Just want to advertise this new blog I’m part of. lingoland.kopula.dk, which is a blog written by a few students (and hopefully, sometime soon, a few teachers) at The Department of Linguistics at the University of Aarhus. We aim to give non-linguists a window into the world of linguistics, that fascinate us so much that we’ve devoted our lives to it, chosen to live in celibacy (well, chosen and chosen - let’s just say that chicks don’t usually dig linguists) and given up all hope of ever actually getting a job in the future just to study it.
I think the blog is primarilly in Danish (at least, the only posts (2) so far are — sorry, my non-Danish speaking readers), but there’s a chance a few english posts might sneak in once in a while. Enjoy!
… at least until these hard drives crash and burn.
On top of that my ISP has decided that I should no longer keep the IP address that I’ve had for 3 years, so they changed it — no notice or anything. Unfortunately I didn’t notice until today because of lillesvin.net DNS trouble. So I’m still waiting for the change to be registered on the DNS servers.
So what else is new? I’m still living in the same crappy place (at least for some months yet) and I’m still studying linguistics, though I am doing my supplementary year on Cognitive Semiotics — so far it sucks and it’s really confusing. I might change my mind later on, but for now it sucks. Oh yeah, my laptop battery is dead and so is the cd-/dvd-rom drive — no warranty… But apart from that, all is great — believe it or not, everything is absolutely great! :)
On a completely unrelated note, I’ve put up a little Paypal donation thingy on my googlepages music site in case anyone should like my music so much that they’d actually want to pay for it. Don’t like it that much? Don’t donate! It’s that simple! (If you’re considering asking what your money will be spent on, then the answer will be: “drugs and hoes”.)
Some might have noticed that I’m not much online anymore — others might not. Anyways, I just wanted to let the one or two potentially concerned people know that I’m perfectly fine, I’m just not up for much online communication at the moment. It’s just that the computer has been boring me lately. I sit down, hit a few keys, issue some commands and then I get bored…
So now I’ve found other nerdy stuff to do — e.g. play Magic: The Gathering. Yeah, I know it’s sooo ‘96 but it’s still a hell of a lot more fun than looking at the screensaver being activated every 5 minutes. Besides, I really like the game and have never played before, so a great big many thanks to my two great nephews for being consistent in their effort to teach me how to play.
Also I’ve been writing a lot of songs lately, I just need to get some lyrics done too, then I’ll be unloading some three or four new songs on the world. But for me the lyrics are the hardest, so it will probably take a while still.
And then, of course, I’ve got my linguistics study and my tutoring in Phonetics and Phonology - man, that’s a whole lot of fun. The IPA and the sounds it describes become surpringly interesting (at times even hilarious) when you’re teaching it to others!
By the way, if someone should have (or know where to get) either of the following things, please contact me.
Man, I wish Loki hadn’t gone out of business. :(
UPDATE: (Apr 15, 2005 09:17) I found 2 more Psychic Venom. ;-) And Rune + expansion has been tracked down (see the first (and by now: only) comment on this post).
Apparently the Danish government considers rewarding the universities for the number of master students that get employed after the education instead of — as they do now — for the number of students actually completing a master. (Link [da])
Once again our government shows absolutely no understanding for science — they think it’s all about filling jobs and making some of the green — but they fail to see that science may just as well be a passion — I know it is for a lot of scientists. The state pays for our education, so of course they expect to get something back, but they may end up getting far less back than ever, because it will mean that the departments will have to constantly think about what “the state needs” or “what can give jobs” and modify the classes to match that, which is not always a Good Thing™. This may on long term have the effect that studies such as linguistics and other weird, small studies will cease to exist, because there simply is not a whole lot of jobs for us linguists out there and linguistics solely aimed at getting a job is just not that interesting. It’s not uncommon that linguists mix their profession with something else, say a specific language — or programming. So what if they get employed as translators from that specific language to their native language or they get a job at Google working on e.g. Google Sets (which will require some knowledge of semantics)? Will that count? Who’s going to decide if it counts? What if I complete my major in linguistics and get a job sweeping sidewalks? Will the Department of Linguistics at the University of Aarhus be “rewarded” for that?
On top of that, it may result in the “wanted” studies becoming flooded with applicants because “it’s all about getting a job”.
Ass-hats!
Indeed it has. I’ve been (and still am) busy studying, working and doing stuff, like social interaction with other members of the species homo sapiens - and studying for assignments. In the beginning of January I’ll have to hand in 3 assignments, Language and Culture (actually just anthropological linguistics), Methods of Linguistic Description and Theory of Science.
- Language and Culture
- I’ll try to reject the strongest version of Whorf’s theory of linguistic determinism based on studies of color terms in various languages - studies done by e.g. Berlin, Kay, Heider and of course Whorf himself. Going to be pretty interesting - and it’s always fun to criticise Whorf.
- Methods of Linguistic Description
- Not entirely sure what I’ll be doing here, but probably something computer-related. We’re allowed to do some sort of alternative project, so of course I’ll try to find something that involves some programming, as that is what I’m hoping to combine my linguistics with at some point.
- Theory of Science
- Based on Morton Winston’s Did a (Kuhnian) Scientific Revolution Occur to Linguistics? and Kuhn’s own works, I’m gonna write a discussion of the first-mentioned paper and my own view on the subject. Also something I’m actually looking forward to, as I really like Kuhn and (a lot of) his ideas.
So as you can understand, I’m busy, but in the good way - the really enjoyable way, actually. My blogging/coding/internet stand-still will probably last a while yet, but who cares, it’s not like anyone actually reads this crap anyway. :-p
Oh, I nearly forgot - a top [something]!
Top 3: Great Stuff
- Cowboy Bebop
- DJ Format (especially the 3 Feet Deep video)
- Last Life in the Universe