The Blame Game

• One required LING 300 class leads to...
• A linguistic depth of study and minor, and to...
• Not going into elementary education after all (not just for that reason, but it is part of it), which leads to...
• LING 480: Field Methods, which leads to...
• Getting involved with creating a tri-lingual click-and-hear dictionary, which leads to...
• Submitting a paper to WAIL (the Workshop on American Indigenous Languages hosted at UCSB), which leads to...
• Getting my paper accepted for WAIL (April 30th & May 1st), which leads to...
• Submitting an application for a grant (Due April 1st) and to...
• Presenting my research at a forum on "Advancing Undergraduate Research" at CSUSM on April 6th and to...
• Submitting an application for a much, much bigger grant (also due April 1st.  Go figure), which means...
• A whole lotta work and research to do, in addition to the usual homework load.

So, as you can see, it's all my LING 300 professor's fault.  If her class hadn't been so awesome, and linguistics hadn't become my passion, I would have been...

...STUDENT TEACHING THIS SEMESTER AND FRETTING OVER AND COMPLAINING LOUDLY ABOUT THE STUPIDITY OF TPEs AND TPAs AND CBEST AND CSET AND RICA AND...AND...AND...AND GETTING DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO SOMETHING THAT I REALLY DON'T HAVE TRUE PASSION FOR AND DON'T WANT TO BE DOING FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

Ummm, no thanks.  I'll stick with my über-crazy linguistics semester, thank you.

Really, it amazes me how things worked out... I came to CSUSM intending to be an elementary teacher, and one requirement put me in the right place at the right time to find something I totally love.  Had I attended another university, been in a different program, started in a different semester, etc., I may never have been exposed to linguistics in the way that I was.  But it did happen that way.  And now I'm in a place where my professors are giving me responsibilities and opportunities that give me amazing things to learn and experience and will give me an edge when I apply for grad school (something I WILL do.  It's only a matter of time!) and enter the field of linguistics.  Think about it... as an undergraduate student I will have experience in field methods, done fieldwork in language documentation and revitalization, presented a paper at a conference, written grant proposals, been a TA, and been a student research assistant for a professor's cognitive linguistics research project.  How many non-linguistics-major undergraduate students can say THAT?!

So that's where I am.  It's going to be a very, very, very busy (stressful!) next few weeks... months...but I am determined.  I do love it.  I don't know if it's possible to convey that, but I truly do.  (And I honestly hope that my classmates who are student teaching feel as strongly about teaching as I do about linguistics.)

It's 1 am and I've been up since 6 when I took my husband to work (I miss my car!).  I then had class, which got cut short because of a completely benign suspicious package in the building (while I appreciate their caution, it was grossly inconvenient).  Then there was an honours society meeting.  Then doing the reading for Survey of American Indigenous Languages.  Then I actually had that class.  Then picked up the husband.  Then went back to campus to talk about grants and presentations.  Then had a couple hours of field work (which generates audio that will take hours to go through...) and now I'm home.  (It was a long, busy day!) Tomorrow: sleep in, geography, pick up homework to grade (the class for which I TA has their midterm.  Best wishes to them!), Knitter's Anonymous, and then a church event.  So I think it's time for bed for me.  Wish me luck in all of this!