And here comes July

First, let me recap quickly the last days of June.

• Monday night was probably the worst night I had here (well, apart from my actual first night in the UK). It was raining heavily, thunder and lightening were scary, especially when you are all alone. I turned the TV on to take my mind off what's happening only to find on one channed a program called "Is this the worst weather ever?" where it was all about floods, changed the channel to find the fleet celebrating the Trafalgar 200 anniversary, and finally changed the channel again to find the Mayor of London on the news talking about the water problem in the city and urging the people not to flush the toilets everytime. Was it a water-only-theme that day?
  

• After staying in for two days since I moved, I went out last night. This was the first time I go to an event I knew about from The Lecture List. It was a stand up comedy show by Shazia Mirza, the first feamle Muslim comedian. I was very interested to see how would that go. Aisha, my ex-flatmate came with me. To tell you the truth, the show was funny and entertaining, but some of the stuff she said was pretty shocking to me. I mean, there were times when I couldn't even laugh at somethings she said and instead thought: is it really appropriate to laugh at that? Being a muslim and of Asian origins, much of her material had to do with religion, culture and ethnicity, but I thought that she was over obsessed with religion and sex in a way that kind of makes her no different than any other comedian. At times, I thought she was actually trying not to be 'too much of a muslim'. Anyway, it was an interesting experience.
  

Ok.. and here comes July. July has always been an eventful month in my life. But this time, it's going to be extra special. How extra special? Well, I will start with the good things:

• First, this will hopefully be the month when I finish my thesis proposal. Whether I am going to be officially registered or not, I just hope I will finish my work and leave the official stuff to happen whenever and at least be psychologically relaxed later, which brings us to the second point.
• This will be the month when I'll be counting the days left for me to go home on my first vacation after 6 months. Boy, I never thought I could stay away from home for 6 whole months.

Ok, end of good things, now bad things.

• This will be the month when I miss my mum's birthday on the 3rd for the first time in my life.
• This will be the month when I miss my brother's birthday on the 26th for the first time in my life.
• And this will be the month when I miss celebrating my own birthday on the 10th with my family.

Need I say more? Well, all I can hope for is making myself busy would help get my mind off things. Still, I can't help thinking what on earth am I going to do on my birthday? Whatever happens, I really hope it will involve two things: people and chocolate cake.

p.s.1
I am at Trent Park today for the first time since I moved. It took exactly 45 min. to get here. I needed to blog, and it seems that having internet in my flat will take a while due to unexpected complications.

p.s.2
after the show yesterday, me and Aisha had a bite at one cosy cafe. The Gazpacho soup was very good, it was my first soup with ice cubes.

Mai

First day

Wooooooooooh, what a day. First of all, I am blogging from an internet cafe right across the street. I had a terrible night yesterday, being very nervous and worried. I woke up really early, finished last minute packing and waited for a very helpful Egyptian, who I met only once, to come and pick me up with his car. The minute I was alone in the flat I turned on the TV, not to watch something but just for the sake of company. I know I will be doing that a lot. Anyway, I started cleaning of course and was dead tired by the time I just did the first level. I didn't even unpack my suitcases yet. I just got out all my books and papers and sorted them out. So did I get some rest then? No, I went out. I wanted to get to know the area around me (and frankly I wanted to be with people for a while). So I walked and walked and walked in the streets nearby. Apart from the fact that I can't feel either my legs now, espeacially my poor ankle, the exploration was good. I found many restaurants: Chinese, Malaysian, Thai, Libanese, Iraqi, Iranian, and even a restaurant called Shakespeare :) and most importantly, an Egyptian restaurant. And it was nice to find a bookshop where you can buy Arabic books. The strange thing is that one of the shops had a sign saying "Russian ice cream here".. hmm, is that necessarily a good thing?

Ok, unfortunately I have to go. I didn't eat anything since morning. So I will get something to eat and go.. home. I hope I will start working tonight right away, while the TV is on too. I used to do that all the time back.. home.

Mai

THIS IS IT (or The day Mai will totally live on her own)

My last night in the students' halls. I have very mixed feelings right now. I only hope I will have internet in my flat as soon as possible, it should take about 10 days. Meanwhile I will be using a closeby internet cafe for emailing, and most importantly, blogging purposes. I know I will need to blog more than ever in the coming days. Wish me luck everyone.

Soundtrack of the night:

Bye bye love
Bye bye happiness
Hello loneliness
I think I’m gonna cry

Mai

Golf balls, pebbles, sand and coffee

I had this email today:

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes." The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things- your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions- things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else- the small stuff. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Hmm... I started thinking then, is my thesis a golf ball or a pebble? I think it's a golf ball (although I only think of golf as such a waste of land so that a few people can play a game).

Anyway, I went to Tottenham campus today for the last time and emptied my locker (which means more things for me to carry). The nicest thing was that there was a lady at the graduate center who was obviously printing a very big file. We had a short chat and I knew she was printing the final version of her PhD thesis after she had her viva and made the corrections. When she knew I was just starting she wisely said, "we all begin thinking that the end is so far and hard, but we get there." I felt more relaxed after hearing this. But of course the real reason for feeling relaxed today is the fact that I managed to put together a good outline for my thesis. I am more eager now to finish my proposal in time. I just need to swing the other golf ball away- moving. And for getting through all this, I'll definitely have lots and lots of coffee :)

p.s.1
would you believe me if I told you that after 2 weeks of typical hot summer we had 3 hours of non-stop rain with thunder and lightening today? Ain't european weather great?

p.s.2
in case you're wondering, my ankle is better today, still walking or standing for too long is bad, but the biggest enemy is stairs [my room is on the 3rd floor :( but there are lifts in the building I'm moving to :) but there are stairs in my flat to go up to level 2 :( ]

Mai

Busy (aawoo) day

Despite my hurting ankle, I continued packing all morning and I managed to go to the flat and dump two suitcases there. I was so tired on my way back that I actually forgot to get off at my tube stop and had to wait till the next one. By the time I came back it was 11. Checking on my ankle, which was all red and swollen in the morning, it's still a bit swollen but with blueish bruises now too. Maybe this is progress?!

p.s.
On the tube, the lady sitting opposite me was reading Sartre's Existentialism and Humanism. Is that really tube-reading material? I kept thinking about that until I missed my stop.

Mai

Bad (aawoo) timing

I can't be busier these days.. I have lots of packing to do, preparing to move in a few days, collecting my stuff, sorting out my books and papers, filling suitcases and boxes, and of course also trying to catch up with my studying and proposal.. when in the heat of all this: I twist my ankle. It was a nasty fall actually as I was standing on the chair to get a heavy box from the top of the wardrobe and stepping down.. aawoo, apparently the box was too heavy. It started really hurting just 5 minutes afterwards. I hobbled my way to my flatmate's room to ask if she has any pain relieving cream or spray, luckily my Chinese flatmate Xia had a sort of oil to rub it over. She was even sweet enough to insist on rubbing it herself, the Chinese-way that she learnt from her grandma (the rubbing hurt too). The oil is working but it's slow, and my other flatmate Aisha is on her way now to the pharmacy to get me another spray.

So, in the time when I need every minute to get things done, I am lying in bed, doing nothing but thinking about a million thing, staring at my messy room and occasionally saying: aawooooooo :(

Mai

Hot town summer in the city

Yep, it's summer at last. I am not saying it's particularly enjoyable, but at least it fits my definition of summer. So this morning I was sitting in the kitchen with my flatmates arranging to go to tesco's to buy things, when suddenly we had a better idea. We all got dressed and went to Trent Park, we had a picnic there, with a checked blanket and munchies and all. It was great. People there sunbathing in their swim suits, some playing frisbee, all by the lake. It felt 'almost' like being on the beach. God I miss the beach.

p.s.
the best way to read a paper on cognitive pragmatics is lying on your back under the shade of a tree, by a lake where ducks pass by you, with a bag of maltesers and a cold juice somewhere handy. Oh, wait.. this is the best way to read anything in linguistics really.. mmm, or anything non-linguistic too... ok, this is the best way to read.

Mai

How would you define "father"?

You would think it's the easiest thing in the world, but apparently it's not. In one of the Lexicom sessions we were talking about the best way to write a dictionary entry, and now I realise it's not an easy task. So, how would you define "father"? Compare these definitions:

• One by whom a child is or has been begotten, a male parent, the nearest male ancestor. (OED)
• A man who has begotten a child. (Merriam Webster)
• Male parent: a male parent of a human being or animal. (Encarta)
• Your male parent. (Macmillan)

But, here is the prototype of the 'wrong' way to define a word (I advise you not to think about it too much):

• Your father is the man who made your mother pregnant with you (COBUILD2)

Told you.. :)


Oh, and when we were talking about corpus-based dictionaries and choosing corpus examples to include in entries, this was mentioned as a 'bad' example for the headword suck:

• McDonald's sucks, let's go to Burger King.

I would actually put it as 'both McDonald's and Burger King suck' :)

Ok, I'll go now and try to define "it": a two-letter word that can mean anything or nothing. How about that for a start? :)

Mai

I am back

You cannot imagine how many things I was thinking about on the plane from Brno to London. One, of course, is trying to remember what the hell I was working on for my thesis proposal :) Another thing, is worrying about my expected move from students' halls to a new flat and the whole experience of getting used to a new place all over again. And, as I was looking from the window and watching the clouds, I was thinking how lucky it is not to have fear of flying because then you would miss a lot of fun.

On my last night in Brno, our usual group went out for a bite in one cafe. This time we had a traditional Czech dish that is basically 'soup in bread'. I forgot the name, but it is a big round piece of bread that is filled with potatoe soup. It was delicious. Most of the people left that day, but only the smart ones, ME :), stayed for an extra night to have the chance to see more on Wednesday morning and, most importantly, to do some shopping. So I arranged with Jan, the Czech guy who was our guide, and another Dutch guy to go on a trip to the biggest and most famous lake in Brno. So first we took the tram, then walked along the river for about 15 minutes, then took a boat trip for half an hour in the beautiful setting of the green hills. We got off only to walk for another 15 minutes up a hill to reach the "Hrad Veverí" (Veveri Castle). This castle was allegedly built sometime in the 11th century. But it was not so great to see it because it was severly damaged during WWII and a lot of reconstruction work was going on. So we basically paid 50 crowns to see workers restoring a castle and contributed to the restoration budget. The view, however, was amazing and I thought how great it would be to live in this castle and have this view from my bedroom window every morning. We had a short rest at a cafe there where we had the traditional Czech soft drink "Kofola". It looks exactly like coke, but has a strange taste that I couldn't relate to anything else. Then we took a bus and a tram back to the city centre, where we said bye and I went to spend the last Czech money I had before getting back to the hotel and taking a taxi to the airport.

All in all, I had a great week. And of course the hard part now is getting back to the mood of work. But I think the even harder part is getting used to student's food again after the delicious and big portions of food I had in Brno :)

Anyway, now I am back. The weird thing is that it felt both strange and relaxing to say that I am going home to London. What a change!

Mai

And its over

Before reading: all the "yies" and "zees" in this post will be reveresed. This is because I could not change the kezboard from Cyech to English. Trzing to remember everz time to reverse would be too much trouble for me, so just deal with it.

Zes, this was the last daz of the workshop. It was a verz good experience, both academicallz and personallz. Is there anzthing better than learning new things and enriching zour life experience? I reallz enjozed it. After we left the universitz and said bze to everzone, we headed back to the hotel. Me and 3 other people (South Africa, China, The Netherlands) are stazing for the night and leaving at different times tomorrow. So we walked around for a while, we did some shopping, and will meet in an hour to go for dinner. And I think tomorrow morning we will arrange to see more places too.

Although it sounds like fun fun fun, now I am starting to think about going back to work and mz dear thesis proposal waiting for me. To tell zou the truth, I kinda miss a and the and this and it... :) Anzwaz, thez are not going anzwhere, and I will soon be toiling over their use again.

Ok, last chance everzone: do zou want anzthing from Brno? No? Ok then.

p.s.
the onlz irritating thing so far is that since last night all I have been watching on CNN was the "breaking news" on Michael Jackson's acquittal. HELLO, can we see what's happening in the rest of the world please?

Mai

A leap in time

Do you want to spend your morning watching demos about hi-tech state-of-the-art software for language studies that can upload a 10 million word corpus on the click of a button and allows you to do all sorts of things with it and puts it on the web too, then spend your evening in a medieval restaurant sitting on wooden benches covered with fur while you are served by waiters, in typical middle ages clothes, drinks in metal cups and food that you pick from a menu that categorises food as food for knights and kings and food for craftsmen and food for commoners? Then you should have spent today with me. It was really cool.

p.s.
The castle we visited yesterday is called the Spilberk (pronounced 'shpilberk').

Mai

A dinner and a tour

Another lovely day in Brno, and the main reason is that the social part today was great. After the workshop sessions ended, we were scheduled to meet for a guided tour followed by the workshop dinner. We walked to one of the most famous attractions in Brno, a 13th century castle which witnessed a lot of historical events (I don't have the brochure now so will write its name later). It was used for a long time as a prison, and our nice old tour guide told us it was one of the toughest prisons in Europe. The castle is on top of a hill and overlooks the great view of the old city of Brno and all the green hills at the background. Then we went to the restaurant, perfectly situated below the ground floor and has the architecture of a wine cellar. The food was very good, and there was a nice quartet with two violenists, one celloist, and one playing a strange czech (and slavic) instrument that sounds much like a piano. Of course we had to take a taxi back to the hotel because it was raining, but the whole day was lovely.

p.s. 1
in one of the famous squares in the old city which we went to yesterday, there was a distinct circle marked on the ground, which, we were told, was "the centre of Europe" :)

p.s. 2
while talking with the Serbian girl who loves Indian food, she was saying that there was only one Indian restaurant in Belgrade which was called "The Indian Restaurant" hmmm..... rings any linguistic bells? :)

Mai

Ano, Ne = Yes, No

As confusing as this may seem, "ano" in Czech means "yes", but "ne" sounds more naturally "no". Anyway today I had a great international experience. After today's sessions ended and we rested at the hotel for a while, a group of us arranged to meet at the "recepce" to go for a walk and dinner. So the group included me, 2 Czechs (one from Brno and one from Prague), one from Serbia, one from Slovenia, one from Hong Kong, 2 from South Africa (one originally Indian) and one from Russia. The sum of languages we could all say we know (with varying degrees of fluency from native tongues to fairly basic knowledge) amounted to about 15. Amazing, huh? These included: Czech, English, French, German, Russian, Slovenic, Serbian, Africaan, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Hausa, and even Icelandic.

And we did some more walking around today, the architecture in the city is very interesting, you can see a lot of history everywhere. The highlight of course was the Cathedral of St. Paul and St. Peter, it's very nice, although we could only see it from the outside since it was already closed.

And a small piece of information on the Czech traditions in Christmas: they eat fish and potatoes.

One of the nice things too is that the Serbian girl has been to Egypt before (Sharm el Sheikh) and she loved it, one Czech guy studied Arabic in Prague and stayed in Cairo for 2 years, and everyone I talk to is really eager to visit Egypt one day. That's nice, isn't it? :)

And another participant just came today to the workshop, and it turned out to be someone from Reading University whom I emailed about one and a half years ago to ask about his PhD thesis, which was corpus-based, and he sent it to me and we exchanged a couple of emails. It's a small world. He remembered me and we had a nice chat.

Mai

And hello again..

The reason I am blogging twice is that I found that I can access the internet from the hotel, and the best thing of course, it's free :) So here I am. Today, I went with three other participants for a walk in the old city and dinner. We didn't see much, but at least we got to know the place a bit. And so far, all I could see a lot of in this city is beer and watches!! Well, everyone told me this country is famous for beer, fine, but what's with the watches? We passed a lot of watch shops. Anyway, now I also know that "kosmetika" is, well.. cosmetics, and "autoskola" is obviously a driving school. But there are signs of globalisation here too, mainly represented in McDonalds, KFC, Tesco, Carrefeur and.. Moulin Rouge ;-)

The weird thing so far is dealing with the weird values of money.. I never carried a 1000 bill of anything before :) And of course you have to get used to the idea of paying 100 something for a couple of biscuit packs and a drink.

But the really weird thing is when you get to watch The Simpsons.. in Czech. As Homer would put it: daaow :)

So, obviously I will be blogging as much as I can. See you tomorrow.

Mai

Hello from Brno (if you pronounce it right, it rhymes)

So I am here in Brno, and it's not much warmer than London :) But a lot of things here remind me of Cairo, interestingly, all related to traffic: besides the old cars and ugly buses, driving in Brno is much like home (basically, you can do anything as long as you do it first :) ). The view from my hotel room is quite nice too. And the only thing I recognise on the streets is "restaurace" .. you have to eat, right?

Anyway, this is just a quick one, have to go to my session now. Will blog to you later.

Mai

Have a break, have a lexical computing workshop!

After a very intensive period of thinking and reading about referring expressions, I was mentally and physically exhausted. So I was cruising around on the internet today and came across various things like "forensic linguistics" and "pedagogical stylistics" and "onomastics" (don't ask!), when I suddenly stopped and said to myself: Ok, I need a life. I need a break. I'll go pack my bag to go to a workshop on lexcial computing. :) It doesn't sound like much of a difference, I know, but at least it will take my mind off this and that and it for a while, and, most importantly, it will give me the chance to see a new country and meet new people. So, I will first check the weather in Brno, for the fifteenth time, and start packing. Hopefully, I'll blog all about it whenever I can.

I wonder if this will be A workshop or THE workshop of my career.

(If you can't tell the difference, you're fine, and if you can, then you know how much trouble I am in :) )

Mai

Top 10 list, a la David Letterman

So I was reading a book (yeh yeh in linguistics) which had an interesting quotation and one thing led to the other and I ended up finding this interesting list. It is a list of the 10 greatest philosophical works (well, linguistics.. philosophy, it figures.. what else did you expect? :) ) that was a result of a survey done by Philosophers' Magazine back in 2001. You can read about it in The Guardian article here.

Are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen, here is tonight's Top 10 List:

[10] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

[9] Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

[8] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

[7] Aristotle, Metaphysics

[6] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

[5] Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

[4] Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

[3] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

[2] Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason

[1] Plato, The Republic


So, any surprises? any names you miss? ok, any names you actually recognise? ;-)

I was surprised to see Darwin, since I think his work affected science more than philosophy, and I expected to see Derrida but was shocked to know that he didn't even make it to the top 50!!

What the article says was no surprise to anyone is that Plato's The Republic is on top. This is despite the interesting fact that "you will be hard pressed to find a philosopher working today who will agree with more than 5% of it".

But get this, the British thinker Alfred North Whitehead once said that "philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato". I love the description.

Ok, now its time for WILL IT FLOAT? :) (if you watch David Letterman, you'll get it)

Mai

Friday night drama

Yeh last night we had a bit of a drama in flat 39. Fatima, our Pakistani flatmate, left to go home. Everyone was helping out in the packing and the arrangement of the room so it was a very busy day, but then it dawned on us as we walked her to the train station, said goodbye, and came back with one person less. On our way back it was mostly silence, there were some tears too. For me, it was a unique experience to live with someone for 4 months then part. And the point is me and Fatima really connected, we both felt like we have known each other for years, we used to eat together, study in each other's rooms, have our own jokes and cracks. Anyway, hopefully we will meet again when she comes back in September for her dissertation. As for the mixed feelings I have about this, being happy for her that she is going home and sad for parting, I can only say that it makes my living-in-student-halls experience complete.

Mai

Got out, got wet, came back

Just about 45 minutes ago, I realised I have nothing to eat and I need to do some shopping. So I went out, minutes after it started raining, heavily, with thunder and everything. There I was standing, under the bus stop shield, holding an umbrella, and I still got soaked from head to toe. I just hope I don't get a cold, aachoo.., out of it.

And the latest from the linguistic world, someone recently noted that:

Outside the ivory tower, a "linguist" is somebody who speaks a foreign language, and there's no perceived need for a "science" of language because language is thought to be a phenomenon that is utterly transparent to everybody.

Disappointing, but probably true. I remember a certain someone saying, when I told him I will be working on referring expressions like a, the, this, etc. in my PhD: "the? you are writing a PhD thesis on the? (with a very sarcastic tone)" :)))

And the latest from the normal world, a couple of days ago I had a very nice cultural experience. My Pakistani flatmate brought a video of her brother's wedding and we all watched it. Actually it featured two events: the night before the wedding, "henna night" (like what we have in Egypt) and then the wedding party. It was very interesting to see a traditional Pakistani wedding, with the dresses, the dances and of course the strange rituals of the groom sitting down, being fed sweet things and getting his hair soaked with oil by the older women who take turns to do that and then put a paper money bill in his hand and pieces of henna. Then the bride comes in, all covered so that even her face does not show and sits in the same place for the same ritual, except that it looks really funny when every woman comes to her, bends over and reaches with her hand under the veil to feed her the sweets. :) The dances were nice too, very much similar to Indian dancing where all the action is in the shoulders, the hands and the hips. To my surprise, at some point an Arabic song started playing, and guess who was signing? Our very own Amr Diab, so I started translating for them the song for a change.

That's it for now.

Mai