State of Affairs
Even though I am all graduated, I have to go back to school for one semester. I originally enrolled at UW-Eau Claire, which is a teacher/nurse/engineer-mill commutable from my parents’ house. But they have a six-credit limit for “special” students, so I’m going back to Madison. I’ve arranged off-campus living with my generous older brother and his generous partner.
As a special student at Madison, I can take up 18 credits but my enrollment date is 48 hours before instruction begins, meaning that I need to gather up 12 credits from the slimmest pickings. My strategy is too land a bunch of computer science and math courses and maybe some communicative disorders, but at this point, the six-credit intro course in Japanese is looking mighty tempting. Experience in a tone (even pitch-accent) and SOV language is very relevant experience for a budding theoretical phonologist.
But it doesn’t really matter what I take because (a) I will do fine and (b) the real goal of the semester is for me to apply and get into one of the better midwestern linguistics programs, if not one of the big-name coastal schools. Thus, I must brush up on and return to being totally conversant in theoretical phonology and articulatory phonetics. I also need to do the stinking GRE and kick its ass, as well as develop my writing samples and reconnect with potential letter of recommendation writers. That’s the real work for the fall.
The upside of the new location is that Mary will be in Chicago this fall instead of Columbus, which is the difference between catching an early-morning bus and budgeting/planning flights two months in advance. That is to say, things will be much more awesome.
