I go to UCSC. I am in the linguistics department. This you can tell already from the fact that I wrote my address above, which (much to my extreme joy) is reserved SOLELY for people who are in the UCSC linguistics dept. So if you are jealous of this address, then that means that you will have to join the linguistics dept. at UCSC and then we can hang out ok? We can even have snax at Stevenson Cafe or something. Here is what the campus loox like from up high:

Before I came to UCSC, I studied linguistics in Canada. I went to a school there called Maghil or McGill or something. I never learned how to spell it because it was really really really COLD there!! Santa Cruz is different because you can wear less clothes and still be happy. I like that. Oops I didn't mean to imply that I prefer to wear less clothes, but I guess that's true as well. Ha ! Oh how rude of me: Canada is a country to the north of Santa Cruz, but not only was I north of Santa Cruz -- also EAST!:

Hey it's pretty mean of me to just go on and on about myself, right? So I propose you tell me about you. I like stories... you should send one or more to me as soon as you write them or have time or both. A thing I do a lot is check my email because for some reason it's fun I dunno. You can send me a story at this address: email. See I didn't write the email address for real it is a picture because I hear there are monsters on the internet that tell people to send you BORING BORING stuff. And lots. That happened to me on a Canadian email address I had once: ------@po-box.mcgill.ca. See how I don't even care if I write it here or not because it already gets so much junk mail? That's how sad the state is. :(

Right now I'm interested in the following:

I have done two presentations. They are below, and I have linx to the program and handouts for each. I think they went well!

I have some papers/squibs I've written, too. They're mostly pretty bad (ask my professors!). I can't decide whether I should be embarrassed to put them up here or not. I probably should at this point. I am not old enough to have written a good thing yet! Maybe I will put them in my webspace but not link them so you'll have to guess what sort of 8-character names I've given them. Haha it is mean right?

Once I was supposed to meet my undergrad thesis advisor for a 9am meeting. This was sad because I was planning to get a 12pm Greyhound Bus down to Boston to go give a presentation there, and I still had to make photocopies of my handouts beforehand! As I figured that it would not be fun to get up at 8am to shower eat have tea etc. I just stayed at the linguistics building all night long. Several of my friends stayed too, and we had a sleepover party in the linguistics building -- I don't know if it is allowed! People cut my hair in the lounge, and my hair was all over the floor but you couldn't see it because the floor is so dirty anyway. I also took a shower in the building which is funny because the water was orange from rust and it contains lead and there is no shower curtain and I had no towel. Ha! Mostly there were not many good places to sleep, but I had the foresight to have a sleeping bag which was very warm. It was funny because as a joke I slept outside of my advisor's office and left him a note. My friend Natalie took a picture of me, and you can view it here.

My CV can only be viewed in .pdf format. It is definitely worth downloading Adobe Reader 7.0. Such a great logo!

I never used to have a shortcut icon for Adobe Acrobat Reader on my computer desktop. I mean what is the point? Whenever you double-click a .pdf file, it automatically opens Adobe Reader anyway. Same with things like Intervideo WinDVD, Windows Media Player, etc. But now I think this icon for version 7 is really fantastic, and I leave it on my desktop. Also: I really like the new UPS logo. I used to get very angry that it was on all the new trux in the US but not in Canada. Then it slowly started getting put on the trux in Canada, and I became happier. However, I recently saw a UPS truck in Santa Cruz that had an old UPS logo, and I was very angry again. To cheer me up, UPS bought the entire chain of Mail Boxes Etc. stores and slapped their new logo on every single one renaming them "The UPS Store." Thank you UPS!

Sometimes there are good files that you can use. Mostly there are good files that *I* can use! Here they are (for me, and you) to use, if for some reason you (or I) do not have them, or have lost them.

I have no idea how! But check this out. I was looking to download it, and I found it on Cascadilla Press's website. Apparently you have to pay $20 for it! I thought that was kind of trailer trashing, so I did not buy it, but asked my friend Vera (over instant messenger) if she had a copy of it. She did not reply had probably set her status to "Away," but I would not be deterred.

By the way, it loox like this:

Anyway, I searched and searched for it, and it appeared that my only option would be to pay the $20 to download it from Cascadilla. Obviously I did not do this. Yet, lo and behold, a few days later I suddenly saw it as an option on Microsoft Word when I tried to change my font! I was very confused and happy, and I went into my font folder to look and see when this font got in there. It said "Modified: Saturday, May 14, 2005, 2:28:58 PM." At this time I was at Cafe Pergolesi planning my phonology presentation with Tabby, definitely NOT downloading fonts or even using the internet.

Does anyone know how this can even be? It is basically one of the most mysterious things that has ever happened to me. If you have had a similar experience (yeah right, imagine) or have any clues that may shed some light on this bizarre phenomenon, then send me an email. Also, send me an email if you would prefer not to spend $20 on a font that appears to have been created with MS Paint to begin with (by this, I am referring to Arboreal, if this was unclear).

There are several fun things I enjoy doing in my free time. One of these things is listening to music. I do not buy many CDs though because I listen to the same music over and over again. It is cheap and convenient that way. I don't really get tired of my music very much. It is sad because I am not really very up to date with it -- ever -- but at least I am not a quiet! No, despite my false-pride, I actually very sad about this, as I am definitely one to follow all trends. Regardless, if you are interested in knowing what music I enjoy, then you can send me an email with your questions ok?

Another thing I enjoy is reading. Ordinarily, I read about 1 book at a time. It is good this way, because then I don't get confused. When I was younger I had a harder time finishing boox (because I read very slowly) so I would often start a new book when I was in the middle of another. When I was at McGill I hardly read boox at all because I didn't really find the time too after all my school reading. However, now I am in grad school (on the quarter system) which means I am only required to take like 3 classes a quarter. Whoa: total free time! I am back in the game. I also subscribe to one magazine, The Believer, which keeps me abreast of good boox published recently, fills in some of the gaps in my general knowledge, makes me want to drop everything and apply to fiction MFA programs, and is generally a very fun read. I do not enjoy critiquing boox though. This is one of the main reasons I decided not to major in French lit.

Same goes for movies. I like good ones and "bad" ones. I see lots of people who like some movies but are scared that people will hate them if they say they like them, so they say that they are "bad." This is not a good tactic to make me think that you are cool, because I typically like people who like things more than people who don't like things. Not that you should lie if you actually don't like a movie/book/etc., but if you felt good while watching/reading it, then please admit it. If you like something, it is good.

I used to play music too. I played trumpet for many years (10 or so?), and I even got reasonably good after a while. When I turned 14, I was initiated into the world of the elite and got a silver Bach Stradivarius trumpet. Then I quit playing 4 or 5 years later. It is sad. I also can play about 5 songs on piano, which people alternately say are good/bad (depending on the person).

Ridiculous amounts of my time are also spent at my computer. Mostly I read things that are interesting to me, check my email, play Spider Solitaire, make webpages, talk on instant messenger, and read .pdf files of linguistics articles.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary defines echolalia as "The immediate and involuntary repetition of words or phrases just spoken by others, often a symptom of autism or some types of schizophrenia. Also called echophrasia." Oh! I do this. This means that I am either autistic or some type of schizophrenic. Actually one time I looked up echolalia online and there was some website saying that 75% of autistic people display echolalia. I took that to mean that I am 75% autistic, a new statistic that I choose to believe is true. Now whenever I do something wrong I can blame it on my 75% autism, which I suppose will be convenient.

I didn't always know that I had echolalia. I think my brother might have actually had it first, though his was a form of whispering. Not wanting to be left out, I took it from him for myself and pumped up the volume a little bit. Anyway, one of my colocs in Montreal, Emily McTavish, was reading Breakfast of Champions and noticed a passage. I copied it out so I wouldn't lose it:

The capybara is the largest rodent in the world. One time when I was in Montreal, my friend Shaun and I went to the Biodôme. (Did you know they have penguins there? Also... why do they need to build a fake Antarctica environment for them when it is already so cold in Canada!) Well, in one of the four environments, they had a capybara. Two maybe, I don't remember. Anyway, it was standing *directly* under the railing where I was standing, facing the wall (already so funny right?). A strong urge came over me to spit on it. I told Shaun, who was very much a fan of this idea. So after other people were out of sight of the exhibit, I spit on the capybara, expecting it to freak out. It didn't even notice. Do you think it's illegal?

Plus. Amusingly enough somebody has made a "capybara page." Search for it on the internet today! But first you may view a picture of the actual capybara I spit on in the Biodôme below. I yanked this picture from [_DP [_DP somebody [_CP who went to the Biodôme and took pictures ]] 's [_NP website ]].

I really like robots, and I think they are awesome. Maybe I will build one someday. I want to try to teach robots to talk. I can use Mark Gold's Language Identification in the Limit! But for real! There are already some robots that people are making that imitate human facial gestures (e.g. Kismet at MIT). My friend Sera even has a robot encyclopedia, and it's really fun and inspirational to read. I think you can get it through the Scholastic Book Order. If you like it when people dress up like robots and have adventures, then you should check out the world of Robot Frank. If you like real robots, then you should check out the Humanoid Robotics Group at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab or JPL Robotics which is affiliated with Nasa and CalTech. Sam Brown often also makes use of robots in his drawings on Exploding Dog, such as that seen below.

We don't really have robots now. It's sad. There are things like microwaves and vacuums and stuff like that that people might consider to be sort of like robots since they are helpful. Those people are cowards. They won't admit that we have not achieved robots yet. Just look at the MIT Robotics page above... there is a lot of work to be done still!

Has anyone ever been to a roller derby? I haven't. I really want to go to one badly. I have for a long time. One time when I was in high school one of my friends and I looked up how roller derbies worked, and we were gonna set one up at school as a fund-raiser... for ourselves! It would have been brilliant, but we never did it. Even now, I still don't even have my own pair of roller skates.

I want to go see a professional roller derby. Also, on Clarissa Explains It All, Sam's mom is in the roller derby. Her stories about it are amazing, and she's the coolest mom ever. And sometimes there would be clips of things she remembered from the roller derby where everyone would scream a lot: it shows her in her gear totally running into other roller derby-ers and freaking out. Clarissa Explains It All is a great show from the 90s anyway, but when Sam's mom talx about the roller derby, it's like somebody is calling out to you to do something great with your life.

So. Apparently San Francisco has a roller derby team called the Bay City Bombers. Dunno if they still play or what, but if so, it would be so hilarious to go see them. Perhaps there is extra department money for us to organize a linguistically-relevant field-trip? If not (or even if so!), we should also organize a linguistics department roller derby! We could set up a course around one of the parking lots, or even down at the track by the East Field House. That would be really fun, and I'm sure that the professors would enjoy getting involved!

Update! The Reigning World Champion Bay City Bombers will take on the Chicago Pioneers at the San Jose Civic Auditorium on August 27, 2005. Here is the advertisement:

Yosef Grodzinsky sometimes does experiments where he has to look at your brain. Because of this, I got $100! That is great! He wanted me to listen to sentences and click a mouse while I was in an MRI machine. Anyway, I did that and got free digital pictures of my brain. Wanna see? Click here.

Because of this $100 I received (this was in Canadian$, which are apparently not nearly as worthless compared to US$ as they used to be!), I was able to purchase a really spectacular backpack from Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC). It is really nice and I can keep so many things inside it when I go on trips to, say, Canada! The one I got is shown below in (9). Wait, I do not have to use example numbers on my personal website. It is not like my website will ever be published in Linguistic Inquiry!

Do you plan to visit Santa Cruz? I do. I have been to several restaurants that are good. I will tell you what they are, so you know! The ones that are bad are crossed out so you do not go there by accident.