Month: September 2017

Online Linguistic Courses

Things are starting to come together, but the night time lack of sleep is hindering things.

My husband is back to work (teaching), which leaves me with the kids during the day. I’m fine with that. It’s only been a few days, but I’ve been savoring some alone time in the late night when the husband is in bed and the kids are finally settled. (K is wailing right now as a type this).

I decided to search for syllabuses (syllabi?) that uses the Language Files textbook I own. I’ve found several, and I think I’m going to pick one or two and see if I can also do some assignments as well.

I also searched for online courses, stumbling upon an Intro Course being taught through Coursera and an MIT OpenCourseWare treasure trove of Linguistic courses. I am drooling over here.

I want to get into the MIT courses, but those textbooks aren’t cheap, and I can’t spare the cash right now. Once I’m working again, it won’t be a problem. In the meantime, I’ll stick to my plan of following a syllabus or two and doing the Coursera course.

I’m hoping I can change my habits (and the girls’) in that I can wake up when hubs gets up (5:45), spend a few hours waking up and getting shit done, and get the girls up earlier to flip their schedules. O isn’t a problem, but K sure is. Anyway, if I can have some time to myself in the morning, I might be more productive and more fulfilled as the day progresses. I’m not a morning person though, so I won’t hold my breath on that.

She won’t stop crying, so I guess I’ll go be a slave to my child. Think what you want, that wailing goes right up my spine.

Setting Great Standards

I tend to keep my doomsday feelings to another blog that is hosted on a foreign site, but I will say this: I really hope the world stays around long enough for me to get my Ph.D. Ha!

On the subject of which, All Things Linguistics posted a long resource page for the newbie Linguist, like myself. It has links to readings and videos and courses. It is going to be my go-to guide for self study.

The textbooks are hard to read without guidance. I’ve taken an into class before, so a lot of it is review for me, so I’m not sure how to take notes on it. I had planned to just notate everything, but honestly it’s tedious. I suppose I should get used to since I plan to enter academia. Derp.

Another interesting thing is following a variety of linguists on Twitter. I’m learning so much and also feeling hopelessly lost. I’m find the feeling endearing as I know that one day I will be just as knowledgeable as those I follow. It’s all just jargon. I just need to have the background knowledge.

One of the Linguists I follow posted tonight about a Linguistic citation interest group. I hadn’t known it didn’t have a standard, and I find it very interesting how early in its creative state it is. I’m not a scientist yet, but I wonder why a different established system doesn’t work or can’t be borrowed. I guess I’ll be finding out.

ETA: She wrote all about why it isn’t working. Gosh I should read more carefully.* I’ll post the first part of the thread.

 

I sent her a response, and she responded back.

20170905_004408

It totally made my night.

 

*How ironic that I wrote this after titling my post. Meeting mediocre standards more like… 😛