Exeter

Now since I've been here, which is about seven months now, I haven't been outside of London. Well, I did go to Italy in September and December, but when I say I haven't been outside of London I mean I haven't been to any other part of England. One time last year I did go to Chelmsford to borrow a classmate's computer, but since that's in Essex I don't count it.
Now living in London is an embittering experience. The people are utterly miserable and impossibly reserved, it's fantastically expensive, and the weather is permanently overcast, which I wouldn't have a problem with were the people a bit friendlier. As a result of this, I have had an increasingly negative view of this country. So this Easter weekend, a holiday was definitely on the menu for us, having been relegated to work and study for 7 long months.
Since we only had a few days off and, this being London, not much cash in hand, we had to go someplace close. There are dozens of small holiday cities around southern England, and after mulling indecisively about which one to escape to, we chose Exeter in the end, as it wasn't too far, it was close to the sea, and was rumored to have a fantastically beautiful coastline. So on Friday we set off.
We weren't disappointed. Maybe it was because of the prolonged period in London, but we found Exeter to be absolutely charming. The lack of people and slower pace of things took us aback, and people were actually friendly and spoke to you.
Now if you're ignorant of English geography like myself, Exeter is a medieval city on the coast in Devon, which is in southwest England, right next to Cornwall. It's a charming county abound with lush green hills, plenty of sheep, and thatch-roof cottages. It is indeed the English countryside of your imagination.

Devonshire.

Exeter is Devon's largest city and boasts a huge medieval cathedral, a good amount of Tudor houses several hundred years old, and a series of underground crypts and other historical gems, despite being nearly completely destroyed by Nazi air raids. We spent the first day exploring these little historical bits, and when it got gloomy and cold, we retreated to the warmth of the pub.

Longest uninterrupted medieval nave in the world.

Untouched by the war

On Saturday, we set out towards the real reason we came to Exeter: the Jurassic coast. Now being locked up in a concrete jungle for months on end makes one crave a bit of nature, and although London has vast, numerous parks, they're just not the same. So the Jurassic coast, which gets its name from the period in which its geological magnificence was formed, seemed like a good destination, as it is possible to walk along its cliffs and take in a good lungful of sea air while doing so. So we planned a decent hike along the coast and took the bus to the tiny fishing village of Beer (alas, no pic!!). From Beer, we had decided to walk west towards Sidmouth, about 7 miles, and then catch the bus back to Exeter. Shouldn't be too bad of a hike, we thought.

Beer

Well, trails are never as the crow flies, especially when you're hiking along hundred-foot cliffs and up and down combes every mile. It turns out we walked a total of about 9 miles. As we never exercise, or walk farther than the tube station, our legs were stiffer than wood at the end of the day, and we were absolutely knackered. But it was worth it. Have a look for yourself.

Pastures are indeed part of the trail.

Although the next day we wanted to relax our legs, it was our last day, and we took a walking tour of the city and went to a museum. Being Easter Sunday, all of the shops were closed and there weren't many people. It was perfect.
A bit later, we struck up a conversation with a kind couple in the pub from Cornwall who were also on holiday here. The conversation eventually turned to London:
"Yeah, London's horrible. Everyone's so miserable. And you've got all those different nationalities there! No, we'll stay in Cornwall, thankyouverymuch." It was nice to have a real conversation with real English people.
As we left the pub to head for the bus station, the sounds of musicians playing a medieval tune and the smell of Cornish pasties drifted down the street, and I thought, "England's not so bad after all."

Linguistics

Whenever I meet someone new when I go out, I am inevitably asked the question "What do you do?" I've never cared for the question, really. It doesn't seem fair to ask someone to sum up their life in a few words. But people expect a brief answer, so I say, "I'm a student," because that is what I do -- I study. Naturally, this leads to the question "What do you study?"
"Linguistics," I reply. The facial expressions of reaction are always different whenever I say this. Most of the time people don't know what this is. If they are familiar with it, they will most likely make some sort of reference to Chomsky. True, Chomsky is one of the pioneers of modern linguistic theory, but since I don't really study syntax I don't get into Chomsky that much. Indeed, his political commentary is personally more interesting, but that is another matter.
But if people aren't familiar with the field of linguistics, the painfully inevitable next question is "What's that?"
Now this is a difficult question to answer because most people expect a simple explanation. I usually just go for some Wikipediaesque answer like "Well, it's the science of language," but this really does the field a great injustice. Indeed, the subject of linguistics is so vast and covers such a wide range of fields of study that it would take me about half an hour to summarize all the aspects of the science. As a linguistics student, I am ashamed by my gross oversimplification, but I don't want to bore people. They want to know about me, not some obscure, fetishist science.
So, after explaining what I study in a brief fashion, the next question I usually get is naturally, "Oh, how many languages do you speak?"
This association that people form between linguistics and polylingualism perplexes me. Why does everyone assume that linguists are polyglots? Most are not. Sure, most linguists can speak more than one language, but a good deal don't. In fact, it's more likely that a professor of linguistics may be familiar with the grammars of dozens of languages, but be completely incapable of speaking them. Multilingualism is more the line of work of translators and interpreters than linguists. Of course, that's not to say that being able to speak several languages is not important for being a linguist -- because it is -- but linguistics in no way equals polylingualism.
So of course, I have to say, "Almost one," which is true. I could say that my Turkish is pretty good, but it does no good to boast. This response is usually met with an anticlimactic "Oh."
After this comes the linguistic anecdotes -- the observations about accents (especially between Americans and Britons), personal assessments of linguistic competence, Chomsky, geographic linguistic questions, grammatical questions, etc. Lately, I've noticed that these are always the same. In fact, every time someone asks me what I do the conversation that ensues is a near replica of the last one I had the last time someone asked me that question. And while I'm out just trying to have a drink and enjoy myself, I get sucked into talking about the same topics, again and again. Not that I don't like chatting about linguistic stuff; I do, but more interesting stuff. Like how Japanese speakers will hear epenthetic vowels that aren't there. Or how speakers will alter their speech to accommodate who they are talking to. Or how the formants in proficient bilinguals' L1 vowels will resemble those of the L2 over time. Why can't that stuff come up in conversation?

Regardless, I'll have to find something else to talk about soon, because as of yesterday I'm not really a student anymore -- term time has ended, and the rest of my time as a "student" will be spent writing my thesis. And with all the work that lies ahead of me, when I do take a break and go out for a social night I probably won't want to talk about linguistics!

Identity Crisis

The United Kingdom is in the middle of an identity crisis, which in itself calls into question the aforementioned official title. Perhaps "Great Britain" would be a better reference. No....actually, let's just use to term "Britain" from here on.
It is a succession of recent television series that leads me to jibe at the use of "United Kingdom". I actually think the appropriately misspelled Untied Kingdom would be more appropriate, but I'll try to stay PC here.
Of course, everyone around the world has a solid preconception of what "Britishness" is (and I already realize that an American prescription of Britishness may infuriate many to no end and be completely inappropriate for some, but please take it as it is -- based on more than 6 months of personal observation). Of course, we all think of cups of tea, red phone booths, bad weather and umbrellas, queues, Hackney Carriages, terrible food (have no idea where that one came from though), country cottages, and of course, that posh, intelligent-sounding accent. However, living in the UK will dispel any of these stereotypes of Britishness one may hold in their mind.
Perhaps my perceptions have been jaded because I have been living in London (which I am convinced is the most diverse and cosmopolitan city on the planet, hands down). But Britishness is none of these things, apparently. Sure, people drink lots of tea. And there are Hackney Carriages everywhere. And bad weather. And queues (If you're up there, thank you, God). But that's about as far as it goes. Being British is, apparently...........a dodgy question. For the residents of this country, at least.

I watched a couple TV programs recently. One was called Make Bradford British, the other Proud and Prejudiced. In Make Bradford British, some of Bradford's British residents (some white ladies and chaps) were made to live with some other British residents of the town (headscarfed Muslim woman, buff Islamist bodybuilder, razzy black chap, etc.). The point of the show was to make the people overcome their racial differences. In worked for the most part in the end, but the most interesting thing about the show -- and the topic that was most prevalent -- was the idea of "Britishness": the characters battled furiously about who was or wasn't British, despite all of the participants being born and bred under the Union Jack.

Similarly, Proud and Prejudiced documented two different groups of extremists in an English town (I believe it was Luton): far right English Nationalists EDL, who called for the expulsion of Muslims from the country, and Islamic extremists, who called for death to all English police. Naturally, both groups are "British". Yet their distinctly separate radical ideologies blurred any specific national identification.

Such polarized anger and a weekend out on the town in England might convince you that belligerence is what makes one British: the whites hate the non-whites, the non-whites despise the whites, the English English go out at the weekend and get unbelievably pissed and destroy the towns, vomiting over everything in the process (Britons behave badly at home, too), Muslims plotting attacks against their countrymen.....the list goes on. Underneath it all, there is a pulsing vein of anger underneath the skin of British society - the drunken husband beating his wife, the Asian man killing his sister to preserve the "honor" of his family, the unbridled drunkenness fueled by corner shop cheap liquor, the rage directed at queue jumpers and loud talkers on the bus...it manifests itself in many ways. One might think that being pissed off is what constitutes Britishness.

But it's not fair to sell the British short like so. I'm sure its not as cut-and-dry and simplistic as my American proclivities might impel me, as American identity is a matter of black and white.
But one thing is for certain - despite stereotypes established by decades, it is clear that the British have a new, inchoate sense of identity, and are struggling not simply to come to terms with it, but to define it.

Library

I just finished a most hellish two weeks which has been a delightful cocktail of early mornings at work, late nights, microwaveable pasty dinners, and about 12,000 words in assessments. Most of my late nights were spent in the library, where I like to go to escape from home during the day (from which I'll be leaving in a month anyway).
Now I realize that I might sound like an old curmudgeon by saying this, but I still go to the library to do work. Yes, in my day that's what libraries were for, silent studying and independent academic work. But that was long ago. Nowadays, libraries are for fun, games, and socializing. It's a highly social atmosphere, something like a mix between that dusty-book hipster cafe on the corner, a Korean gaming arcade, and a sports bar.
Yes, there isn't much you can't do at the library nowadays. It really is the all-purpose social hotspot. You can have a coffee and chat as loud as you want with your friends. You can play cricket in the stairwell. You can sing out loud if you want. You can make out with your latest fling. You can have a laugh watching YouTube videos with your friends, watch a football game, and check facebook or Weibo on one of the many computers in the library. Of course, if you need to go out for a bite to eat with your friends, you can just put the computer on lock so no one will take it when you leave, and whenever you decide to come back it will be there waiting for you.
Yes, we really are fortunate to have so many resources available to us as students that facilitate good use of time and socialization. It really makes for an enjoyable academic experience, and I was glad to have the hardest two weeks of the semester made easier by my time in the library.

Greenwich

Last weekend we finally decided to venture out and see some of this huge city we live in but unfortunately never have time to see. There are scores of places in London we have yet to see, but this time we settled on Greenwich.

Geographically, Greenwich is quite close to us - just past Canary Wharf across the river - but logistically, especially at the weekend because of routine Tube disruptions, it is a nightmare to reach. Nonetheless, we were saved by the Overground, and we made it there in due time.

Greenwich is a neat little riverside port town; well, at least is was in the past - I don't know if you could call it a town now that it has been swallowed up by greater London. But its charm lies in its atmosphere: with the Cutty Sark moored in the harbor and the brick terraced houses with hand-blown windows transports one back two hundred years. Well, on a few streets at least.

Just off the High Street, Cutty Sark masts in the distance

Aside from the charm of Greenwich proper, there is a large university with a broad, beautiful campus, a vast, hilly park, and several museums: the Queen's House, the Maritime Museum, and of course, as everyone knows, the Royal Observatory, the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian. Since we only had the afternoon, we set out through the park and up the hill towards the observatory, since Anna wanted to go to the planetarium and I wanted to see the Meridian and set my watch.

Royal Greenwich Observatory

If you get a chance to come to London, I recommend a visit to the Royal Observatory, as there is a wealth of information and interesting tidbits to be learned. Plus, the park is beautiful as well. The Observatory is the home to London's only planetarium (which is a bit disappointing considering London's status among global megacities), and the 24-hour clock that keeps Greenwich Mean Time is about a hundred and fifty years old.

GMT, with standard Imperial measurements beneath

Now that's a tree!

Oliver Squirrel says, "Please, Anna, can I have some more?"

Of course, almost all of London's museums are free - which is awesome - but the Observatory charges a fee to enter the Meridian Courtyard, home of the Prime Meridian and Greenwich's moneymaker. Of course, loads of stupid tourists (myself included) want to have their photograph taken standing in both hemispheres, so the courtyard is quite popular. Of course, I queued up along the zero-degree meridian too and had my picture taken, standing in both hemispheres.

Left foot Western, Right Eastern.

Anna & I, in our respective hemispheres

It's so English to queue along the meridian

The meridian is the hallmark of the observatory, and not only is there a line on the ground to mark it, but also a bright laser that shoots through the sky, marking the meridian. They say it goes for 15 miles at night, but because it's always cloudy here I don't think it often gets past the foot of the hill.

Meridian of the 21st century.

Of course, being at the observatory makes you think about all this meridian business. Why did the British Empire get to say, "Right chaps, we'll just make a line here in the middle of jolly Greenwich and that'll be the basis for the maps of the world"? Who gave them the right to cartographic hegemony?
Well, the Observatory exhibit gives quite a good answer for that. For the sea navigators of the past, traversing the world's oceans was a tricky business. Determining latitude was a breeze, because all you needed was an astrolabe and a bit of astronomic knowledge and you could determine how far north or south you were on the Earth's surface. Determining how far East or West you were, however, was a slippery pickle - what was the orientation point for East-West positioning? There wasn't one - determining such things required either the occurrence of specific astrological events, or the precise time with a global orientation point. Obviously the latter option was the better choice, so the English - having such a large navy and a good part of the world which needed controlling - decided to set down the navigational orientation point (the meridian at Greenwich) and spearheaded the task of developing a precise timekeeping mechanism that would function on a ship (up until that point, there were only pendulum clocks, which obviously don't work on a rocking ship), offering a 20,000 pound sterling prize in 1714 to anyone who could develop such a device (which today would be worth about $5 million, a substantial sum). Obviously the English weren't screwing around about this navigation business.
Anyway, with the observatory as the zero point for global East-West navigation and positioning methods, it only seemed natural that Greenwich should also house the standard time that was necessary for ships' clocks to be aligned with in order to calculate longitude, so appropriately Greenwich became both the home to the zero longitude line and the standard time (and they threw in Imperial measurement standards as well, for good measure [no pun intended]).

So thanks to Greenwich, we have standard time and accurate maps. Greenwich has also provided its bit to the English language as well (the most interesting factoid for linguist like myself). Atop the domed cupola on the house at the Observatory, a big red ball sits atop a flagpole. For the last 150 or so years, every day, the ball drops at exactly one o'clock PM. This was done so that the ships on the Thames River below could easily set their clocks to GMT, facilitating accurate navigation. Thus, to be on time was to be "on the ball", which is where the English expression originates.

The Observatory - keeping sailors "on the ball" for decades

After a day at Greenwich

Sign of the Times

The word of today has been 'counterintuitive'.

Here's an interesting article I found yesterday, for those reading who don't dredge the BBC nine times a day like myself. Considering the state of affairs today, the knowledge presented here is, indeed, counterintuitive.

But it gives you one more thing to be thankful for today.

Italian Christmas

For the third time this year, I found myself in Italy, albeit this time for the Christmas holiday.

Geographically Bormio is not particularly far from everything, but logistically it is a bit troublesome to reach. You have to catch a flight to Milan, and then get to the central train station, Milano Centrale. From Milano Centrale, a three-hour train ride north to Tirano awaits you. This is a nice train ride, as it follows the eastern shore of Lake Como and passes through the cutest villages as it ascends the alpine foothills. When you arrive in Tirano, you must catch a bus to Bormio, which can take up to 45 minutes or an hour. So by the time you make it to Bormio, you are knackered from having traveled all day (or sleeping poorly in Heathrow the night before, as was the case this time). However your effort is rewarded with sumptuous food and drink, doubly so during the holiday season.

The landscape is also rewarding.

That being said, not much was done while on holiday in Bormio this year. Christmas consisted of a giant lunch of too much food and antipasti, not much different from most of the other days we were there. I was glad to have aperitivo and some of the local gut-filling specialties again.

Baby Giaocomo's 1st Christmas

Rocking the alpini hat

We had hoped to do some kind of physical activity to counter all of this eating of course, but so far Bormio hasn't seen much snow. Nonetheless we took the gondola to Bormio 3000 to....eat! What else? The views were breathtaking (probably due to having a full stomach at such an altitude) and the food was just as delicious (awesome polenta!).

Bormio 3000

View from the top

Anna & Luca

Naturally, our time was too short, and what always seems like a long holiday ahead of time turns out to be a short one in which you never get to do what you plan to, but it was lovely regardless. Don't we always wish we could have more time? Or more room in our bellies?

Ciao Italia, see you soon!

The UK: Where pounds are pounds and pounds are hashes

Wasting time on a Friday night, something strange occurred to me.

£

This is a pound sterling sign, usually called a pound sign. On UK keyboards, this sign is on the "3" key, and you can input it by pressing Shift+3.

#

If you are from North America, this is a pound sign. On a US-International keyboard, this symbol is on the "3" key, and you can get this by pressing Shift+3 on the same keyboard. Elsewhere in the English speaking world, this sign is called a "hash". So essentially, the pound key occupies the same place on the keyboard no matter where you are from.

So what if you are in the UK and you need to type the pound sign? Well, you press Shift+3. OK, great. Now what if you're American and you are in the UK and you need the pound sign? OK....look look look at the keyboard aaaaaaaannnnd.....nope, no pound sign. Well, there's a pound sign, but it's not the one I need. Where is the pound sign? you ask your British friend.
It's on the 3, he says.
No, I mean my pound sign.
You mean the hash key?
Yeah, that's the one.
It's on the 3 key.
What do you mean? It's not there.
Oh, right. You have to press Alt+3 for a hash. #. OK, good.

Wait a minute. So in the UK the pound sign is where the pound sign is, but there's no pound sign there, only a pound sign. To get a pound sign, hold Alt and press the pound key, and you will get a pound sign, which is actually a hash. A pound is a pound but a pound is a hash. Got it?

Wait a tick...what's that next to the Enter key?

Queen Mary

I hated my time as an undergrad at Delaware. Well, I didn't hate all of it - I had some good times and I still have a lot of fond memories of the place - but I was pretty depressed most of the time I was there. Academically speaking, I was happy: I loved my professors and the courses I took, and I was a content and eager student. I learned a lot, and I am thankful for that. Socially, however, I was miserable: the shitty house parties, the shallow people, the same boring bars and few things to do, all of it made me unhappy. I just didn't fit into all of it, and I'm sure I can thank Delaware for my fondness for novels and drink. I suppose now though, when I think back on it, it wasn't too bad and that I'm probably being melodramatically whiny, but when I was there I couldn't wait to be done with it all. I remember the day I graduated from Delaware, when we had all gotten our replicate diplomas and all of the speeches were said and done, and everyone tossed their hats in the air....I think? See how memorable it was for me? Well, anyway, I remember that I didn't toss my hat, I just took it off and headed right for the fire exit, walked right out of the building without waiting for my family or friends and got right in my car and drove straight back to my apartment. I was done, and so happy to be done, and I wanted to get the hell out of there and away from uni.

But this time, at Queen Mary, things are much different. It sounds silly, but it's nice going to uni in a big city, and not only a big city but a big city in another country. It's nice to meet new people, and new professors, and learn something new.
I have already mentioned how busy I am, but I failed to mention that I am happy at Queen Mary despite workload and learning curve challenges. Since leaving Delaware, I have missed academia, and Queen Mary has been a deliciously sweet breath of fresh air.
Queen Mary's Mile End campus is small, but not too small. You see a lot of the same people from day to day, but there are enough nooks to escape to. It's small enough for all the administration to be in one building, and to walk across campus in about 5 minutes.
There are also a few cafes and whatnot for students to hang out in, and even a campus bar. Yes, a bar - coming from a teetotaling country, imagine my shock when I found this campus bar and its student-priced pints. I usually don't go there too often, because it has a kind of trashy environment, and usually undergrads go there and get pretty hammered, which is a little too reminiscent of DE for me. I was also taken aback at the Linguistics MA introduction party to see professors filling cups with wine and going around with bowls of chips and chatting. It was a bit kitschy, but delightfully friendly and the best way, in my opinion, to be welcomed into the department. Generally, however, I have been quite surprised by the acceptance of alcohol on campus, especially in a country where most everything is banned and you are watched on CCTV all day.
But thankfully, this lax attitude is ubiquitous around campus. It's quiet, tidy, and never too crowded (save the fire alarms, which are strangely frequent). It's (apparently) quite safe, and every Thursday there is a cutesy farmer's market in front of the Students' Union where vendors peddle organic produce and various overpriced grilled sandwiches which are gobbled up by overly trendy students (but hey, for most of them, they are licensed to that at this point in their lives). You know, the air about Queen Mary's campus reminds me of a poster/t-shirt that is popular here at the moment: it's a vertical Union Jack crested by a crown and the following phrase set in P-22 Underground - "Keep Calm and Carry On". Somehow, it seems quite appropriate here.
One unique and interesting feature of the campus here is the graveyard situated smack in the middle of the campus. Yes, a graveyard. And not any graveyard, a large Jewish graveyard; Mile End - the East End of London - used to be a largely Jewish area, although sadly you wouldn't guess it today. At the moment, much of the cemetery is enclosed by construction safety walls, but I think it is nice that they have retained it and are in the process of preserving it. It's always good to see history being saved, and it has the nice quality of reminding you that everything you learn here and all the money you spend on it will ultimately be a waste, a kind of aptly placed memento mori. It's also filled with squirrels, whose comical antics can be quite distracting and fun to watch when you get bored at the library.

Nuevo Cemetery

And the library is usually where I am while on campus. Queen Mary's library is by no means great - it isn't huge like UD's and most of the books are geared towards the sciences and engineering, but it's not bad. It's a bit strange for me because I never went to the library as an undergrad at Delaware, hated it; but at Queen Mary's library I find I am better able to concentrate and am less distracted than I am at home. Plus, there are a few good spots to hide and study. I have a favorite one tucked in a corner where there is a small table and a window looking out over the cemetery and the chemistry lab beyond with its fog-spewing nitrogen tanks.

If the library gets too crowded and loud, or all of its 162 computers are being used to check facebook, I go to the Lock-keeper's Cottage. The Lock-keeper's Cottage is an old house next to Regent's Canal where the Mile End lock-keeper used to live with his family, and which Queen Mary modified into a humanities graduate student center and tacked some pseudo-modern architecture onto. It's nice because you need to have a PGT card to get into, which means that it's usually quiet (aside from the occasional Spanish postgrad) and secluded, and, as it looks over the lock, a serene environment with the sound of water spilling through the lock and the *ting-ting* of bikers on the towpath opposite. There are always a few computers free there, and it's a good place to go and get some group work done while having a cup of tea, and watching the boats go through the lock.

The Lock-keeper's Cottage, in greener times.

The one thing Queen Mary does have in common with Delaware is the awesome staff - everyone in the Linguistics department has been so kind, helpful, and resourceful. There's no shortage of brilliance in that department, and despite occasional spoonfuls of condescension (which I suspect are deliberately placed to encourage us students, in an odd way), we are all on a first-name basis, which is quite nice. Everyone is approachable - human - and willing to go out of their way to help you. Or perhaps this perception of mine is just crossing the faculty social protocol between undergrads and graduate students? I doubt it, though. Regardless, I owe it to them and my studies here the past two months for helping me finally uncover my niche and find happy comfort in that.

On a final note, I should tell you about my favorite study partner, Phoebe Samuel Guedalla. She was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica in 1819 and now lies parallel to the library, outside the window of my favorite study nook. When I lose interest in sociolinguistic theory and its quantitative studies, I look out over her sarcophagus and daydream about her: what she looked like, who she was, how she came to England, and what she did with her life. Was she happy? Did she have children? Was her death peaceful? Could she have known in her life that she would one day be surrounded by a university? Will people think about me like I do her when I am long dead.....

And then I come back to reality, and phonetic variants no longer seem that important anymore. Perhaps that memento mori is a bit too potent and aptly placed.

Between Paradise and Damnation: Life as an MA Student

Last night, while waiting for my weekly seminar to begin, I was asked a strange question by a Linguistics PhD student: "What's it like being an MA student?" Hm, good question.

"It's a bit like purgatory," I replied. For some reason that was the first thing that came out of my mouth, but as I thought about it, it made a lot of sense - life as an MA student is a bit like purgatory. Why?

Well, it's a transient state, albeit one that feels like an indefinite amount of time despite knowing when you'll be finished. I know that at a certain point next year I'll be done with all this and there should be some feeling of accomplishment at that point, but I'm not exactly sure how long it will be until then. The future is clouded by strange clouds of deadlines, IPA, vowel variation graphs and statistics.

The intellectual purgatory is more poignant than the existential one, however. At one end of the spectrum, you feel a bit proud and envision yourself a learned scholar, delusionally placing yourself in a type of premature 'intellectual paradise': you can read most of the dense academics texts with ease, difficult concepts come fairly easily, and in class you can answer the questions that leave the undergraduates in an embarassing stuporous silence. You feel glad you're not in their shoes - you got that bit over with years ago, you're ahead of the game now. You're on your way.

And then you go to your MA seminar to be licked by the torturous flames of intellectual hell. You think you're clever? An hour with your MIT-trained professor will tell you otherwise. As you listen to them lecture on about unergatives and unaccusatives and raising analysis in Gurung syntax you think, "Damn, I haven't got a clue. How the fuck did they get so smart? Where do they learn this stuff? How can I learn it? Where do I start?"
The lecture soon goes on an off-topic tangent: "So, what are your linguisitic interests?" You know that you like languages and have a bit of a knack for them and that you want an MA because you think it will help you out professionally down the road but you've got no clue about which specific areas you'd like to focus on and besides Linguistics is such a big field full of interesting stuff how does anyone ever figure it out anyway?.....
You try not to sound stupid and piece something together quickly: "Well, I was a teacher for a bit, so I'm interested in bilingualism and code-switching, but on the technical side of things I'm fascinated by syntax and its relationship to semantics." At least when you become an MA student you get upgraded to a Grade B bullshitter.
"Oh, really!? Well you should talk to Dr. So-and-so about that he's working on a book about..." Yeah, that'll make me feel better. You hope that the topic of dissertations doesn't come up, because you've got less of a clue about that than ontological questions about the existence of God.

"Have you got any questions?" you are asked at the end of the seminar.
"More than when I came here, thanks," you reply.
"Don't worry if you don't understand a lot of the material," Professor Genius explains. "Most of your master's career you're not going to understand a lot and you'll have more questions than answers, but it does get easier."
"Is this from personal experience?" Professor Genius pauses thoughtfully.
"It's from experience. Don't worry, it'll get easier." You leave the seminar wondering if this is just standard mawkish consolation for all fresh graduate meat or if it really does get easier, and also if there was any condescension guised in all of that.

One thing is for sure, though - you've got a lot of catching up to do, on top of your weekly reading and the four new computer programs to be learned. Don't forget you have a linguistic interview due next week, and you've got to design an experiment by next month. Oh, and don't forget you've got to sort out the path of your academic career soon, too.

But that's why you've come here in the first place, isn't it? To learn?