Assignments? What assign...ah. Those assignments.

York in November, mmm.
Photo by dvdbramhall

It's week 5, but no blues this far north of Cambridge, excepting the stunningly blue sky we were treated to on Sunday morning (is it wrong to be a little bit smug that only the North was treated to it?)

Instead, week 5 is yellow and pink; yellow for the colour that all the lecturers seem to use for printing assignment details on, and pink for the "declaration of academic integrity" cover sheet with which I shall be much more familiar by the end of reading week, which is next week.

In fact, one assignment is floating about in the print cloud now, waiting for my attention. Don't worry, I'm not being especially virtuous, it's due a little bit earlier than the others (tomorrow, in fact). This one is for Psycholinguistics, two "one-page" answers about the Motor Theory of speech perception vs. the auditory theories and also about Newness vs. length and Heavy-NP shift in double object constructions (my old friend...) The actual topics aren't too bad, firstly because I find them incredibly interesting, and secondly because we're not actually expected to do research outside of class notes/the reading pack, in this instance at least. However, the main point of the exercise is something I find MUCH more challenging...being concise. I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that I'm a several-line sentence sinner (if Dickens can get away with so can I....can't I?) so I'm finding it very difficult to condense lots of information into one lone A4 page. Especially as there's so much to say!

This same challenge is to be repeated in my Language Acquisition assignment, due a week today. The second section is basically a summary of a study and its main components, 500 words. OK, I can squish that down relatively comfortably. But the first section? Find data of first language acquisition in a language other than English and apply any of the theories we've studied so far to it. I've chosen French (partially because I can actually understand it), and already I can see that there's just so much to say! Carefully choosing which aspect to focus on may not be so bad, as I'll partially be constrained by the data that I can get my mitts on - but only having 500 words again?! Oh word count, you are a cruel, cruel mistress.

At least that's my only problem - I am once more thanking my lucky stars for everything I learnt last year in the library as I blithely play with Metalib. Some of my coursemates thought that this was some kind of communicable disease. This won't be the case after tomorrow, as our subject liaison librarian is giving over 2 hours of her time to drag us all out of the Google mire, but I'm quite pleased to have a mini-headstart on the data rush.

Anyway, what am I doing here? I have pages to print, data to mine and some very odd phonetic-type things to do...which aren't getting done here. To work!

(P.S. I managed to get some Lindy in last weekend, toddling off to Leeds to dance the Tranky Doo with some very pleasant lindyhoppers led by Cat Foley. I've never done lindy a la Scouse before, but it was very entertaining! And here's what we did...)

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.