Linguistics
So I had my meeting with Dr. Jaeger who in turn had a meeting with the Department Head and both believe that should I choose to pursue it, I do have a case to file a formal grievance against the Professor I mentioned in my earlier post. I say choose to pursue it because I’m currently seeing if I can negotiate a written apology and having the 302 course comp’d so I don’t have to pay for it again. Since what he did falls under professional misconduct and it would be in the Universities best interests to just comp the course and to allow everything to be done with. I’m not out for blood, I’m looking to be reasonable and to get a fair and balanced end to this thing. I’ll be more than happy to consider everything settled if I receive an apology in writing and the 302 course comp’d for the Fall semester.
There are certain problems that do arise form this, however. First, my plans for July are now totally shot. I’m incredibly grateful that I chose to only book the month of June in Israel because I had to move one course that I was taking in the Fall to the summer session (the month of July) so I’m glad that it doesn’t affect my summer travel abroad. It’s also a problem in that I was planning on spending more time with my family this summer. However, the benefits are that the course is in the afternoon to the late evening (so it’s not an early morning class which I would likely miss), twice a week, it’s a lab course so it should be interesting and I have the other days off to myself. Of course this also messed up my plans to take the 45hr handgun course this summer. Dad and I have tentatively moved it to after finals and before I head up to do my thing at Yaoi North since he wants to take it with me. I think that he’s happy that this is a “guy thing” we can do together; I’m happy because I haven’t gone shooting since I was sixteen and outside of photography my father and I have nothing that we do together so at least this is something we can talk about and/or do.
However, I’ll be happy once everything is resolved. I’m incredibly thankful, that outside of one professor, my department is amazing and that when confronted with a problem, they acted quickly and took my complaint seriously and professionally and just dealt with it. I’m also happy that they go to bat for their students, too many departments don’t so I’m grateful that mine does.
Other than That Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?
My current standings:
Structure of the English Sound System with Michelson: A
Sociolinguistics with Wolf Wölk: B, about to be an A with my paper
Linguistic Anthropology with Jürgen: A (estimated), haven’t received anything back yet.
Arabic with Issa Roustum: A- (almost guaranteed, mid-term is nine days)
Life
I really haven’t been diligent about exercising this semester at all and I really do need to get back into running and weight training so I’m hoping to spend my mornings when not in class this summer at the gym. Also, since I don’t work in Buffalo (outside of contracted work and consulting) I have no official commitments throughout the month of July (I have a wedding photo shoot in August) and I plan on keeping it that way. Sort of a work moratorium and/or an enforced vacation. Though truth be told, this is half the reason why I like dating Jocks (the stereotypical ones) and stoners (again, the stereotypical ones): they force me to have fun, I force them to study. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
All things considered though, life is going pretty well at the moment. I am feeling a little weird because I registered for the last courses I’ll ever be taking at the University at Buffalo (having decided that I really can’t deal with the cold weather anymore) and I’m about to enter a stage of transition after feeling incredibly comfortable for about five years in my habits so it does take some getting used to but I’m getting there.
Sadly, I wasn’t able to make time to go and take the P.I. and Notary Exams last week or this week since my travel plans changed, so I’ll take them during Finals week in May.
Apartment wise, I met with one of the complex managers to extend my lease (he’s new, the person I signed my lease with two years ago has since left) He was very nice…and definitely family. He was more than happy to extend my lease through December and make it month to month if I needed to leave either earlier or later and was more than happy to accommodate me should I need any further assistance. I also got word from him that the waiting list was 28 people long for the complex and was currently seven months to a year before they thought they’d have an apartment open for the first person on the list; so they were more than okay with me leaving in December and had people who were dying to get in so I shouldn’t worry about it.
On the way out, I almost left by way of the closet door (they were right next to each other and I hadn’t had coffee yet…and they weren’t labeled) so he says “Don’t use that door unless you want to come out of the closet” to which I respond, as I walk out of the correct door “Oh honey, I did that years ago.”
And scene.
Toronto
gryvon and I went up to Toronto the other day for the staff meeting for Anime North/Yaoi North and it was really amazing, We have a ton of surprises planned for Yaoi North goers this year and a lot of cool stuff up our sleeves for everyone to enjoy and I’ll post about them in more detail in another entry at some other point in time.
On the way back to the U.S. Border I was mostly useless as a co-pilot, though I did manage to hold the GPS upright, in my hand, while sleeping so Chris got us back just fine. The border guard was incredibly pedantic and if Canada really wants to look into why there’s a drop in their tourism I think they should inquire to see how many U.S. Citizens aren’t coming up because we have to deal with our own border security on the way back down.
Torah
So, I’ve been incredibly critical of my Jewish Education growing up; mostly because I think that my parents are owed a refund and perhaps some kind of penance. The most recent example occurred to me the other day.
I ordered a ‘pocket’ Tanakh (which of course means it’s about the size, shape, and weight of a brick) because I’ve been meaning to read from it daily. I open up to the book of Genesis and by the time I finished it I had ten pages of notes of stuff that I think would be neat to turn into a paper (prevailing belief in the existence or the possible existence of demigods, recognized powers outside of God, Angels, Cherubim, areas of the world as false paths to the Garden of Eden and of course, the really neat burning sword). The whole thought process actually started when I was reading about how God was contemplating how long his breath could last and that really set my pen flying because he was talking about human age and it set his breathe as a time line…anyways, I digress…
What I realized, after I shut my notebook was that I got the most watered down bland, uncool, cliff notes version of events as possible for something that is so detailed and cool and exciting and has so much potential for discussion…yet we found more than enough time to put metal bowls on students heads and have them bang them with spoons and walk around the classroom shouting “Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!” so that everyone could understand the ins and outs of leprosy and the management of lepers thereof.
I guess it’s not that we didn’t get an education, I think I just question the curriculum.
Consulates
So my Father and my Mother have been invited to have dinner at the house of the Israeli Consulate General this week; I’m hoping that I’ll be able to come along (we’ll see). I can put him on the list of Israeli people of some importance that I’ve shared a meal with, right next to Yossi Olmert who I learned really enjoys soccer and does not like to think of himself as a pussycat (of which he made mention of, about six or seven times over the course of the meal and in his speech after).
Books
I just finished Too Many Chefs by Rex Stout. It was fantastic, I even at times had the “hotel smell” in my head as the character Archie was talking about walking in the foyer to find the house dick.
Anyways, time to go to bed. I’ll respond to posts and comments tomorrow, and provide a more in depth entry at some point too.
G’night!
– M
moocowinthecity 
munchkinqueen54) and Dad because they asked for my current travel schedule, I have a lot more to add but below are the basics.
