Points of note:
I flew here from Montreal, by way of Toronto and Calgary, i.e. it's been a freaking long day. I can't even imagine what it's like for the people who are coming here from Europe, or Asia. (yeah yeah, "poor me" suffering in California) The flights went well and the connections were smooth. And oh yeah, I'll never again fly anything other than Executive class (thank God for other people's air miles!)...
Seriously. More leg room, free food and (non-boozy) beverages (reminder: this is Air Canada, the company that "doesn't feed you"), and really attentive flight attendants (ha). The food really caught me off-gaurd. Breakfast was a swiss cheese omelet with herbed grilled potatoes and coffee that was actually pretty tasty. Then for lunch, slices of beef with delicious, properly cooked (still somewhat crispy) vegetables on the side. Oh, and an obscenely delicious Lindt caramel-cruncy-chocolatey thing.
So now I find myself in room 208 of the Branner dormitory. The setup's not bad. A room with three beds, and a room with three desks. It's clean and functional. I'm all set. I also know where I'm supposed to go when my courses start tomorrow, since I walked all over campus with Alan looking for the phone cards mentioned earlier.
Alan? Yeah, he's one of my roommates. Once I've got a Flickr account set up, you'll get to meet him. Had dinner with him and chatted a bunch. Seems like a really nice guy, so that'll definitely make the month go by more smoothly. Of course, Other Roommate hasn't shown up, yet, and for all I know his name is Hugh Jass. Time will reveal all.
Anyway...I'm tired and have managed to pack a remarkably small amount of content into a somewhat lengthy (read "blathering") post. I'll keep things shorter once things are up to speed. Think "end of a Doogie Howser episode"...
I'm out.
post scriptum: This blog's title question is what nearly all laypeople ask you when they find out that you're a linguist. Giving an honest, and informative non-dismissive answer to this is more effort than I'm generally willing to put out. I used it here because it's what the customs agent asked me when he saw where I was going.
- I am writing this from Stanford, California (attending the LSA2007 Summer Institute).
- California actually looks just like it does in the movies---palm trees, hacienda-style homes, the whole bit. There's something vaguely reassuring about that.
- It feels like I'm visiting a past that I never had. As a youth, I harboured fantasies of becoming a great professional skateboarder (OK, I still harbour those fantasies---see my profile). I was an avid reader of skateboarding magazines and used to read about these mystical places with names like "Embarcadero" and "Escondido", and I saw both of those names on the way here from the airport. Trippy.
- There are no places to buy long-distance telephone cards on campus during the weekend, ostensibly leaving me without means of informing my wife AM that I have arrived in one piece, even though I promised her that I would call ASAP. Tsk. As it happens, I managed to connect with a buddy who made the call for me. Nice how friends do stuff like that.
I flew here from Montreal, by way of Toronto and Calgary, i.e. it's been a freaking long day. I can't even imagine what it's like for the people who are coming here from Europe, or Asia. (yeah yeah, "poor me" suffering in California) The flights went well and the connections were smooth. And oh yeah, I'll never again fly anything other than Executive class (thank God for other people's air miles!)...
Seriously. More leg room, free food and (non-boozy) beverages (reminder: this is Air Canada, the company that "doesn't feed you"), and really attentive flight attendants (ha). The food really caught me off-gaurd. Breakfast was a swiss cheese omelet with herbed grilled potatoes and coffee that was actually pretty tasty. Then for lunch, slices of beef with delicious, properly cooked (still somewhat crispy) vegetables on the side. Oh, and an obscenely delicious Lindt caramel-cruncy-chocolatey thing.
So now I find myself in room 208 of the Branner dormitory. The setup's not bad. A room with three beds, and a room with three desks. It's clean and functional. I'm all set. I also know where I'm supposed to go when my courses start tomorrow, since I walked all over campus with Alan looking for the phone cards mentioned earlier.
Alan? Yeah, he's one of my roommates. Once I've got a Flickr account set up, you'll get to meet him. Had dinner with him and chatted a bunch. Seems like a really nice guy, so that'll definitely make the month go by more smoothly. Of course, Other Roommate hasn't shown up, yet, and for all I know his name is Hugh Jass. Time will reveal all.
Anyway...I'm tired and have managed to pack a remarkably small amount of content into a somewhat lengthy (read "blathering") post. I'll keep things shorter once things are up to speed. Think "end of a Doogie Howser episode"...
I'm out.
post scriptum: This blog's title question is what nearly all laypeople ask you when they find out that you're a linguist. Giving an honest, and informative non-dismissive answer to this is more effort than I'm generally willing to put out. I used it here because it's what the customs agent asked me when he saw where I was going.
1 comment:
I hear you're also a computer scientist... "Do you know excel?"
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