- I started teaching today. It was good, though I'm completely exhausted. The class is really hard for me to teach since it's material that most of the students know (in Spanish), but haven't been exposed to in this setting. It's a big challenge but probably good for me in the long run.
- I really, really love walking across the river on one of the bridges at night here. It's always very cool to see the flow of the river collide with the waves from the ocean and it always looks completely chaotic and beautiful below.
- In awesome news, I dropped my iPod in the toilet at my Spanish class today. Not my finest move. That's what I get for not zipping my jacket pockets. We sanitized it and it seems to be functioning. Fingers crossed!
- My intercambio partner said today that my Spanish is improving. Hopefully that's true because I'm working my tail off on learning more every day. I practice a lot, and it continues to feel really hard. That said, I think that's because I "know" more grammar, so I'm trying to remember when to use the subjunctive and when to use each of the three past tenses. It's so much more complicated than English in terms of verbs, I feel like I'm losing my mind sometimes. I get frustrated because I know how to conjugate the verbs and when to use which. In writing, I'm usually okay and can write a page or two with only a couple of minor verb mistakes (prepositions and articles are another story all together). But speaking is still rough. That said, I'm trying to be braver and just talk. My daily mix of English and Spanish when socializing is edging toward 50-50, which is great. I'm still in the B1 level, but I still hope to get to C1 by spring. I think it's doable since I'm working hard, but we'll see.
- In what is either an insane or genius move, I'm starting a Basque class on Thursday. It is, as my teacher said "muy light" (apparently that's the Spanish term for not too intense as well ...). It's one day a week for two hours. I'm not sure I need another evening eaten up by a language class, but I think it will be a really great experience. Plus, I think linguistics departments will be happy I know a little bit of an "under-studied language". Speaking of linguistics departments ...
- It's job search time again. I will need sustained good thoughts/vibes/prayers between now and the spring that something great will come along for me in the US. I have my hopes on a couple of ideal jobs, but don't want to jinx anything. Right now, I would settle for being on the same continent as Chicago. I don't want to be too picky, but driving distance/same timezone would be incredible. :) Anyhow, there are plenty of jobs and I'm hoping this is "my year". If it's not, I'll survive, but I am hoping my hard work over the past 7.5 (11.5? 29?) years will pay off in this cycle. I'm ready to start independent research and I realized today, I'm ready to teach as well. Anyhow. Fingers crossed, thoughts, prayers and minor sacrifices to the Bosses of Jobs appreciated.
- Speaking of Jobs ... I was super sad to hear about Steve Jobs. I grew up on a Mac and have been nothing but a Mac person my whole life. I truly believe my research is significantly easier due to Macs, and they're so much more fun than PCs. Pixar has made some of my favorite movies. On top of being a real visionary and a rare breed person who can blend creativity and science, he also said something that I have printed out that follows my idea notebook for work (every time I finish one, it gets tucked into the next). It's two sections from his 2005 commencement address to Stanford, which I really took to heart as I was in the early days of grad school "You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. ... Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." At the time I read this, I had made a big, big jump from music to science. A jump I'm still not sure I knew how to make. I wasn't nearly as terrified as I probably should have been. This is most likely the result of having been too stupid to know what I didn't know. But I did it, and I've never been happier. He was right in that I knew what I loved when I found it. I try to remind myself on days when I'm stressed and crazy that I truly believe that what I'm doing is great work because I love what I do. I know not everyone in this world is lucky enough to say that, so every time I think of it, I say a little prayer of thanks because I have been really, truly, extraordinarily lucky to do what I do. Even if I don't get a job doing this forever, it's great, exciting work. Plus I get to say fancy things like "I am teaching in the Master's program for Cognitive Neuroscience of Language". And it doesn't get much better than that.
Okay, enough sappiness, but I feel like I needed to have a little eulogy for someone who profoundly affected my life, even if I never knew him.
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