles, because I want to go to the California Universities Semantics and Pragmatics program’s meeting.

I have a presentation on Tuesday and I’m not ready for it… I rescheduled my meeting with Fang-Ying so I can use the time tomorrow to read for Audrey’s presentation… I’m feeling a bit stressed over this whole presentation thing… the worst punishment would be that I’d have to present my topic for Hagit’s half and then I’d have to write a paper about this underspecified stuff… meh… I need more structure still… I need to learn to come up with specific stuff on my own…

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:14:51 +0000

I’m screening tomorrow, and I am scared shitless…

They’re going to ask me simple questions that I’ll be too stupid to answer, and they will make me wish the earth would open up and swallow me… I’m so scared… I can’t believe I was excited about this yesterday…

Oh, and I added my advisor on Facebook… now I can’t procrastinate on facebook right before a deadline… she’ll see it… heh… that’s fine though, she’s cool.

Tom and I had a mini argument today… we’re fine though, we talked for hours after it… we’re always fine that’s how I know we belong together.

I could really use talking to Tom right now, but it’s like 3 am there and the poor guy is asleep… so I won’t call… I like picking on him and pretending I want to sleep with a woman without him knowing it’s so much fun hehe

Life is good. Shit happens, life is still good :)

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:08:43 +0000

You’d have to come from a place where the car breaks down sometimes, the power goes off sometimes, the roads are blocked sometimes, and the airport closes sometimes, to still find life beautiful when the money runs out sometimes.

Arifi quoted me on this on facebook, so I thought it’s cool enough to put on my blog