ceej passes along the following game:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the test of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

The language each person acquires is a rich and complex construction hopelessly underdetermined by the fragmentary evidence available [to the child].

answer to where it's from is below, highlight the next line to read it:
Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct

the PhD blues

14 April 2004 - 2:36 pm

the future.

for 3 years now, i've been getting the question "so, when are you going to graduate?" people are well-meaning, i know. but DAMN does that question hurt. i'm in my 6th year of my program, and have started to tell people that with some luck i'll graduate in may 2005. next year. one year. that does NOT feel like long enough, what with me still running subjects for my first experiment. i mean, to graduate in a year, i should probably start writing up in october. oy.

but i've got to set myself a deadline, because i'm getting antsy, and karl's getting antsy, and it's getting embarrassing, with people who started after me graduating (i can think of at least 6 people who started either with me or after me who have graduated and gone. my stomach lurches every time i get an announcement for one of their dissertation seminars). and dammit, it's TIME.

after graduation, karl and i have been talking about moving to england. he doesn't know where he wants to live permanently, but does want to spend at least some time back in the uk soon. i have always wanted to live at least part of my adult life abroad, and hey, england counts as abroad, so i'm all for it. i have no idea, though, what on EARTH i'm going to do for work in england. one possibility is getting a post-doc with GA in york. 'course, i haven't mentioned this to GA yet.

i'll probably look for some kind of post-doc, to delay the big question: do i want to try for a life in academia or not? there are lots of nice things about academia: the flexible hours, the intellectually stimulating atmosphere, being surrounded by smart people. but i don't love it. and to be honest, i don't think i'm really that good at it. probably those two things go together. but good god, what *else* would i want to do?

a possibility is the foreign service. my dad was a foreign service officer before i was born and while i was little, which is essentially all i know about it. my parents were stationed in casablanca before i was born, then in geneva when i was little. that was all for them, because then my dad took early retirement from the state department to pursue his dream of being a pilot. i don't *really* know if i'd like it, except for the living in all kinds of interesting places and getting language training parts, which i know i'd love. but what the hell, right? so i'm signed up for the foreign service exam on 24 april. it's a 7 hour test, starting at 8am on a saturday. tests world knowledge (politics, history, policy, geography, government, etc), written skills (including grammar and comprehension, and how well you can formulate an argument and put it down on paper), and math and statistics. if you pass, they call you in for an oral interview, and if you pass that, then you are put in the pool of potential hires. only some of those people actually get offered jobs. then, of course, you have to got through a clearance process. so, the whole thing could take as long as a year, and they only offer the exam once a year, which is why i'm taking it this year.

of course, what happens if i get offered a job? will i take it? this is a toughy. once you get hired you get sent off on your first assignment pretty much immediately. first assignments are generally at "hardship" posts, which could be anywhere, really, except western europe/australia. so i could be sent anywhere! i have no issue with that, but i think karl does. as stated previously, he wants to move back to england. and someplace like st petersburg russia or riyadh saudi arabia definitely don't count as england. i guess i'm kinda hoping that if i pass the tests and all, there might be some other branch of service that would let me live in england for a while first, and perhaps use that as my "home base" instead of washington d.c. i suspect that's a big ol' key lime in the sky, but a girl can dream...