Summer in the city

Posted on May 5, 2008

Now that classes are over and I don’t begin again until August, I’ve been thinking of some things to do over the summer. As mentioned previously I’m scheduled to take the GRE this week. Once the grades for that arrive, then it’s a matter of making a formal application for grad school. Still, those things won’t occupy much of my time, so it’s a matter of figuring out what else to do.

My office and apartment both need Spring cleaning, so I think that is what I will work on this week, at home and at work. Actually, cleaning the apartment might go into next week. Calling it dirty would be giving it too much credit. I’ll try to work in sections and see how that goes.

I’ve also given myself a reading list for summer. Some have to do with the idea that I’m going to be a grad student (knock on wood) and should bone up while I have the chance:

• Surviving your Thesis by Susan Burton
• Developing Multicultural Educators by Jana Noel
• The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
• Reflections on Language by Noam Chomsky
• Language and Responsibility by Noam Chomsky
• Formulaic Sequences: Acquisition, Processing and Use by Norbert Schmitt
• Formulaic Language and the Lexicon by Alison Wray

I’ve read the last two already while researching a paper last Fall. Since I keep thinking about that subject, it may be the basis of my thesis. I’ve never read Chomsky before, even though he is supposed to be very influential in Linguistics. What often happens is people will describe what they think Chomsky said or wrote, and they are only mentioning what is needed to support their point. To get my own idea about what his ideas are, I figured I should actually read his books. The other books caught my eye for some reason.

I also plan on reading House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, and maybe Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. When I read novels, they usually only take a day or so to read, so that idea should hold for these books, but not the ones up above. Hopefully, this will take care of all, or most of the summer.

Related posts:

1. A few words about formulaic language
2. Feeling productive
3. So this is Grad school
4. TESOL
5. Usage of the word “fuck”

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