Slave to the Man

It's that time of year again--the time when everything I have put off for nine months suddenly needs to be finished in the next ten days.  One would think that since I have been in school fairly consistently for the last oh, 25 years, that I could have devised a way to divert this procrastinatory crisis.  But no, no, no.  Now I am posting blogs and inventing words like procrastinatory instead of waxing poetic about L2 teacher education and the wondrous antisymmetry of syntax.  Only a few things will help me at this point, two of which are Diet Coke and phdcomics.com.  Both are brilliant.  The only other thing I need to get through to May 1st:  a miracle!

Shopping for Jesus

So, Dan & I have been on the local neighborhood church circuit, shopping around for a church that both of us can live with--well, not just live with, but enjoy and leave feeling fulfilled.  This is a little easier said than done, it turns out.  While as adults we may not think we are very attached to the ways in which we were brought up, it turns out that the human desire for routine and familiarity remains a strong power.  I am starting to understand the Crusades a whole lot better. 

It seems that the new trend in churches of many denominations is to reach the congregation via PowerPoint.  This is quite ironic to me.  If I wanted to read about God on a computer, I would just type "New Testament" in to Wikipedia and see what I got.   These days in church, you can bring in your coffee, your donut, your Palm Pilot--we even had people eating popcorn behind us at one service!  The popcorn was just a bit much.  Is it church or a baseball game?  (For my dad, those are one and the same).  

Anyway, for this Catholic girl, this has been quite a change.  I mean, if as kids we weren't guilty, sleepy, starving, and cramping from kneeling for so long, it just wasn't a real mass.  But seriously, one thing I do like about the Catholic church is the solitude and the introspection.  I like the study and the work.  Maybe that's why I am still in grad school.  But, I come to church to get away from PowerPoint.  I don't need a rock band to feel grateful or blessed.  Dan & I can feel connected to people without being forced to.  In fact, we made some new Presbyterian friends today and had them over for lunch.  

Praise the lord!

Getting Down to Business

Dan the Business Man is ranked #3 in sales out of all of the Levolor-Kirsch National Account Specialists nation wide.  I am really proud of him.  He works hard for our little family.  Way to go, sweetie.  

PS This painting is called, "The Son of Man" by Rene Magritte.  We saw a bunch of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Phenomenal!

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

For those of you in my non-linguistics posse, the above nonsense is known as a syntax "tree."  During the last three months, I have been sweating out every Wednesday night cursing the heavens in futility as I struggled to complete diabolical problem sets involving constructions such as the above.  Actually, they were more complicated because our professor wanted us to actually be able to explain things like this.  How dare she hold us accountable for learning!  Duh!  Anyway, I am saying farewell to syntax because this Wednesday marks my last evening of stressing about abstract language that I appreciate greatly but will never truly comprehend.  Fare thee well, Syntax!  It will be a while before you hear from me.

Highlights from NYC:

--Seeing "Wicked" & staying at the Mayfair

--Presenting rubric study and winning "Best Poster Presentation" at the Doctoral Forum

--Eating the best thai food EVER with some great friends

--Finding a Duane Reade

--Seeing lots of thought-provoking sessions with a veritable list of "who's who" in TESOL

--Van Gogh, Matisse, Cezanne, Miro, Picasso, & others for free on Friday night at the MOMA

--Schmoozing with publishers over Cosmo martinis

--Having a pretzel cart & a halal food cart right outside of the hotel

--Seeing my name in print!!

--Shopping on 5th Ave and in Herald Square

--Realizing, once again, that there's no place like home...

Scenes from the Big Apple

Wicked Fun

So here I am in New York, loving every minute of it.  I am presenting in a poster session tomorrow morning, so it was sort of a problem that I left my poster back at the SLC security line.  Oopsie!  Not to be foiled by the forces that had conspired against me, I got on my flight and proceeded directly to the nearest Manhattan FedEx-Kinko's.  A very nice man named Sayed from India saved my life tonight and re-printed my poster in about 3 minutes.  After that, I hit my favorite Times Square McDonald's (food just tastes better in New York when all you had was a stale bagel on the flight), did a little shopping, and took in the Broadway show, "Wicked."  If you ever get a chance to see this, it is a must see.  Read the book, too, while you're at it.

Now I am tucked into my miniature hotel room, practicing my presentation out loud to the mirror.  Tomorrow's mission:  get presentation out of the way and try to find the Cash Cab.