Hello 2012, hello Harry Fairhurst...

If you're not from York, you might wonder why Mr Fairhurst merits a blog-title greeting.

If you are from York, you'll know exactly where (rather than with whom) I've been spending my time. Oh yes. The library.

The sunset from my perch in the Harry Fairhurst building.
I did see the sun that day. Honest.

A week today, the first four summative assignments of my Masters are due and, even though the formative ones went pretty well, I can't help but feel a bit nervous. I mean, I'm quite pleased with how I managed my time over Christmas - I got in plenty of present-giving/receiving, daft-game-playing and a superhuman amount of eating over the festive period, don't get me wrong, but I also came back to York with two full drafts and a 2500-word stream of consciousness about multiple wh-constructions in Czech. If I carry on with these workdays in the library, we're on course for the 12th January, I think (and there's a whole host of lovely linguists to lunch with and keep me sane in the meantime).

Looking forward to 13th January, there's a lot coming up this term. We're specialising more this term, so whilst phonetics has been fun, I can bilabial-click-it goodbye and focus on syntax, syntax and more (first language) syntax. There's a really interesting-sounding colloquium in the first week of term about grammaticality versus comprehensibility, so that seems to be starting as it means to go on, and, as I mentioned back in December, the other Rebecca-Louise-syntactician and I will be livening up the department with our art/syntax project. Yeah, they're totally compatible. AND I may even have half a good idea for my dissertation...watch this space!

Work (very) hard, play (even) hard(er)

Them's be the housemates...

From last week's sublime combination of pleasing formative assessment marks, University Challenge madness and a fabulous weekend with the housemates and my favourite German (my REAL favourite German as seen below, not this one), I came back down to earth with a bump this week. Goodbye frivolous fun, hello never-ending reading list and unavoidable assignment preparation. To be fair, getting my head seriously down this week is only for my own benefit, because the more I do now, the more Christmas I'll get for my three-week "holiday". The plan is to get at least one full draft down (out of four!) before leaving York, though after today's effort I have faint hopes for two before swanning off to Salisbury.

...and that be the boy, helping to keep me
sane (and putting up with a helluva lot)

And here's the terrifying, towering, tremble-making topics:
Psycholinguistics: syntactic processing, and the localization/lateralization of language functions in the brain.
Directed readings in syntax: multiple WH-fronting in Czech.
Language acquisition: the Critical Period hypothesis, and ultimate attainment in L2 acquisition.
Phonetics and phonology: ...a little bit of everything!

No sweat, eh?!

Fun with ice sculptures way back when

But to get me through all of that, there's two Secret Santas (my poor housemate won't know what's hit him/her, and there's a linguistics one too), two swing dance events next week and the lovely City of York is kindly putting on one of my favourite December events, the Festival of Angels. I first came to the Festival of Angels in my first year with my housemates at the time, all new and nervous and only two months into my undergraduate degree. Five years later, I have those letters after my name, a few more to work for, and I'm proud to be a budding bridesmaid for one of the aforementioned housemates! Who knows what might happen between now and 2016?

Two weeks down (50 + 156 to go...)

October has passed me by almost completely, in a whirl of lectures, reading lists, journal articles, train tickets and, happily, a little lindy hop.

They did say it would be hard work...
Image by The Prudent Cyclist

Two weeks into my Masters, I'm very pleased to say that I'm enjoying what I'm doing so far. Some of it is a bit of revision (never a bad thing, especially after a year out) but there's a lot of new stuff in there too. I'm heartened by the fact that we're on the threshold of knowing more about the brain and how it does what it does, and I hope I can contribute to this new venture in the years to come. I'm finding that postgraduate study takes you from the realm of confirmed fact and certainties to the brink of real discovery - a little disconcerting, but very exciting indeed.

However, getting to grips with new theories and the latest research requires a LOT of reading - eye-crossing, mind-scrambling, fatigue-inducing amounts of reading. At time of writing, I am up to date with my reading...but give it a couple of days and a weekend in Richmond and I'll still be frantically trying to understand Cinque's 1990 account of Clitic Left Dislocation come Monday.

On the more pastoral side of things, I'm getting to know the campus and the city much better, and I'm settling into a kind of extended friendship group, thanks largely to the people I met at the York GSA's Meet a Housemate event as well as some very lovely people on my course. In fact, regarding the latter, I'd like to thank them for electing me as the MA representative for the department's Graduate School Board - I will do my best to represent them and their views as the year progresses. I've also taken up playing netball for my college, Wentworth...having not played for 8 (!) years, I was actually quite pleased with how I played at Goal Defence, my spectacular full-length face-plant across the goal third notwithstanding. Of course, we were still beaten by Vanbrugh 15-10, but they're all 18, so we win morally, I think.

Lindybombing the Festival of Ideas underneath the
Raised Faculty Building
Photo by Minh Hai Tran


In other news, CLX 2011 (that's the Cambridge Lindy Exchange, to the uninitiated) took the Sidgwick Site (and most of the rest of Cambridge) by storm last weekend. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to see a lot of lindy hoppers, both those who are still Cambridge-based and other itinerants like me, not to mention about 12 hours worth of dancing. Cambridge itself is looking as stunning as ever this time of year (autumnal colours + 20 degree heat? Yes please!) and I have to add in an honorary mention for the East of England Ambulance Service, who came wonderfully to my aid on the Sunday morning (note to self: ask future dance partners if they've been eating Brazil nuts...)

Anyway. I should not be here, I should be at a desk getting my head down and attacking Cinque with highlighters. Poor man, he was only trying to clarify CLLD...

P.S. For a good read about PhD reading vs extreme procrastination, read here...

The eve of the beginning of the rest of my career

Hm, lots of prepositions in that title, but it's true! Lectures start with a vengeance on Monday (that's tomorrow, at 1.15pm, to be fair, no 7am alarm calls for me until Tuesday) and my MA in Psycholinguistics will be well underway.

So what have I been doing for the last week in York? Other than acclimatising to the dramatic drop in temperatures (which, to be fair, is mostly due to freakishly warm weather across Northern Europe in early October), I have been gradually finding my way around the compact yet confusing Heslington West (or main) campus - whoever designed the signposts needs a serious talking-to - and finding out what it has to offer in the way of resources and support for me and my fellow new postgrads at York.

Berrick Saul by night
Image by itspaulkelly

And the answer to that is: quite a lot, actually! A huuuuge amount of money has been invested in learning resources over the last few years and, fortunately, a sizeable portion of that has gone towards the arts and humanities. The most obvious use of this money can be found in the shape of the Berrick Saul building which houses the Humanities Resource Centre.

Can I hope for some of this on a
Thursday?!
Photo (and cake!) by the magnificent
Jo Bradley

It's a beautiful building (a rare thing on York's campus - sorry, but it's true!) with lots of bright, airy, silent* workspace for postgraduates only. We Masters students are allowed to "perch" at any free desk, whereas PhD students can apply to create a "nest" at a specific desk...we really are the Tweeting generation, it would seem. If that wasn't enough bird terminology, the HRC also has its very own Treehouse, a round, multipurpose space which is mainly intended for seminars, small conferences and receptions. It's not all about the building, however; the HRC is a hub for setting up and running reading groups, has its own blog and houses various research groups as well...and, as a further suggestion that librarianship is closer to the postgraduate lifestyle than it may seem, Cake Thursdays encourage people to get together away from their desks...I'm selfishly pleased to see that a lot of people have already volunteered to bake on Wednesday nights. I love eating...just not so keen on the baking myself. I'll bring the bottles :)

Right, less about cake. Of course, the HRC is not York's only offering. It's a little difficult to pass judgment on the JB Morrell Library and Harry Fairhurst Building just yet, as there is still a lot of construction work going on around the two. However, I have already found the library staff to be extremely helpful (I speak nothing but the truth, I'm not just sucking up to the wikiman and colleagues!), the Humanities Reading Room is a good space for silent work and I think that the Research Lounge** in the Harry Fairhurst could become the site of some very successful group work (and more than a few reviving cups of tea).

This is not to mention the labs in my department, the incredibly welcoming and friendly staff and the (fairly) secret e-lab, which looks like it will be useful for grabbing a networked-PC in hours of need. No, I'm not telling you where it is, because I'm that bad.***

In short, I have no shortage of places in which to read, think, write and generally attempt to get my head round everything that will be thrown at me this year. Now I just have to find out where everything ELSE on campus is (toilets, for example, seem to elude me!) and all will be well.

Not my nest, but a very comfortable looking-one indeed.
Image by CaptPiper

*Not so silent when the ultra environmentally-conscious windows decide to whirr shut.
**Next to the Research Hotel. I am yet to work out what this is, but I somewhat doubt it's the same as the wonderful Library Hotel...
***Only messing...I'll tell you for a cupcake.

The wanderer reappears...in North Yorkshire

No, the sublime Helen has not abandoned Cambridge (I'm the one guilty of that), but after a week and a half lying-in in Chester, four days sunbathing and seeing friends in Paris, and a lot of unexplained stressing, I am now settled in York and just starting off on my MA journey.

Another gratuitous baby elephant,
the trepidation of taking the plunge!
Photo by urbangarden

I'm no stranger to moving house (this is my 7th address in 7 years), and I had no compunction either in decamping to France, or in disappearing off to Cambridge alone on little more than a whim. So why did my move to York fill me with such trepidation? I knew the city a little and am enchanted by it, I had three very pleasant housemates in a very pleasant house waiting for me, and I had already had two very successful and encouraging meetings with my new supervisor, George.

There are a couple of explanations for my nervousness, which my fantastic family and friends helped me deal with. As superb bride-to-be Fliss explained, after 5 problem-free moves, I was due a little wobble! But she has faith in me, so why shouldn't I have faith in myself? My mum and dad listened to more than enough self-doubt and talked me through it and Julius is endlessly supportive too. Together, they all helped me realise that my main reason for being so scared was precisely because I know what I want to do now. My year at the Classical Faculty Library was a fantastic learning experience and an enjoyable first foray into the "real" working world with some excellent colleagues. But it was particularly useful in that it made me realise that postgraduate study and ultimately, a career in academia, was the route that I really wanted to pursue. Subconsciously I think that I've known this for some time, and so embarking upon the first step towards this career, not to mention the daunting task of getting back into studying and writing, was the real reason for my wobbles.

Me and my new housemates

And, just in case you were wondering, my first week in York has dispelled most of my fears; my housemates and the other new postgrads that I met at the GSA (Graduate Student Association)'s Meet a Housemate event are great fun, we're just getting going with departmental inductions and receptions and, like the well-behaved ex-librarian I am, I'm off on my tour of the JB Morrell library and other facilities later today.

It's early days yet but lectures start next week and I can't wait to get going.

The start of a beautiful Web 2.0 professional development programme...

So I have been a little lax with posting in the last couple of weeks, but I have a good excuse m'lud, and it's very much Blogger related.

It's been a while in the planning,
but now it's here...

I have in fact been neglecting this blog for another, namely that of the Cam23 2.0 programme that I'm running along with several other Cambridge librarians, including 3 other trainees. The idea is to try out 23 new web 2.0 tools over a period of 3 months, basically to keep interest and personal/professional development going during the long summer vacation. As you may have guessed, this is actually the second series, the first having been so successful that there are lots of Cambridge newcomers who want a pop at it, along with those who didn't quite finish last time or those who enjoyed it so much that they want another go, particularly at the eight extra "Things" we're offering this year.

All of this has required quite a lot of time and effort; organising what Things should be included, drafting and publishing blog posts, designing little flyers and holding a launch party, the latter of which took place at the UL last Friday. Yours truly gave a (very brief) presentation about what to expect and how to join in, and there are a fair few people registered already, and hopefully many more to come!

It's an exciting programme to be involved in; I'm looking forward to trying out some of the Things that I haven't really used/done before, such as podcasting, but it's also great for my personal development to be involved in organising, writing for and supporting others through a programme which needs to be as professional and as slick as possible. Watch this space (literally...I have to take part as well!)

And importantly, my involvement in Cam23 2.0 could well be one of my last Cambridge hurrahs, as I've been lucky enough to secure ESRC 1+3 funding for postgraduate study in Linguistics at York, starting in October. I'm incredibly excited about the opportunity to work with some of the foremost scholars in linguistics at present, especially as my interests in psycho- and neurolinguistics seem to align so well with theirs. But there's 3 1/2 months left to go in Cambridge and I intend to make every moment count.