written while writing the thesis of doom

As i get further into my thesis (i'm in section 1 of 3 right now, excluding intro and conclusion) i realize that the reason i'm having so many issues with just writing is that i'm fighting the discourses taught to me throughout my academic career. Using I without retribution in an academic paper is blowing my mind, but it's a component part of explaining my purpose and use. since i'm not writing literary analysis, most of my argument comes from other people (esp in sections 1 and 2, section 3 is my contribution) and that's difficult to stick with. i was taught to avoid saying "in this paper, I will show" but that is EXACTLY what i'm supposed to be doing.

i understand why we are taught this way (especially after reading and editing some of my peers' papers who aren't inclined to writing) but it's kind of like going to calculus after pre-cal. You've learned the hard, difficult way, and now it's time for the short cuts; only problem is it feels like some kind of cheating or cheapness.

very frustrating. (my general writing kinda sucks today anyways - cheapness? really?)

Short and angsty

Last post of boring crap, i promise.

Yesterday  (as in the 18th, not actually yesterday) i had no work to do for my magazine 'cause we were waiting on printers, so Boss Lady lent me out to Assistant Boss Lady. Assistant Boss Lady is head editor of Other Magazine. I had to call oodles of people i didn't know, but i got the assistance of an aunt of mine who works as a clerk. It was a long day of crapola. i don't want to do this forever. the end.

Of Poets and Parts of Speech

As an aspiring editor and an avid lover of the phenomenon of Language, not to mention a person immersed in the literary world of an English major, I occasionally have a geek out in which i start to think of Stuff I'd Like to Write a Paper On - or rather, Things I'd Like to See Other People Write Because I'm a Lazy Sonnuvagun. One such geeking occurred yesterday, so i thought i'd blog rather than actually do research and junk :D (oh emoticons... how i love thee).

In my 200 level Linguistic class (the introductory class to linguistics rather than a grammar or history of the language course) we used the first two lines of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky to emphasize the way we can classify parts of speech by using an innate sense of sentence placement, so we can recognize words that we have never heard before as a noun or verb as long as it is in a context using function words. The example was :

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 


Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;


All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" lines 1-4

Things I've learned as an intern - so far

1. How to ask people who aren't my boss how to do what my boss has told me to do.
2. How to read Boss Lady's mind (this is more of an upgrade of my previous skill: How to read my conductor's mind)
3. How to anticipate problems that the Boss Lady hasn't thought of yet (see previous parenthesis)
4. How to use the cool stamp maker thing for postage
5. How to make labels in Excel/Word
6. How to find things to do once i've finished my "big project" - which usually takes all of 10 minutes
7. How to talk to complete strangers and incite enough pity at my horrible phone business skills to become overly helpful and, in fact, engender the help of my coworkers who can hear my horrific attempts from their offices.
8. How to over use post-its. love the post-its.

Snow my god!

It's snowing. In our state. in our portion of our state. this is not a frequent event. Actually, it's sticking as i watch, which leads me to believe in global warming (apparently, it's not just for heat anymore!). So, seeing as how i don't particularly want to read over my linguistics stuff (even though i love it), and hell has apparently frozen over (see beginning statement), i thought i'd take the opportunity to update my rather lame blog.