NaBloPoMo

With 38 minutes to go on 1 November, I've signed up for NaBloPoMo. Those of you with more time left today (i.e. in the United States) should give it a shot as well.

I know I could be using this time to write more important things, but I've always wanted to try one of these projects. I don't think I'd have the momentum for NaNoWriMo, and I'd probably forget after a while about the 365 project, so I thought would be a reasonable goal.

What will I write about? I don't know. Maybe once in a while I'll talk about my research. I'll dig up old photos. I'll tell you about things I've promised to tell you about but never got around to it. Hell, give me topics.

This week coming up is going to be a busy one, I can tell. Today was a light day, as we had an Entz last night and they kept me busy. I think Halloween is a rowdy night in general, and when you have it on a Friday.....

I learned something interesting, though. Here, Halloween costumes are more about Halloween itself - witches and mummies and monsters and dead people and all that. The Brits tell me that when they see someone in a random non-scary costume at Halloween (like a princess or a spaceman or something), they know it's an American.

One down, 29 to go.....

Gadgets I do not need, part 2

I'm still seriously wanting one of these. But this morning, I remembered something else I was seriously wanting not too long ago: a Tablet PC. Now I can't decide.

The mini laptop would be useful for me now, as I could take it to the library and stuff. My current laptop isn't extremely heavy (my first one in Ox weighed 13 pounds!), but it is a bit bulky. A mini one could fit nicely in a bag and wouldn't take up much space. I hear they also have good battery life.

Some downsides: it would mean that I would have to carry two laptops every time I make my long-haul US to UK flights, and it does not have a DVD drive or much memory. I wouldn't use it for heavy-duty storage, just mainly whatever I'm currently working on, so I could probably get a small memory card or whatever. But I would have liked to use it for watching movies on the plane.

I can't really think of a reason I would *need* a Tablet PC right now. It's actually something that would probably be best if I were working: I could annotate presentations or use it to correct electronically-submitted student papers. I would not use it in addition to my current laptop - if I needed to replace this one, it would probably be my replacement. Perhaps what they say is true: these days, companies create needs for us. We see these things that look cool, we decide we must buy them, and then we decide why we need them.

Because you should have it stuck in your head too.

Ohhhhhhh..........
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious
If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

How it's goin'

Those of you who have been following me since the beginning may remember how I used to post regular updates of wacky costume parties, black-tie events, and lectures that involved cocktail breaks. I know I don't post much about that kind of stuff anymore (mostly because it's not so novel), but it doesn't mean I haven't been doing stuff. Also, if you follow me on Flickr, you may think that the only thing I've done this term is meet celebrities. Although there is not always photographic evidence to prove it, here's some of what I've been doing this term:

• Chung's leaving do. Chung matriculated with me, and we lived in the same staircase during our second year here. I came back early specifically to say goodbye to him, as he finished his DPhil and got a spiffy new job in Hong Kong. Chung took pictures that night but hasn't posted them yet, but I know he's busy with the new job and I'll probably get a huge email of photos at some point, as he usually does.
• The standard fresher events. Matriculation lunch, Domus dinner (a dinner for new graduates), Master's drinks. I don't have pictures of those because they're not really "my" events - I go as a "delegate" of the college, more or less. It would look kind of weird if I took photos at them. It was kind of cool, though, at the Matriculation lunch: I got to be head of my own table. Usually at these events there are a bunch of fellows and stuff, and they are all kind of spread out all over the place to mingle with the students. There were no fellows at my table, so I was technically the senior person. It meant that the freshers asked me a lot of questions about college life, which was cool and made me feel important.
• Trinity guest dinner. Corwin invited me to guest dinner at Trinity last week. It was one of the nicer dinners I've had at Trinity, and it was great to see Elizabeth and the Trinity contingent. I've been there enough times that I feel like a regular - the porters buzz me in and I go where I need to go. Elizabeth took pictures that evening, and I hope she will post them somewhere soon.
• Meeting celebrities. If you haven't heard me talk about this, you've been living under a rock.
• Visiting Enrique in London. My lovely Enrique has submitted his thesis, found a cushy job and packed up and moved to London. Justin and I went to see him (and Maria, who was also visiting) yesterday, and we had a lovely lunch and a walk around Finsbury Park. I had my camera in my bag, but for some reason I couldn't find it while I was there. So no photos. :(
• Doing work. Yes, I do work too. On Tuesday I handed in a 15,000-word chapter draft, and am now working on another chapter. This year I have to do a Confirmation of Status exam at the end of the year, in which I hand in a 15,000-word paper and do another viva. 15,000 words is roughly a chapter's worth of content, so I am doing lots of 15,000-word papers this year and I'll fix up the best one for the exam. Obviously, not a picture-worthy event.
  

I think there's been a trend of bloggers moving on to Facebook, so perhaps that explains the lack of updates - many of you who read me here also keep up with me there. I've also been a lot more laid back in my social activities since becoming Junior Dean, so now I hang out with friends and watch movies and order takeout and go out to dinner. It's not like the black-tie dinners of days of yore, but it works for me. :)

Tonight is Girly Night, hosted by Eleanor and Elizabeth, where a bunch of the language girls will get together and watch girly flicks and drink pink champagne. We don't get together nearly as often as we should, so this is a good chance to kick back and relax and not be hermits. ;) Tomorrow, I have been invited to dine with Andy and Elizabeth at Andy's new house. And I'm not on duty until Friday, so it should be a good week.

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend - xxx

A word a day

I'm on this Spanish word-a-day mailing list to help keep my vocabulary up. Having done nothing but Golden Age literature since college I can talk forever about Cervantes and literary authority, but my practical and useful vocabulary is a bit rusty. So this word-a-day list is a good little way to brush up on vocabulary, as people will probably find me as crazy as don Quijote if I called them "Your Grace" and talked about knight-errantry in 17th century Spanish.

So anyway, for each word, they use it in a sentence. Some of the phrases are pretty useful, as you would find them in everyday life. Today's word was "retroceso" (recession), and the sentence was this:

Atribuyen el retroceso español al escaso aprovechamiento de las nuevas tecnologias.
They attribute the Spanish recession to the scarce exploitation of new technologies.

That could be something that you hear on the news or read in the paper, especially these days. But yesterday's word was "jugadores" (players), and the sentence was this:

Los jugadores se encuentran de vacaciones.
The players are on vacation.

Huh? Maybe this is something you would read in a sports section, but it just seems so random. Wouldn't it be a good opportunity to teach some other sports terminology, like "The players scored three goals in the second quarter"?

Maybe there's something about language pedagogy that I'm not getting here.