So, my sister's graduation was last weekend. It was nice to see her, but unfortunately I didn't really get to for most of it. There was a great deal of sitting around waiting for this or that ceremony, so the whole thing was pretty tedious. I'm just not a ritualist sort of person, I guess. I didn't want to go to mine, I didn't want to go to hers. I swear, if/when I go back to graduate school, I'm not even telling anyone when I get my degree.
I did have time to get some reading done on the plane to Providence, though. I finished up my linguistics book. Overall, that was a disappointment. Too broad and shallow; I prefer a little more depth. Should have guessed that, though, given that it was out for public consumption. Usually, if a book's good, it should be about as obscure as its topic, I've found. Linguistics: not popular + book: widely known = probably not a serious, in-depth treatment of the subject. Still, there was some good info in it. I've been trying to memorize the international phonetic alphabet. (No, no good reason. Nothing I ever do has one.) I also read Nabokov's Lolita. Did you know the girl's name is actually "Dolores?" I thought Lolita was just a name that had fallen out of use since the book was published. The book was pretty good. I felt like it kind of petered out at the end, but that might also be because I was increasingly sleep-deprived, so comprehension sort of suffered. I will probably re-read it soon. But first, I picked up a book at the airport bookstore about the planning and execution of the Iraq invasion. Seems pretty interesting so far; well footnoted and so on. Anything that can even partly explain how things got so completely fucked up, I'm keen on reading.
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In regards to the psych write-up I mentioned in the past couple of entires, I did finally get that from Dwen. It doesn't come off as very flattering. I should have predicted that, considering that the tests she was practicing are ultimately diagnostic tools, designed to find neuroses. Dwen cheerfully informs that "it doesn't sound very good, but don't worry. It's all subclinical." Um, thanks. So, conclusion: I'm sort of crazy, but not crazy enough for it to be an emergency. Still, going over the report with her and hearing how my responses translated into the conclusions was pretty interesting. All of these Freudian psychoanalytical tools don't seem like they should work, but at the same time, the final result hits a lot of points I completely agree with, and it's hard to argue with results. Listening to her describe the process, it sounds like a purely intuitive thing, and it probably works for her mostly because she's been dealing with patients for a few years already.
Anyway, I decided against posting the final report here, but if you send me a message, I don't mind sharing in a way that's not publicly searchable.
I did have time to get some reading done on the plane to Providence, though. I finished up my linguistics book. Overall, that was a disappointment. Too broad and shallow; I prefer a little more depth. Should have guessed that, though, given that it was out for public consumption. Usually, if a book's good, it should be about as obscure as its topic, I've found. Linguistics: not popular + book: widely known = probably not a serious, in-depth treatment of the subject. Still, there was some good info in it. I've been trying to memorize the international phonetic alphabet. (No, no good reason. Nothing I ever do has one.) I also read Nabokov's Lolita. Did you know the girl's name is actually "Dolores?" I thought Lolita was just a name that had fallen out of use since the book was published. The book was pretty good. I felt like it kind of petered out at the end, but that might also be because I was increasingly sleep-deprived, so comprehension sort of suffered. I will probably re-read it soon. But first, I picked up a book at the airport bookstore about the planning and execution of the Iraq invasion. Seems pretty interesting so far; well footnoted and so on. Anything that can even partly explain how things got so completely fucked up, I'm keen on reading.
___________________________________________
In regards to the psych write-up I mentioned in the past couple of entires, I did finally get that from Dwen. It doesn't come off as very flattering. I should have predicted that, considering that the tests she was practicing are ultimately diagnostic tools, designed to find neuroses. Dwen cheerfully informs that "it doesn't sound very good, but don't worry. It's all subclinical." Um, thanks. So, conclusion: I'm sort of crazy, but not crazy enough for it to be an emergency. Still, going over the report with her and hearing how my responses translated into the conclusions was pretty interesting. All of these Freudian psychoanalytical tools don't seem like they should work, but at the same time, the final result hits a lot of points I completely agree with, and it's hard to argue with results. Listening to her describe the process, it sounds like a purely intuitive thing, and it probably works for her mostly because she's been dealing with patients for a few years already.
Anyway, I decided against posting the final report here, but if you send me a message, I don't mind sharing in a way that's not publicly searchable.
dylan:
Thanks for commenting on my set!