How a linguist parties on spring break

I haven't kept a long-term journal since high school, when my little sister found my journal hidden (where else?) under my mattress and read embarrassing stuff about my first kiss and my lesbian friend and my adolescent, tormented soul. Naturally, I found hers, read it in retaliation, and told her who she had crushes on. She ratted me out to our parents. After that, I kept a journal in brief fits and starts my first couple years of college. I was too busy doing stuff to write for a while. Now that I'm not doing much of anything, I can keep a journal again. The irony, of course, is that there may not be much to write about.

I'm in my second semester of graduate school getting my M.A. TESOL degree. I'll be finished this December, and it's the most fun I've ever had in my life :) What, you ask, is TESOL? Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I've been taking classes related to linguistics, psychology, sociology, general education, grammar, and adult ed, and they're all fascinating. I've long known that I was addicted to school, but tried to fight the addiction in the four years between college and grad school. It's much nicer now that I've given in. In fact, I'm currently lusting over the idea of getting a PhD. Of course, it would be much easier to get serial master's degrees...

Anyway, this is my spring break. I was supposed to be in Denver, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, but my boyfriend's job requires him to work 13 hour night shifts for all seven days of my spring break. He was supposed to be free, but they rescheduled him two weeks ago, the bastards. That means that this week, I will be productive. I have three presentations to plan and two 15-page papers to write (which is why I started this blog - to procrastinate). Actually, my presentations are fairly interesting: gender differences in language and proposed explanations for those differences (examines research and possible solutions for change); chaos theory and its implications for adult education (links to easy-to-understand discussion of chaos theory by Manus Donahue: http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/chaosh.html, http://www.duke.edu/~mjd/chaos/Ch3.htm) ; and adult participation in, success in, and satisfaction with online learning programs.

The highlights of my week will be 50 cent night at the dollar theatre, evening yoga class, and half-price sushi. I also may go down to Dallas, since my brother recently returned from 18 months in Iraq.