Back to life in France

Bonjour =^^=

How about we try to continue building our virtual Tower? K. and N. (yes, my human can openers, or *they*) are going to be away from T-town most of the time and I feel like i could narrate their stories.

So, N. Is leaving for Heidelberg tonight, to start his thesis project. K. is currently in Toulouse at a conference. Here is what I have been hearing from her yesterday:

"The flight was very early, at 6:30, and we had to take the taxi to the airport. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we started from Tü at 5:30 instead of the planned 4:30. Can you guess how long it took us to get to the airport? 15 minutes! The driver was amazing, but I could not help praying for our lives at this speed. I continued to pray for our lives for the next hour and a half a bit later - in the plane to Lion. The plane was tiny, like a winged bus! It also felt like a bus, every little bump sent to the chairs and my vestibular system... It was truly scary, the skies are apparently not soft at all.

The hotel we are staying in is nice, a bit too far from the venue, but clean and spacious. We had a very nice evening yesterday with S.L. and K.'s sister, but Toulouse at night is so far no pretty sight - tons of drunk teenagers I don't feel comfortable being around. People pretend they don't speak English, saying "I don't speak English" with a perfect American accent. :( not everybody is like this, of course, e.g. I am very grateful to a couple who helped us to find the metro station. After my awkward "excusez moi, je ne parle pas Français" (no idea about spelling here), they were very nice to us and walked us to the station.

I'm trying to revive my French, but the problem is I never knew enough French for a comfortable conversation. I need to change this, after all, it is a beautiful language. "

French is beautiful indeed, it is similar to Cattish, esp. the Kittish dialect, so I'm looking forward to K. learning it.

I am deeply sad that K and N don't stay home as much as they used to, I hope I'm not the reason they go off so often. Perhaps I am too territorial, but I am a cat after all. I staying alone for a long time. Yes, I sleep 16+ hours a day, but firstly, people make great pillows, and secondly, it is great to wake up every few hours and see your beloved even if inferior friends working hard at their desks, filling their minds with information or their stomachs with food. I hope they will return soon...

=^^=

Location:Toulouse, France

au revoir

As poet nicely put it this blog has run its life. In poet's own words (quoted without permission):

"Almost everyone has returned ... so there's not really any need for it"

I will probably try to write somewhere else about grad school drama at some point. And who knows maybe even come back to T town again at some point :)

Dancing in the moonlight, singing in the rain

I'll be back in T-Town shortly after Pentecost, I'm thinking for at least the following year. I believe I've told most people why and how at some point; if I haven't and you're curious and you can't piece things together from what I've been writing in all the other places, let me know, I'm not meaning to exclude anyone but life has been craaaaazy... In the meantime, I'm studyingstudyingstudying for my MA exam, freaking out about it, and looking for a room in T-Town. If you hear anything, let me know.

Cheers & cherries!

-poet

LGSTX

Noam Chomsky was in Stuttgart this week to receive a prize for his political work. The linguists at Stuttgart university used the opportunity to invite him for a talk, which took place yesterday. A large number of linguists from Tübingen attended, among them two members of the Virtual Babylon crew, and one crewman's owner. This was fun. The talk itself was, meh, as expected, something to definitely cross out on the list of things to do in this life, nothing more. My impression is that Chomsky developed some very important and plausible ideas early on, but that most of his later attempts at formalizing the principles of human language aren't really leading anywhere. This impression is all I can offer, not being familiar with most of the details.

Today I met up with a bunch of former coworkers to spell the word LGSTX with human letters. We even managed LINGUISTICS, though not in one shot. Why? Well, it's a surprise. I hope to have the resulting pictures up on Facebook soon. :)

Kill the bunny

I am starting a garden. I tried gardening in the past but I can't say I was very successful (ke probably remembers the deplorable patch of lettuce that was growing next to the roses in liststrasse 21). This gardening business came about a while ago and we're in the midst of planting tomato seeds and some gladiolas (sp?) and even carrots. Farming of course is hard, otherwise all computer geeks would spend real (opposed to virtual) time in gardenville.

Why is it hard you say? Besides the obvious reasons i.e. physical pain, what you plant is not always going to grow. In the fall A. and I planted crocuses, a full bag of bulbs. About a week ago, after the snow melted, they started poking out of the dirt. We didn't realize that "others" were looking forward to the flower blossoms maybe even more than we did. By others I mean one of those fluffy rodents (either bunnies or squirrels) who are just as a excited about flowers. Not excited in the cuddly and fluffy way though ... excited in the "this looks yummy" way. So here we are now, guarding the window to catch the little buggers. (It crossed my mind to let the cat guard the flowers but needless to say, Spocky would be quite useless at the job). So dear babylonians, do you garden? Do you have pest problems?

Call for Participation

Dear researchers,
I would like to bring to your attention this very important venue: ACH SIGBOVIK (the Assocation for Computational Heresy Special Interest Group on Harry Q. Bovik). Housing is free if you make your way to Pittsburgh but most importantly you can always Skype a talk. Most papers don't even need a talk.

Of course I posted about this last year as well.

Sometimes life is fun

Good things:

• I moved to a new office with lots of nice people
• All my classes so far are interesting and with cool professors
• It is raining all the time
• I had a relatively nice semester break (given the circumstances)

Bad things:

• I still don't know what to do with my life, just that I was mistaken when I thought I did
• Organizing stuff for this semester's teaching job is a hassle
• It is raining all the time
• I am not used to getting up early any more, and therefore have to drink black tea again

Also, I have started drawing cartoons of people around here, and this one is actually funny even out of context. I'm on the right, without wings this time: