The analysis of insipidy

Three weeks into month of intensive immersion grad classes, my superego has been nearly slaughtered by the id and the ego. Id, because I'm tired of thinking...much rather eat! says the id. And the ego, because this purely intellectual, extraordinarily abstruse class cannot connect to any practical or useful understanding, even in an intellectual sense.

Allow me to illustrate. My current class is the linguistics of electronic language. My research topic is on the use of "I am" (Je suis) vs "I'm" (J'suis) in subject lines of posts and its subsequent use in the responses to those subjects in a forum for adolescent girls, "100% girls, No boys allowed."


The professor thought that was a great topic. Only the use of language, though, not the meaning that it conveys. Which begs the questions: What's the point of studying language without concern for its communicated meaning? That's linguistics, apparently. Let's just say that pure academia does not appeal to me.

A side note, my main distraction and means of remaining sane these week is the Twilight series. I have the audio books, which makes spending 2+ hours in the car commuting actually nice. I mean...what are Bella and Edward going to do next? These are important things.

Better than Ezra & a Wedding

Casey and I went to the Better than Ezra show last night at the House of Blues. It was great. They're pretty good showmen and played a nice mix of old favorites and new songs. Their new album, Paper Empire, is worth checking out.

My favorite still is "Lifetime," and Casey prefered "Desperately Wanting." And the opener, Tyrone Wells, was fun too, even the yodeling. Next time I go to a concert, though, I'm going to wear shoes like these:Because I'm apparently the shortest BTE fan in the world, the rest being the giants of Brobdingnag, including the striptease-dancing Miss Piggy lookalike that was in front of us. I'm sure she's a lovely person, though.

Also, Saturday, we went to the wedding of some friends from Baylor, Shawn and Heather. Now, how cool is this: instead of disappearing immediately after the wedding, the bride and groom decided to stick around and have a couple events for folks, bowling, dinner at Humperdinks, etc. It was really fun to get to spend time with my old roommate, Heather, and to see Josh and Ryan, some good buddies from Baylor. There's nothing like old friends. :-)

Downhill

Ah...all that's left of the teaching year is giving exams. Some paperwork, running around getting checked off for stuff and attending graduation, and that's it.

Wee!