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.

#BOOM

I am very sorry in advance for the tone of this post, which will be quite shamelessly giddy and slightly bragging, but please do allow me this little immodesty.

MA Linguistics, with Distinction

WELL THAT'S A BIT EXCITING.

Having had a weekful of sleepless nights and anxiety attacks waiting for my results to come out*, we were finally told our dissertation results on Friday. I was shaking like a leaf logging into e:vision, and promptly burst into tears upon finding out I'd managed to get the Distinction I was so, so hoping for.

Basically my reaction. For reals.

My dissertation was a little bit of a risk; there was little background, and the phenomenon I was investigating was entirely unattested. And thank the sun, moon, stars and cosmos it all worked out. This is so far beyond anything I could have imagined that I still haven't quite been able to process it.

So, yeah, I'm basically over the moon! This year has been both the best and worst of my life in parts, and I'm just so happy to have something to show for it, something I'm immensely proud of. And, of course, I am incredibly grateful for everybody who helped me stay sane; friends, teachers, counsellors, and my amazing family.

And now comes the next step; PhD applications are in the offing, and I'm presenting my dissertation at the Manchester Salford New Researchers Forum in Linguistics in a couple of weeks, my first conference. Both terrifying prospects, but incredibly exciting, and I feel so lucky to be where I am right now.

Onwards!

*Remember Little Miss Academic Insecurity? Yeah, this time of year is where that kicks into overdrive and starts to affect me physically as well as mentally. Fun times!

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Were this blog a real-life book, I would be dragging it out from under my bed and blowing dust off the cover. I have been spectacularly neglectful recently; dissertation-madness can take most of the blame, but in general it has been the most spectacularly awful two months*. Heartbreak! Family illness! Everyone I love having emotional breakdowns and crises at the same time! etc. etc. moan whinge.

I am only allowing myself the briefest of whines about all this gumph, however, because the whole damn point of this blog post is change! Newness! Epiphanies! I have one more week until I move into my new house for the year with a lovely bunch of new and old friends, and I am so ready for a change I can't even tell you. New house, new academic year, new ventures - I'm currently looking for work in York, while I spend the year applying for PhD schemes and funding. Really looking forward to getting to know new people, developing new skills and having a bit of a brain break. (Not too much, mind. I'm presenting at the Manchester Salford New Researchers Forum in Linguistics in November - aaaaaah!)

In amongst all the ANGST of the past few months, I have found both solace and eternal frustration in my dissertation, which I submitted eight days ago.

It liiiives.

My preeeecious. Good lord it's terrifying thinking that someone may currently by hacking at this with a red pen, cackling wildly at my terrible prose and ludicrous ideas. I'm working on a blog post that will (hopefully) explain the content of the thesis in non-linguisticky terms, so I will refrain from doing that now, but it has been a labour of love getting it done, and - much as I'm worried about the impending judgement - I'm proud of it.

The MA has finished with a fizzle rather than a bang. Variable deadlines, people going on holiday and a general bereft melancholy that has beset us all has meant that there wasn't really a definitive ending to the whole thing. The finicky time between submitting and moving house has been filled with seeing people before they leave, museum-visiting and frantic job-applying. I feel really lucky that I've made great friends with people from various far-flung corners of the world this year, and hope to visit lots of them in the future. Today's particularly tearful goodbye was to Ali and Bri, two wonderful, wonderful girls who have made this year immeasurably better. You know people are friends for life when they screech AVPM songs with you at 2am <3

And today? Today I have fallen in love with cycling. I bought some roller blades a couple of months ago; I was always more of a skatey child than a bikey one, so wanted to reignite my love of skating. I did, but the pavements and roads around York and prohibitively bad (cobbles! *shakes fist*), and it just wasn't viable to use it as a method of transportation. I'm going to keep skating recreationally, but I bought Ali's bike from her to give that a go instead.

IT'S WONDERFUL. I now wish I'd had a bike this year - I was so worried I'd be bad after so many years off, but, whaddya know, riding a bike really IS like riding a bike! I fancied getting out of the house today, so I cycled off with no particular destination in mind, and ended up accidentally cycling about 20 miles altogether! Around local villages, up and down the Ouse, and the whole Solar System route, all in beautiful sunshine, taking in the most wonderful Yorkshire scenery. My thighs may not forgive me tomorrow, and I am already suffering from sore butt syndrome, but it was such a wonderful way to spend and afternoon. I returned quite invigorated :)

Cycle-weary, but sunshiney happy.

At the final solar system point - Pluto. Still a planet, dammit!

More regular blog posts, including (I hope) more cycling adventures, to come!

*I appreciate I haven't updated since the end of May, but shh.

Teacher appreciation LIFE

This post had been kicking around in my drafts for about a week, when yesterday I discovered that today is National Teacher Appreciation day. What serendipity! And so, here is a waffly blog post about teaching, and why teachers are tip-top humans.

'Those who can, do. Those who can't do, teach.' And those who trot out this old adage can get stuffed. Those who give enough of a shit that they devote their lives to enabling others to do, teach. Teachers are heroes, inspiration, the best of people. I know it's clichéd, and I'm sure repeated watchings of Mona Lisa Smile* have given me an even more romantic view of teaching, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn't be where I am without the effort, support and general brilliance of several staggeringly excellent teachers. Yeah, I'm passionate about learning, and about linguistics specifically, but if through random happenstance I'd not progressed through my schooling having been taught by the people I was, I'm not entirely sure I would be this excited, this driven, this in love with studying.

**

At my high school, every single student between years seven and nine was terrified of Mr Taylor. He was a force of nature, and everyone knew not to cross him, lest face his wrath. And what a wrath it was - he could stand inches from your face and bellow at you, never faltering, almost sinister in his eloquence. Thankfully, this never happened to me, but I saw it many a time, and that was more than enough to stop me crossing him. Of course, it didn't help that Mr Taylor was also a PE teacher, and thus his yelling was also heard on freezing November afternoons as we did cross-country running (or as it was more commonly known, institutionalised torture). Basically, we were shit-scared of the man.

Then came GCSE English, and Mr Taylor was assigned our set. It was like knowing a different man. Mr Taylor smiled, laughed and joked his way through our lessons, vibrant and hilarious but still with an incomparable command of the class (probably from the residual fear that he'd explode - the man crafted his reputation well). He encouraged critical thought, pushed us to be better, but mainly let us feed off his enjoyment of the subject, of poetry and prose, of literary history.

I remember his teaching of Second World War literature in particular. I can recall his explaining the translation of "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori"; needing us to understand the terrible irony of the 'glories of war' was incredibly important to him. And the pause, during Wilfred Owen's Disabled, after he read 'In the old times, before he threw away his knees' -- I've never quite been able to shake the power of that line, and I think the pain in his reading of it is the reason. He cared so much, about history and suffering and the importance of art and literature in allowing a generation who never had to live through it to understand, to appreciate what came before them, and how we're able to live so well now.

As is a pattern with all of these teachers, I was a bit of a pet to Mr Taylor. Not because I was particularly academically adept, but I spoke up in class, and went to him for extra help. He used his lunchbreak to gently dissect a piss-awful poem I wrote and help me to draft another (to this day, I remain a piss-awful poet, but he did help), and another to calm me when I freaked out about reading the bit in Great Expectations where Mrs Havisham catches fire and dies, and to read that section through with me, making sure I was okay after every few lines. We also bonded over being Manchester City fans, and thus started my long career of pretending to know more about football than I actually do. At one parents' evening, as my folks sat down at his desk, he said 'Hannah's doing fine - so, did you see the match last night?' and proceeded to talk to my dad about City for fifteen minutes.

When we left year 11, he wrote the whole class a poem (still pinned to my noticeboard), which contained a line for each of us. He also wrote individual poems for a few of us, and I can remember mine off-by-heart, even now.

Hannah Leach
A blue
Good for you
Stay true
To your calling

Hannah Leach
The beach
Lies across the water
Don't do what you think
Do what you ought to
And the sun lounger will be yours

I hope I never forget that.

We went back to see Mr Taylor a few times after leaving school, but haven't been in over a year now. I hope I get to see him again, but more than that, I hope he knows the lasting effect he had on our class. (I'm realising this is getting a bit Dead Poets Society all up in here. I promise none of these stories end with a classmate shooting themselves and a bunch of us standing on tables.)

To complete the picture, a school-aged Han (who apparently only had one photo-pose)

**

Then came college. In my second year, I studied English Language and Literature with the same teacher - Stewart McNicol. Here again was a a teacher who gave a shit, who was interested and interesting, and a little bit weird. He taught us about diphthongs by talking about hyaenas, schooled us in l337 speak, and littered child language acquisition lessons with anecdotes about teaching his infant son the word 'meteorologist' so he'd look super smart when anybody asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He just enjoyed it.

Stoo also invented McNicol's Gallery of Tedious Anthropomorphism, a new instalment of which greeted us nearly every lesson, and elicited a welcome chuckle.

One of the things I remember most clearly is, when talking about books written for children and their simplified syntax, I spontaneously quoted Black Books without thinking - 'look in the alligator's mouth: it's not there either!' Being met with stony, confused silence from my fellow classmates, Stoo finished the quote - 'we all drank lemonade, the end!' - simultaneously a) making me feel like less of a moron, and b) cementing himself as teacher-type extraordinaire.

Since leaving college, Stoo has been kind enough to help me complete my undergraduate dissertation, giving up his free time for naught more than a bag of Tangfastics. Actually, considering he follows me on Twitter, there's every chance he's reading this sycophantic waffle right now. If so, cheers, Stoo!

**

My lucky streak extended into University, where I was fortunate enough to be taught by some cracking linguists, many of whom had paved the field of linguistics in the first place. (I still get a frisson of excitement when I see a book and think 'the author of that book taught me!') Specifically, I was particularly felicitous to be taught extensively by Kevin Watson. While I loved English Language at A Level, it was my three years at Lancaster University that saw me actually fall head-over-heels in love with Linguistics, and Kevin had a LOT to do with that. Here again was a teacher who radiated enthusiasm for the subject, who took pride in the field, and who was sure of its importance and relevance.

Kevin also supervised me through my dissertation, and the man deserves a MEDAL for putting up with me. One time, having gotten nowhere with an assignment for a course he didn't even teach, he sat quietly by as I cried and waffled about the Turkish noun data in front of me that just didn't make any sense god dammit, and calmly told me that I just needed to read a bit further and think a bit harder, and - lo and behold! - having found the right book in the library, it all finally clicked. He made me feel like I could actually do something in this field, make an impact, and do it well.

Beyond that, he's just a damn good teacher. Eloquent without being confusing, clear without being patronising. And, sharing a common thread with the other brilliant teachers I've mentioned, he gave a shit. He cared.

And a uni-aged Han (no seriously, why do I only have one pose/expression when a camera is pointed at me?)

 **

There have been times where I've felt more of a nuisance than a pupil, and generally discouraged from doing anything innovative, challenging, or left-field. Instead, I've felt encouraged to sit back, take the easy option, to not really try. It happens, and while I don't blame certain teachers for occasionally being this way (teachers have bad moods too!), it can be disheartening.

I've been struggling, lately, feeling a little lost academically. And then last week, I had a brilliant meeting with an MA lecturer, who - yet again - seemed to give a shit, and who encouraged me not to abandon my ideas. Good teachers make me I feel like I can do stuff, and do it well. I now have to actually do the stuff, of course, but the encouragement I've received throughout my academic career has been absolutely invaluable.

Teachers are heroes, and a good teacher can make a cosmos of difference.

*I knowww, it's terrible, but it's so pretty! And their faces! And the clothes!

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.

Little Miss Academic Insecurity

Today marked the ceremonial First Day I Have Cried Over An Assignment. I knew it was coming, as did everyone who knows me (and knows that crying is my unfortunate default reaction to any emotional stimuli: joy, fear, grief, excitement, awe, love - TEARS). Emotional breakdown over, I was yet again consumed with embarrassment at just how much of a ridiculous human I am. My academic insecurity bit is completely tired*, yet I can't seem to shake it. I find myself clinging to my transcripts until my knuckles go white because, when they're torn away from me, I literally am empty-handed.

It's always been the grades thing for me. I'm one of those 'Jack of all trades, master of none' types - though whether I'm even a 'Jack' of some trades is doubtful. I can doodle, but I'm no artist. I can hold a note, but I'm no singer. I can dance, but I was never the best at that. I don't speak another language, play an instrument, and - while I can string a sentence together - I'm no writer. But academia is my thing.

It by no means comes naturally; I have to work (and work, and work and work and work) to get decent grades, but the pay-off comes from the satisfaction of knowing that I did it - that someone else gave something I did the gold star of approval. Maybe that's a damning indictment of my terrible habit of getting validation from others rather than myself, but we'll leave that for the psychoanalysts (though they'd probably link it to the whole cliché of parental pressure and judgements, and they probably wouldn't be far off the money). But whatever it says about me, I'm not sure I'll ever really be able to shake that desperate need to get an A, lest my life and endeavours be rendered null and void.

I frustrate myself - I know how daft it is to have one's self-worth tied up in a bunch of essays, for crying out loud, and yet I panic and I worry and I work myself to sickness to make sure I do well. Academic insecurity is not the worst thing in the world to be ~afflicted with, and my tendency towards the hyperbolic probably makes my talking about it melodramatic and tiresome, but I honestly do worry what I would be without it. What am I, if not Hannah Who Is Good At Essays?

Oh self, you are a silly thing. The daftest thing of all is that this assessment isn't even graded. Yet, I know if I'm presented with a paper which contains a big red zero, I'll be crushed. I'm hoping that, as I have matured a little since undergrad, I'll now be able to actually listen when people say that, hey, making mistakes actually helps you to learn, and, hey, it's not the end of the entire universe if this essay isn't tip-top. And yet, when I think about not being able to pursue my academic dreams, I feel quite nauseous. I guess this isn't a thing that fixes itself overnight.

However, while I may find myself having fever dreams about a syntax tree reaching out from the paper and strangling me with its complementizer clause (get it? Clause/claws? Oh, I amuse myself), for tonight, I'm going to stop. I've had a delightful evening, and will now retire to look at the photographs of my new baby cousin (eee!), and celebrate the Doctor Who's 48th birthday with my favourite episodes. More tears may come tomorrow, but this is - at the very least - a start.

*If you get that reference, marry me.

They don't know we know they know we know

I've just got back from a wonderful, wonderful lecture given by Oliver Ford Davies*, entitled 'Did Gertrude Know? Some problems with performing Shakespeare'. I was utterly entranced by the whole thing, for three main reasons:

Firstly, Oliver himself. What a charming man! Stumbling across the lecture while browsing the vast selection on offer (methinks I shall be making good use of them in the coming weeks), I recognised Davies' name and face from his role as the Polonius to David Tennant's Hamlet, a production I was lucky enough (or unlucky enough, depending on your Tennant-feelings!) to see a few years ago. I've not been fortunate enough to see him in any other theatre roles, but I am definitely going to try in future - he seems a warm, intelligent and kind soul, with the kind of deep knowledge of his subject matter that only a pure passion could have motivated. His voice is measured yet commanding, and he wisecracked and witted his way through an hour which seemed to fly by.

Secondly - daft as it sounds - I understood! I've never been a slavish scholar of Shakespeare; while I studied and loved many of his plays throughout school, I don't share the same encyclopedic knowledge of his work as so many wonderful academics and theatregoers do. However, I do think him - in short - a genius. I'm a novice fan - one who watches and reads as much as she can, and is left in constant awe by his mastery of language** and character, his wit and his tenderness, and his love of people and their eccentricities.This past year has seen me pretty much overdose on any Shakespeare production I can get my eyes on (to turn an odd phrase), and while the nuances discovered by line-to-line study may be lost on me, I've loved broadening my Shakey horizons - and, thus, I adored this lecture. When Davies spoke of Gertrude and Petruchio and Edgar, I knew them - I knew the characters, as played by various actors, and I knew their stories. I 'got' the jokes, the asides, and wasn't left baffled by some of the matters discussed - which I might have been several years ago. As I said, I by no means claim to be an expert (far, FAR from it), but goodness it felt marvellous to be engaged by a Shakespeare discussion, one which I found compelling and exciting. I bloody love Shakespeare, and this reminded me exactly why.

Thirdly, the theme of the lecture itself was one which really seemed to resonate with me and my sensibilities. Davies spoke on the ambiguity in Shakespeare's work, and how a lack of explanation can result in endless frustration for an actor. Did Gertrude know she was married to a murderer? She can be played either way, and the effects of the choice can echo through the entire show. So, so many character choices and motivations are obscured in Shakespeare's work, and others' too, in what Davies termed 'stragetic opacity'. But the thing that got me most was his attitude to this - speaking as an actor, one might see him sympathise with the plight of the unknown character (which, to an extent, he of course did). But he also rejoiced. His closing remarks, while I can't recall the exact words, expressed the sentiment 'Shakespeare left it open to you - enjoy!', which absolutely warmed my heart.

So many times - whether it be deciding on a linguistic theory with which to side, or a religious doctrine, if any, to which to adhere - I have thought myself stupid, frustrating or inferior for just not knowing. To be undecided - politically, spiritually, or any other -ally - is bad, wrong, silly, naïve, lazy, foolish, and many more pejoratives. Yet, sometimes, I find myself wanting to scream 'isn't it okay to just not know?' - why does everything have to be defined, solid and immovable? I appreciate the merits of surety, of course - it would be nonsensical not to - but sometimes I just like to bask in not quite knowing for sure, and I wish it were more acceptable to do so. Not-knowing brings discussion, debate and learning, while stagnated, unchangeable opinions can occasionally be a breeding ground for dogma and intimidation. Maybe that's why I enjoy learning so much - I don't know, and therefore I want someone with more information to tell me things so I can start to know a little better.

I appreciate that I have extrapolated the themes of Oliver's lecture to a preposterous level of abstraction, and will therefore stop typing, but - as with many things - it just made me feel all the feelings, so I thought I'd put them somewhere. Oliver Ford-Davies has written a couple of books about his acting life and the craft itself, and, while I haven't read them myself, if they're half as engaging and entertaining as his lecture, then I'd thoroughly recommend them.

"Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity." ~Gilda Radner

*Witnessed a fellow saying 'man, this guy looks just like the guy who played the Archbishop of Canterbury in Johnny English'. Yeah, that was him, idiot. (You might think 'idiot' a strong choice of word, but the guy then went on to tell his friend that they had special, reserved seating, and thus would be away from the 'plebs', so I am more than content to go with such a derogatory term. What a dick.)

**Me being me, I am particularly enamoured with Shakespeare's language, its intricacies, and its phenomenal effect on the way we speak and write today. I'm currently reading David Crystal's Think On My Words, a fascinating analysis of Shakespearean wordsmithery, and I would thouroughly recommend it to all and sundry.