The Categories of: JOB

I seriously want a job.
Today I went to the Career Cal Job Fair, and it was awful. Just terrible. How is it possible that I spent the last five years of my life working my ass off so I could get a double major from one of the best universities in the world, and I can't find a job doing what I love? At the fair, there were basically ZERO jobs for linguists or for French majors. Once I realized this God-awful-fact, I went into a state of almost-panic and flirted with the idea of becoming a high-school teacher. (Which, by the way, was the only job I was qualified to apply for according to the Job Fair).
I quickly discarded this idea, as it was a really bad one: I do NOT want to teach high schoolers. I never have wanted to. I hated high school, why would I want to go back?

Every job that I have seen basically falls under these three categories:
a- Teach
b- Need some sort of Business degree
c- Only need high school diploma. Doesn't pay a living stipend

I don’t know what to do anymore. I have applied to what seems like a million jobs since this semester started and nothing, nada, rien. Merdeeeeeeee.

Just Another Day at Berkeley

The Triad: My Female-Power group of three. We RULE the Ling and French majors!!! When our forces are combined, there is nothing we can't do (no matter what the language). It is sad that this semester we were not able to take a class together.
Reasons why we are The Triad:
-Laurel is blond. Jacqueline is a red head, and I am the brunette. We are like the Charlie's Angels of the Ling. Department.
-We all wear glasses.
-We study a lot!! (notice the picture)
-We all have really cute and loving boyfriends.
-We are very different from eachother, but we love to hang out (when our schedule permits).

There, I Said It: I Am Afraid

I don’t like doing introspections because I’m always afraid about what I might find. I’m always afraid that what I have been taught, what I have believed, will go against the core of what I really am, the actions that I take, and the outcomes of the actions that I take. I am perpetually scared of myself. So, I compartmentalize and concentrate on getting my next homework done, on making dinner, on being s good student, on doing a million things every day and exhausting myself, so that I don’t have to deal with myself.
I don’t know where this fear comes from, as I have never really been ashamed about anything that I have discovered so far. And, the things that I have learned, I like a lot. However, the possibility of cognitive dissonance remains.

I am afraid about how things influence me. Everything influences me, whether I like it or not. Nobody can help it. Your everyday input, the news, your family and friends, the stranger who looked at you on the street, the magazine cover that you barely glanced at. They all influence you in one way or another; some in very subtle ways, others bluntly. I feel it. I wish I could control it, but I can’t.

I am afraid about graduating, because for the first time in my life I will not be an official student. I’ll be set loose in the world with a diploma and fading memories of linguistic concepts and SLUgS’ parties. I have always identified myself with being a student, so much that it has become part of my personality. Sometimes I feel that I can’t imagine myself as anything other than a student, and that thought also scares me. The thought of not being able to divorce myself from the idea of being a student lead me to the decision that I cannot go to grad school right after college. I must get out into the real world! I must be something more than a student. I must. I must not be afraid.

Oski must be the worlds BEST university mascot

Oski and I are best friends. Look at our picture:

(picture taken by Prathna M, my "super"-friend)

I took the picture because I am graduating soon, and I wanted to have a nice way to remember all the football games I had to miss while I was a student at CAL because I was studying or working.

Real Syntax: the reality TV show

In a world where reality TV shows are based on fakeness, you need something to ground you, something REAL that you can watch on TV and feel good about. REAL SYNTAX is the answer to quest for the next big hit!
The object of this new super-series is to record natural conversation and dialogues on TV, from a group of people, and provide the data to linguists around the world!! Occasionally the people on the show would be submitted to stressful situations, with the object of eliciting speech … to see what grammatical constructions they would pronounce.
The show will analyze dialects, show the vast array of pronunciations of a single word, and tackle such issues as non-standard English, Spanglish, and much, much more. The contestants would also talk about the meaning associated with the way they communicate, and the subtle nuances of their particular idiolects. You'd be surprized about how fierce people can be about the way they speak!

The data about phonology, morphology, semantics, phonetics, and of course, syntax, would be fed to linguists around the world!!!

I would like to do a survey concerning the viability of such a TV show. Please leave a comment with your opinions.

I have so much stuff to do

Tomorrow is a big day. I have papers to write and places to be. I cannot have insomnia. Yet, here I am, 1:28 am, awake. Maybe my body tricked itself to believing it was in France out of pure will power.
According to Wikipedia, this is the definition of insomnia: "Insomnia is characterized by an inability to sleep and/or to remain asleep for a reasonable period. Insomniacs typically complain of being unable to close their eyes or "rest their mind" for more than a few minutes at a time. Insomnia is a symptom, though a common misconception is that it is itself a sleep disorder. Insomnia is most often caused by sleep disorders, but other causes include fear, stress, anxiety, medications, herbs and caffeine. An overactive mind or physical pain may also be a cause. Finding the underlying cause of insomnia is usually necessary to cure it."

Maybe this is producing the anxiety/over-working brain that will not let me sleep:

I saw this flier at La Pena Cultural Center last Sat. when I went to a Venezuelan concert. It has been haunting me ever since. What on earth does it mean? I don't want to find out.

Zombies Are Back

... And boy are they better than ever. Did you know that the notion of "Zombie" is said to have its origins in the Hiroshima Bombing attack? The Japanese survivors looked like zombies after the bomb exploded... They way American society coped with the destruction it had caused was to transforme it into entertainment, a fantasy; make the zombie the enemy: and a new genre of Hollywood movies began.
Please check this link for more information about the current situation of Zombies in Hollywood.

Decisions, Decisions...

My boyfriend came up with the lovely idea of having this on the SLUgS t-shirts for this semester:

Choose a Major. Choose Linguistics. Choose your phonation, fricatives, and cognates. Discover the etymology of pain, write a paper about it, and get a C. Choose to talk in Breathy voice for a day. Choose to talk about glottal stops to random people.
Choose the IPA, choose syntactic ambiguity and wonder who are at 3am
Yell fricative and see if people get upset.
Choose your future.
Choose SLUgS.

Alan told me that he got the idea from the movie TRAINSPOTTING. I thought it was a super cute little poem about linguistics and our college group. I set out to see the movie, a classic representative of the 90s, and what did I find?: Grossness taken to the next level, depravity and, to a certain extent, truth. If you have ever seen this movie then you know what I am talking about.
My problem now is that I am debating weather or not this poem, which makes reference to such a sick movie, should be on my very-wholesome group t-shirt. I still like the poem.

Life Should be a Long Spring Break!

I am in Monterey for the remainder of Spring Break. I came here because I thought I would be able to get some work done. HOWEVER, I was pleasantly wrong. Since I got here I have done neither job searching nor homework. It is super nice: I have the entire apartment to myself, and a virtually unlimited amount of play time. Today I feel inclined to make a little Mexican food for lunch, go on a long walk (if the weather permits) and read.

Spring, Spring, Wonderful Spring

Flowers are starting to spurt up in unexpected places!! I went through my closet and did a little Spring-Cleaning!!! I threw out clothes that I haven't worn in years!!! I'm so happy to be on Spring Break!!! More exclamation points!!!!!!

Il faut faire l’école buissonnière!

It has started. I will spend my mini école buissonnière (Spring Break) mostly applying for jobs, eating and -yes, it was unavoidable- doing homework. Ack!
I needed this break. Breaks from routines help you put life in a different light, perspective if you will, and help you see the “big picture”. I spend too much of my days worrying about the little things, such as Homework, wondering When will I find time for lunch? , Does this French word have an accent? and I wonder how much lunch I can afford with only three dollars and a nickel?
Now I will have a week to worry about the big things, like for example: What I will do with myself after I finish college? and How will it affect my future if I apply to this job and not that one?

I predict that by the time Spring Break is over, I will be left with the same question as always: Will the questioning ever end?? Fortunately I know the answer to this one: NEVER!

Happy St. Clover Day

First of all: I just finished re-writing for the third time a paper that is due tomorrow. You would think that after studying French for four years it would be easier to write a good paper in the language.

Second of all: I think men who wear cowboy boots on campus look funny. Maybe it has something to do with the heel. I gues they are entitled to, I mean, Berkeley is the Wild, Wild West, right?

No, they still look funny.

Third of all: I. Cannot. Get. Enough. Green. Tea. I love it. It is a shame that I recently lost my water bottle and can no longer take tea with me to school. I MUST buy a new water bottle... Or, or, I will dehydrate and disintegrate and turn into powered soap (the kind that doesn't lather).

Infinitely Mad

Polygamy is not a joke. It is not funny. It is an illegal practice in the United States. It is NOT something you make an HBO show about. Full story here.
This new show that HBO is starting makes me infinitely mad. Many women, here in the US, are born into sects where they are raised or brainwashed or forced into polygamous relationships. Since polygamy is illegal in the US, these marriages are kept secret = cloistered, uneducated women about their rights and the world outside of their sect. Women are beaten, psychologically tortured and emotionally devastated by this practice. Incidentally, incest is often an exploited resource because it is hard to recruit women who are not already part of the sect.
Women have very few options when it comes to getting out of polygamous sects and relationships, because normally this means abandoning everything about their life, including friends and family, that they know. They are also penniless, jobless, and for the most part uneducated.
TV has extraordinary power over the masses. I think that a show about a happy family with three wives makes polygamy look attractive, hip and fashionable. A TV show about a successful illegal practice has the effect of glamorizing that practice. When in truth, it is illegal and potentially very harming!

I know that not everybody who watches the show will instantly become polygamous. I understand that there are rights about free speech… But it is disgusting how people will use those rights to make a quick buck on a controversial subject instead of doing something beneficial for society.