Baby's First Conference

WELL. I thought post-dissertation life would mainly involve luxuriating in front of the TV watching endless repeats of Murder She Wrote, but it turns out to be even busier than before!

Alongside PhD applications, conference abstracts, and discussing potential teaching opportunities, I have started a new job; I'm now Project Officer for the Temporal Co-ordination in Communication project run jointly by York and Cambridge universities. My role sounds far more fancypants than it actually is, but basically I am working on gesture and rhythm in speech, and analysing audio and visual data in various ways to investigate how participants negotiate communication using both their voices and bodies. It's SUPER interesting, and I'm enjoying it immensely - I learn about eight thousand new things a day, and working on an actual linguistics research project is the most amazing opportunity.

Wednesday saw my lovely bestie Becky visit Grand Old York, and we had a fabulous time getting spontaneous piercings, exploring the city and the Minster and such (I love any opportunity to go Full Tourist; despite living here for a year, it never gets boring), and kicking through bright autumn leaves like the big kids we are. Subsequently joined by Ed, we all later prepared my house for a Hallowe'en party which went off wonderfully*, with costumes ranging from the typical (ghosts, skeletons, etc.) through a-typical (Caeser, Alice Cooper), to the quite magnificent (a zom-bee, from an apiologist friend). My offering was Daphne from Scooby Doo**:

Jinkies

Following a fantastic few days (and a discombobulating trip around Illuminating York, which you honestly couldn't have thought up unless you were in some kind of trippy fever dream), a different Becky and I headed off to Manchester for the New Researchers Forum in Linguistics, where we would both be presenting our MA research.

I've never been to a conference before, let alone presented at one, so the whole experience was terrifyingly exhilarating. I learnt a staggering amount (with several of the talks being directly relevant to my work, which was incredible), met some truly wonderful people I very much hope to see again, and according to Sam, did my first conference 'properly' i.e. went out to the pub the night before giving my presentation.

My talk had run long every single time I did it, but I think the nerves of the day brought out my usual, jabbery self and I garbled my way through it just on time without missing out too many important points. Questions were helpful and not too intimidating, and people were wonderfully lovely about the whole thing. I know I have a tendency to a) ramble and b) flail about, so it's good to know people got the jist despite my ridiculousness.

Giving it my best presentation face (photo by Becky).

I think the best bit about the weekend was just being able to casually chat about, amongst other things, linguistics and language with like-minded, lovely folk who are just as keen-beany as I am. Glorious. I can see why conferences are so addictive!

One final thing that came from the weekend was a sprawling Twitter-based game of #linguistmovies, which spread into #linguistsongs, and got so fun I decided to collect everything together here - a page which will no doubt be constantly extended, as we continue to furiously procrastinate from our real work by making terrible/excellent puns. Hell yeah, linguists.

*even with the presence of a Jimmy Savile costume, despite my assurance that I wouldn't let anybody in if they were dressed up like him. Not big or clever, guys.

**I'm more of a Velma myself, but my hair is the right colour for Daph.

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside

I am British. As such, when I experience freak, out-of-season sunshine, I roll up my trousers, throw on my douchebag sunglasses and defiantly bake myself. 'It's March!' the haterz cry, 'March, you fools!', yet I push my fingers into my ears and chime 'la la la I'm not listening' as my pale, pale skin pinkens within five minutes of seeing the sun.

Yes, for the last week we've been experiencing a HEATWAVE. I should, by all rights, dislike the sun, being the palest of pale Janets who burns preposterously easily, but as soon as the sun comes out I'm infected with SPRING FEVER, wherein I listen to happy-clappy folk music non-stop, skip in public and beam at strangers. I don't dislike the late-in-year seasons, but spring and summer are my favourites, and make me even more giddily enthusiastic than I already am. Which is saying something.

Caught up in the spirit of the sunshine, Becky and I decided that we very much needed to sack of any work we should have been doing and hotfoot it to the seaside. Enlisting Alex, Jamie and Ellen, we got an early train to Scarbrorough on Thursday morning, and spent the day being achingly touristy and embarrassing, and loving every second.

After eating our lunch on the beach at 10.30am (deciding early on that we were totally buying fish and chips later on), we steadfastly refused to move from the sand as the day took its sweet time heating up. (Hoodies on the beach - yeah, we did the whole, clichéd shebang.) Cheering when the sun finally showed its face, we proceeded to play tick, leapfrog and show off our manifold gymnastics skillz.

Y M C A!

Y O R K!

We then preceded to eat our bodyweight in seaside-y treats (fish and chips, ice-cream, doughnuts, rock), before making the sensible decision that we should swim in the North Sea. In March. Yup, five postgrad students thought that would be a good idea. We managed about half an hour of intermittently running in and out of the water and screaming bloody murder as it froze our respective reproductive organs, which was a thoroughly enjoyable endeavour despite it making our skin actually burn with the cold.

My cornea-burning fashion sense: let me show you it.

Sunny, smiley beachfolk.

It was basically the most delightful of days, spent with the most delightful of people, and was the perfect break from the essay madness that has been clutching us in its grasp. One assignment down, with another to go, plus two exams and a dissertation proposal to prepare for, it's been heavy duty, of late. But with seaside sojourns as joyful as this one a possibility, I realise how lucky and happy I am right now.

THINGS

You know what is delightful? THINGS. THINGS are delightful. Here, have some THINGS that are delightful.

A PICTURE. Specifically, a picture of Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle, holding a picture of themselves taken in 1988, wherein they are holding a picture of themselves taken in 1951. LINGUISTCEPTION. (source)



A VIDEO. Specifically, a video of Michael Buble being sassy and ridiculous, and then adorable and hilarious as he sings with a 15-year-old kid from his audience. 'Holy shitballs, mom!' - BUBLE YOU CHARMING FUCKER.

Interviewer: If three spirits appeared before you on Christmas eve, what would they have to show you to change your beliefs?

Brian Cox: It's my view that the existence of ghosts would contravene the second law of thermodynamics. The principle of the conservation of energy, and the fact that entropy always increases; you'd be hard put to throw that away. You'd have to rip the book up; that's what it would imply if you saw a ghost. I would say, "I could not be any more surprised than I am by the fact that thermodynamics appears to be shit."

A QUOTE. Specifically, a quote from the magnificent Brian Cox, sciencey sex god and specimen of Northern excellence.

You know what else is delightful? An afternoon spent with tip-top humans making mince pies and extolling the virtues of hyperbole, and an evening spent exchanging crude and inappropriate Secret Santa gifts. I love ALL THESE THINGS.

Sorry, I'm jovial. Humour me.