Thursday, July 26, 2007

it's got to start somewhere


this is the life i kind of always wanted and never got and now at 31, i am living in the dorm. what would it be like to have had a chance to apply to colleges? instead of going where i had to because moving wasn't an option at all. just that whole process of choosing a college seems so fantastic and magical. traveling around the country deciding where to attend university. i hear people talk about it and they speak of where they would prefer to live, which city has better art, more mountains, clean air, proximity to the water, prof. they like ... the fact that i somehow got through my bachelor's degree and paid for it in salt lake so dagny can be closer to her dad seemed like an achievement at the time. now i just feel like an underachiever. i get jealous of opportunities people have and don't even realize. i get jealous of people who didn't have to worry about anything other than showing their trascripts and personal essay to admissions... i begin to wonder what school would have i attended, how would i pick, how would it be like to just go to school, go home for christmas, work on the weekends? well i am not sure, but i do know what it is like to be living in roble hall dorm room #216 at stanford this summer, attending five linguistics classes, riding my bike around, connecting with people around me, getting to know palo alto. my dorm has four desks in one room, separate room has two beds each. they are bunk beds. we are lucky, only two of us insted of four showed up. it gives us more space. the beds are covered with red blankets, desks are wood and old, windows large, three in a row, each room has a sink, bathroom is in the hallway, rigth across from our room, at times there is hair stuck in the shower drain, from my windows i see palm trees and a dry lake, i listen to loud music when my roommate is not here and study at moonbeam cafe when she is. she is young and sweet. we all eat together and act like we are all best friends, although we just met three weeks ago. i have enjoyed waking up in my stark dorm room and working at my bare brown befitting desk leting california heat sink into my bones

Monday, July 23, 2007

"we haven't had AC for 30 years"



that was what the grumpy motel lady told me over the phone. oh well, we fooled her anyway. even after many threats of no visitors, 6 linguists (dagestanian documentarian and descriptivist who will not have premarital sex but dances like she has two minutes left to live living in germany, australian spandex wearing beach hating kite flying anthropologist in an indiana jones hat, ambitious grateful dead loving computational linguist from midwest, sexy blonde jewish new yorker studying vernacular african american english from canada, big eyed french speaking dancing queen linguist anthropologist at heart from oklahoma, and i) were able to sneak into this 1 star paradise. eating and drinking many beers at the mexican dive by the amtrak bus stop only got better when we were joined by a car sales man and a business student. oh my...

Thursday, July 19, 2007

"big dog an ugly woman"


linguistics summer institute at stanford this summer. today is wednesday, day off from the classes. i am at the library of my dorm "roble hall". carpet is burgundy, lights are florescent, there are three of us here, with headphones. between the songs i hear the keyboard typing. we watched walt wolfram movies tonight "the last one" and "american tongues". linguistics combined with documentary film. brilliant. cara and i had sushi in palo alto. we talked about her past, boys. dagny and john were argueing in salt lake, i heard about it over the phone. my stomack hurt, from worry or bad food. probably worry. florescent lights are calling me back.