Quick Update

Last Friday I was accepted to the University of Hawaii, Manoa's Linguistics MA program. Unfortunately, it was without funding and is one of my lower choices of schools overall. I can't use it as leverage, but it's good to know that, technically--even if not realistically--speaking, I have options.

Tonight, Macalester's Student Government adopted a logo that I made as the official logo for the org and a major Model UN event got fully funded. I aced my first two philosophy assignments ever (after much agonizing on both). Tomorrow, a meeting about my Honors project, updating my Japanese blog and heading to the gym.

Interview for the Coordinator for International Relations position with JET; before the interview I'm meeting up with a friend from study abroad who goes to Grinnell.

Things are running pretty smoothly here, and I hope you're all well!

The Last Semester (of Undergrad)

I'm nearing the end of my second week of classes and despite my general exhausting, I think this is going to be an interesting and academically fruitful semester.

I'm working hard with Model UN (organizing a high school conference at Mac, preparing our delegation to go to New York, setting up a documentary film screening, planning a cultural event called In the Kitchen With), Student Government (creating a Co-Curricular Transcript from scratch, working on various projects related to academics that are less interesting to outsiders and designing a logo that might be adopted next week), my intern position in Admissions (creating the foundation of a blogging program that's sustainable once I graduate and planning for the next round of interns to interview and train) and on top of that, I'm taking four courses (Critical Thinking, Philosophy of Language, Fourth Year Japanese II and Honors Independent). I also threw my name into the hat to be considered as a Commencement speaker. And I may be working on some paid research and pursuing co-authorship of an academic paper with my advisor, Christina.

And now, back to work. I've got research to do.

So I got into grad school

I received my first grad school acceptance on Thursday, to my first-choice program, no less! I've been accepted to the University of California, Santa Barbara's Linguistics doctoral program. Barring disaster, I'll be headed to Santa Barbara for three days in January for a recruitment weekend so they can woo me with all of the things that are fantastic about their program.

I think these two pictures my feelings about this acceptance. Perhaps they will also shed some light on what it is that (people think) linguistics do all day...

(In case you're now wondering the black tongue is a mixture of charcoal powder and olive oil, used to find out where on the roof of my mouth I make an English word-initial 'l' sound. I said the word "lab" to find out. And the cup with dental hygiene stuff is my friends' response to the acceptance. All they know of my days in the Linguistics Lab is the aforementioned picture, which I've plastered on my Facebook. So they gave me the tools to clean out my mouth properly.)

Grad School

First app down, three to go! Hopefully with a little less stress on the next ones.

I've realized in the process of writing my statements of purpose (and choosing writing samples, getting letters of rec, assessing my future, et cetera) that Stanford is probably not my dream school. In terms of undergrad name recognition, beautiful campus, well-known Linguistics grad program, it's great. But the research just isn't up the alley I'm walking down any more.

Over the course of the semester, my interests have changed focus a lot and I didn't realize it until perusing my Analyzing Japanese Language readings; I noticed that none of the articles were published at Stanford and three were published at Santa Barbara. Three interesting ones. This isn't to say that Stanford is necessarily wrong for me--I'm definitely still applying--but that Santa Barbara might be more right than I ever realized. This won't stop me wearing my pink Stanford sweatshirt, though.

Midterms

I can't even believe that midterms have come and gone. There's still plenty of work left to be done in the semester, though, and my guess is that my professors don't feel too bad about cramming the rest of it into the next month and ten days (approximately speaking). In case you were curious, here are the things I have yet to do this semester:

• Apply to the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program,
• Apply to grad school,
• Write a lab report on pitch in Hmong,
• Give two presentations on repressed-memory cases,
• Write a lab report on semantic memory processing,
• Run the pilot of my Honors Thesis experiment,
• Write a term paper about Vietnamese phonology,
• Write a term paper about Korean/Vietnamese phonetics,
• Write a term paper about transitivity in Japanese,
• Find a time and plane ticket to go home!

And that's just the big stuff. There's no mention of Model UN, Student Government or life at The Bronze.

Here we go.

Rolling Along

Things that I did before today...

• Continued working on my Honors project (I'm submitting a proposal to the Social Sciences Institutional Review Board next week so I can start getting participants),
• Applied for a $500 grant from The Action Fund to bring a high school Model United Nations conference to Macalester,
• Scheduled a conversation with the Registrar about offering credit or a co-curricular transcript to students involved in experiential learning of various kinds,
• Survived at least four weeks of classes,
• Almost finished deciding on grad school (Stanford, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, University of Hawai'i, Manoa),
• Started an Admissions blog that is staffed by first-year students who narrate their experience here on a weekly basis (blogs for the rest of the study body and for the student body are forthcoming. Links to all of them once they've been completely approved by Admissions),
• Received three thank you letters and emails from interviewees in Admissions,
• Learned how to perfectly sear a fresh salmon fillet,
• Practiced making many sounds of the worlds' languages,
• Followed up on a Linguistics research position in the spring,
• Attended a fancy gala and been recognized as a scholarship recipient (found out that I got more money than last year's other two awardees),
• Played "Capriccio Espagnol" during the Parents' Weekend sampler concert,
• et cetera

Recent happenings...

• Finished midterms,
• Organized a group of first-year bloggers for Macalester's first ever Admissions blog,
• Wrote a proposal for a co-curricular transcript,
• Decided on a Halloween costume.

Things are going well. As always, no news is good news.

Epic Update

This post is to inform you that I have not, in fact, died! And also to update you on my life. Here's what's happened since last time...

I did go see Jason Mraz at the Xcel Center in St. Paul. I went alone, which was a bit of a bummer, but the concert was great. The multiple encores were the best parts. Check out a clip on my flickr. Or don't.

I also mentioned a few major changes in my life. More on those:

• My Honors Thesis topic has been changed to something on function word prosody in English and Japanese. I'll give you all an updated title to share with other friends and loved ones as soon as I've thought of it. My adviser is very optimistic about the potential for this project.
• I might still be able to sneak my way into a top-tier grad school. I'm thinking about applying to Stanford via the East Asian Languages program, which is marginally less prestigious than the Linguistics and than transferring. Or else getting my master's at one institution and my PhD from Stanford. Christina is also helping me search for some "good fit" (as opposed to "high reach") schools in California.
• I was offered a job researching with Christina, which I should be able to capitalize on in the Spring if all goes according to plan. I'll probably be reading spectrograms of Hmong speech. Don't worry if you don't know what that means. That's what one of my classes is about this semester!
• I was also offered an internship with Global Classrooms again for this school year. I'll likely be too busy to take the paid position, but I'd like to keep working with them for the experience.
• National Collegiate Conference Association contacted me specifically about an internship in their offices (for fall, January or spring). They're the umbrella organization for the National Model United Nations Conference. If things pan out, I'd love to get experience with them during January. I guess we'll see!

"And how about that trip to California?" you ask? Some highlights:

• Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Comped meals, rooms and hangout. Also, much generosity from Lisa's mom and uncle.
• Love, the Cirque du Soleil show based on Beatles music. Unbelievable. A serious highlight of all the concerts/shows/plays I've seen in my day.
• Exploring San Francisco and meeting Lisa's family (including Miss Kelly and Stinky Wing, AKA her younger brother Eric). This involved great cafes, tasty wines, meeting up with Joe in Berkeley, Kara's Cupcakes, The Presidio and even a little bit of time to chill out and catch up with Lisa after a summer apart.
• STANFORD. Perfect, amazing, out of this world. I bought a sweatshirt which I intend to wear as often as possible to improve my chances of acceptance. Don't try to tell me this won't work, because I'm already convinced. I will get my PhD there.
• Redesigning and housewarming The Bronze.

Last, but not least: today!

• Waking up at 7am to get to the gym. Tough work, but it really got my day going. Now I understand why people go in the morning rather than the evening (which I've been doing all summer).
• First day of classes. I took Cognitive Psychology, Experimental Linguistics and Sounds of Language. Tomorrow is my Senior Capstone for Japanese: Analyzing Japanese Language. I'm very optimistic about all of these.
• A successful meeting about Honors with Christina.
• Preparation for a surprise that I will hopefully post here on Friday or Saturday.

And in the near future?

• Model United Nations prep, including an Org Fair to recruit new students.
• My new computer (a MacBook Pro named Pavel), which will hopefully arrive tomorrow.

In conclusion? I shouldn't wait so long between posts!

I haven't updated much this summer because it didn't seem like there was much positive to say. Not to say that things have been negative, but 8:30-5pm, Monday through Friday I spend in an office stuffing envelopes, giving tours and running errands. With the rest of my time, I did nothing that warranted a post.

Now, though, on the eve of my one-week trip to California, things have taken a turn for the exciting. The trip itself will be fantastic; Lisa and I are going to spend a weekend in Vegas where we have tickets for Cirque du Soleil. The rest of our time will be spent in and around the Bay Area and is to include: farmer's market, Sonoma Valley, artisan chocolate, shopping in Berkeley and various other good times.

Before that, though, I have to go see Jason Mraz in concert this evening.

The other causes for my excitement are: a change in my Honors Thesis topic and really excellent advising for grad school. It would be pointless to try to type out all of the things I talked about with Christina, but suffice it to say, my prospects for post-graduation are much more hopeful.

Also, within the past week, I've been offered two jobs and one internship opportunity. Joanna got her groove back.

It Runs in the Family

We've been telling mom for years that she just needs to suck it up and audition for Jeopardy. Seriously, trivia runs in our blood. I was part of a team that proved that last week, with the Admissions (plus some) team at trivia night.

Check it out! Just scroll down to the bottom. And the name, Team Crazed? That was my brainchild.

Chicago

Seeing as it's now been more than a week since I went to Chicago, I suppose it's time for a final write-up.

I left last Wednesday afternoon, planning to catch the Megabus at 1pm. Unfortunately, after waiting at the stop for over an hour, we found out that the 1:00 bus had been canceled. After some yelling on the part of other customers, we all got seats on the 3:00pm Megabus, so I took a city bus over to the University of Minnesota campus where my friend Adam was waiting to board the same Megabus. I grabbed some lunch and chilled in a park and then went to catch the Megabus which did show up.*

The bus ride was a very uneventful nine hours. Once at Union Station, our Couchsurfing host picked us up and took us to his house on the northern edge of the city, where we met his girlfriend and had the public transit explained to us so Adam and I could get to the Consulate General of Japan (where he had paperwork to drop off and I had a language exam and interview for the MEXT Research Scholarship). After hanging out for a bit with our hosts (Shane and Lindsey), we crashed for the evening and woke up for an early commute into downtown.

The Japanese test was extremely difficult. Becuase I'm functionally illiterate in Japanese (I need to learn about 1,100 more kanji before I'm literate), it was very difficult to take the equivalent of an SAT Reading Comprehension test. I did what I could in the hour I had, took the supplementary English test and headed out for lunch at the Taste of Chicago, where I had a catfish po' boy, sweet potato cheescake and a roasted cob of corn (yes, in that order). Adam stuck around at Taste for a bit longer and I headed back to the Japan Information Center (at the Consulate) to do the interview portion of my day.

The interview went as well as it could've. The panel was very interested in my research, but concerned about the scope of it, which involves some social issues, as opposed to purely psychological or pedagogical ones. I answered a few of their questions in Japanese and asked them a few of my own. Generally, I felt good about it and stuck around for an hour or so to wait for the other applicants to finish their interviews. One of them, Emily, was interested in studying a specific type of art. She had already spent three years in Kyoto as a JET, but is engaged to a Japanese guy and really ready to get back to research on someone else's dollar. After she finished her interview, she was really stressed out, so she, Adam and I went out to relax/celebrate with a few drinks. We hung out at TGI Fridays, went to a Japanese hole-in-the-wall and rounded out the evening by meeting up with one of her high school friends who took us to a really classy bar on the roof of a hotel, where he treated us to a $45 pitcher of sangria. I wasn't complaining.

After hanging out with Emily and Amit for a while, Adam and I headed over to The Congress where we were seeing an Explosions in the Sky concert. The concert itself was fantastic and we took public transit back to Shane's place, still in a bit of an awesome-music-induced coma. Some of their friends were still at the house, so we sat around for a bit while they played cards. Afterwards, Lindsey showed me a bunch of her travel photos (various national parks in the US and Canada, all around Puerto Rico and some others).

The next day (Friday), we all got up around 10am and Lindsey made pancakes for us. After enjoying a leisurely breakfast, Shane took us to the train station and we headed in to downtown to catch a 1pm Megabus. Unfortunately, without our knowing it, we'd been rescheduled to leave at 10:30pm on Thursday (when we were still in the concert) and we'd just watched the 12pm bus to Minneapolis roll by. We tried to hang out at Dunkin Donuts, but they lost power and we were forced back onto the street. Adam found a "cave" (AKA a place with some trees and some shade) across the street from the Megabus stop where we hung out for about three hours. Luckily, we were able to get on the 3:30pm bus. Not so luckily, I was sitting next to the largest, snoringest man to ever ride the Megabus. He crowded at least half of my seat so that it was uncomfortable to sit. Later, he snored so loudy and juicily that I couldn't even drown it own with my music. Then my headphones broke. By the end of the ride, I felt a little insane and I was very much ready to be done with the Megabus. On the upside, I ate Taco Bell at the rest stop (although the didn't have chalupas).

Adam and I grabbed a city bus back towards Mac (he lives a few blocks past my apartment) and the adventure was done.

Today, I found out that I wasn't recommended by the Consulate to receive the scholarship. So it goes.

*The Megaubs is notorious for being late, not showing up, not accomodating all of its paid customers, et cetera. But it is the cheapest mode of transportation around the Midwest.