One of the professional hazards of being a linguist is being asked what you think of Chomsky.* I never have a good answer because we didn’t actually study Chomsky in school. The linguistics department at Rice does what’s called ‘functional linguistics’, and Chomsky is ‘formal linguistics’. The names have to do with having different opinions […]
Category Archives: Personal
Adventures in fermentation
A while back I started making kombucha, and this is bascially a bunch of meanderings from my first three months of experience with it (mostly for my reference). I took a class at People’s Co-op given by Dori Oliver of Nourishing Foodways, and I use her recipe and simple 5-step process, and also received a […]
The importance of being afoot
On Sunday I injured my left foot walking off a walkway. It was one of those freak accidents where you just land wrong. The friend whose house I was at told me I sounded remarkably calm when I told her that I thought I had hurt my foot more badly than the routine “Whoops, I […]
Something I don’t like: my laptop
I got my laptop last summer from ZaReason. It’s a Strata Pro 13 that came pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux 10. Although it does basically work, I’ve had a lot of trouble with it. First of all, I dropped it when it was about a day old. That’s not ZaReason’s fault, but once I sent it […]
Fat focus
I went to an event at Metro tonight with Richard Jackson. The event was supposed to be about his work on Retrofitting Suburbia, but if that got discussed it was after I left. Mostly it was about how people are fat and it’s because we aren’t active anymore (and a little about how that’s related […]
Something I liked: Superhero Photo
Recently I did the Superhero Photo: The Basics class. I had a great time with the class. I’ve been looking for a photo class that would fit my needs for ages, but it never occurred to me to take one online. When Tea interviewed Andrea, I knew her class would be a great fit because […]
Depression management
Some time ago I wrote a post about my experiences with depression (dysthymia) and with therapy and how it had really helped me. At the time I was only six months or so out from the end of regular therapy. The legacy of that work is definitely lasting, but in the years since I’ve also […]
Why I’m an Options Ambassador
PBOT’s Transportation Options division is recruiting for new outreach volunteers — Options Ambassadors — for 2012. A few weeks ago Andrew at PBOT asked me if I would be willing to share why I volunteer with Options as part of their recruitment. I think my response is slated for a brochure or email because I […]
Mistaken beliefs about myself: poetry edition
One of the questions that I find myself perennially engaging with is about whether we are the authorities on ourselves, and what epistemic status our knowledge about ourselves has vs. others’ knowledge of us. I was reminded of this when I was out running this morning along the Alameda Ridge and went by one of […]
Back to running, with better understanding
I went running this morning, repeating C25K Week 2, Day 1, after a three week break. I was having a lot of pain in my feet and ankles after completing Week 3, and decided to take a week off — which turned into two and then three weeks before my feet stopped hurting. I made […]