#COLLOQUIUM ៸៸ chat

[deafm]

Bolu-North Toraja, 21 September 2024 23:09 PM

A week ago, I visited Makassar only 2 days. Day 1 attending an election and day 2 had a little rest at home. The election was the sequel of the agenda I attended on august. I won’t talk about the election but someone that I hope I could meet in the past post

Yes, we met but didn’t have time to talk a lot. I think I saw him first when lunch time and when the election about to start, our eyes met. We greet each other by waving our hands from far. I can’t come to him because I had conversation with others. Everytime we pass each other, we greet. I forget how many times I tried to approach him but failed. Until a photo session with all the attendees, me and him walked together to the photo spot. He got his spot and I stood on the chair. He turn back and asked me to stand beside him but i said “I might unseen in the photo” I have to say that I regret my decision because I just throw my chance but I see the photo result and it’s not really bad. I stood right behind him so we look parallel.

Another moment when he got doorprize! It’s a washing machine! I talked a lot with him after doorprize announcement but also the end of the agenda. I was joking about sell the washing machine to our friend and he took it seriously but in the end he brought it to his house.

Before back to each other’s homes, almost all the attendees ate together. I didn’t see him but I know he was busy about the doorprize. Then I chat him “Where are you?” He replied that he take care his doorprize first then I replied “Better we eat first” he replied that he already on the way but might take time. I just finished my dinner when he arrived. I pointed an empty chair that not far from me but someone just stood up and asked him to sat there. He ate while having a chitchat with friends around him and I just staring at him and watch everything. Then he looked at me for a few second and I smiled.

My friends asked me to go home. Before me and my friends go, we say goodbye to many friends and I prepare he the last to say goodbye. He still eating and I sat in front of him then saying “Remember, don’t leave me, okay?” I mean about the colloquium. He replied “What if you leave me?” I replied “I think thats okay” we laughed then I continued “But you can’t leave me”. After that I stood up and saying goodbye while waving hand.

Another farewell but glad that we can meet again. Ya, the last conversation we had, I really mean it. I asked him to stay with me.

[g4ljw-amateur-radio]

RSGB Convention draft programme released

The RSGB 2023 Convention will be held this year from 13 to 15 October. It is an action-packed weekend of amateur radio and includes the AMSAT-UK Colloquium which will be held during the Convention again. You can chat to the Special Interest Groups and RSGB Committees over a coffee, browse the latest amateur radio equipment […] http://dlvr.it/SvqGR0

[averycanadianfilm]

AveryCanadianFilm: Samuel H. Lawson Graduate Student Seminar

Setting: Seminar room Columbia University, a graduate student introduces the guest speaker (a very famous senior theoretical physicist), who will give a talk the next day at the regular physics department Colloquium.

Very Famous Senior Physicist (VFSP): Physics department Colloquiums tend to be so formal. You have the grumpy old giants of the field staring at you menacingly from the front row. So, I’m happy to be here to chat informally about this important result.

Graduate Student 1 (GS1): We discussed the paper here last week, it seems wrong.

Graduate Student 2 (GS2): She means we think it may be wrong.

GS1: {Glares at GS2} We agreed it was wrong.

GS3: We were uncomfortable with the result.

VFSP: {Smiles} Why?

GS1: It seems to contradict Beanbower & Finkelstein’s recent experimental results.

GS2: Also, it’s not consistent with Karkov’s 1925 work.

VFSP: {Chuckles} Oh, so you know of Karkov.

GS3: Yes, the Wittingham effect was actually derived by Karkov.

VFSP: Beanbower & Finkelstein?

GS1: They sent us their preprint and it’s been accepted in Physical Review Letters (PRL).

VFSP: Isn’t Beanbower in France?

GS1: Yes, they did their first experiments there and now Finkelstein has a post-doc in California and the most recent experiments were done there.

VFSP: Be suspicious of crazy results coming out of France or California.

GS1: We hope you can clarify the situation for us.

VFSP: {Looks at Samuel H. Lawson) Why haven’t you said anything? What do you think?

Samuel H. Lawson: I don’t like politics, so I have no comment.

VFSP: {Laughs}

[bazlhazl]

ceritanya ini lagi curhat singkat tentang 2022

(ajang belajar bahasa inggris walaupun masih terpatah-patah)

2022 : be one of the craziest year in my life but …..

after embracing the extreme problems and being sick to 4-5 times, but I'm so glad to Allah with everything his blessing, I could solve all of these things.

yeah, sometimes I felt guilty and disappointed couldn't reach my goals this year. but I told to myself that a lot of stories entire 2022 year gonna be a positive force for next years, such as 2023.

if I take a track record about my relationship with myself, my family, and my best friend.. I realize there was goodness plenteous on us.

Let see about myself, besides I always grow up and my age increases, it turns out my soft skills keep growing up, maybe be it since I read and read books, joined many classes of coding and colloquium, tried to teach tahsin, and something also important is I dare to ask the lecturer even in the class or not. and huh.. the first semester in masters felt so wild. my sleep time was disorganized, my health came down, and I felt ill.

and about family, I see they are better in ways things. Better in communicating and mature embracing the problem although not in all problems. yeah, everyone knows how Sumateran speaks and takes action. Looks indignant all the time hehe

the last, is about me and my best friends, such as kak Jannah, kak Dewi, Rifa, and Empit, I still keep in touch with them. Sometimes we met or we video called or just by chat. And with my special best friend, I mean, Yasmin. Now, we made trust each of us, not like before, when I feel only me trusting her but not her to me ahaha (maybe it is because I like to joke hehe). Of course, I am glad to Allah for giving me a best friend like her. We wake each other up to pray from Subuh until Isya' we try to pray together (jama'ah), sometimes, I would be the imam for Subuh, Ashar, and Magrib. And her, for Zuhur and Isya'. And it keeps repeated.

[talesgreys]

Meaning of colloquy

After English to Urdu translation of Colloquy, If you have issues in pronunciation than you can hear the audio of it in the online dictionary. Apart from similar words, there are always opposite words in dictionary too, the opposite words for Colloquy are Quiet and Silence. Colloquies are used to debate, draw attention to, or clarify the legislative intent behind a pending provision. There are also several similar words to Colloquy in our dictionary, which are Chat, Chitchat, Clambake, Colloquium, Confab, Confabulation, Conference, Converse, Dialogue, Discourse, Discussion, Flap, Gam, Huddle, Palaver, Parley, Powwow, Rap, Seminar, Talk, Rap Session, Buzz Session, Chinfest, Gab Fest and Talkfest. A colloquy is a scripted conversation on the House or Senate floor between one or more members of Congress, oftentimes including the chair or ranking member of a committee or subcommittee of jurisdiction. It finds its origins in Late Middle English: from Latin colloquium ‘conversation’. colloquy ground: colloquial: see also colloquial colloquial (English) Origin & history 1751, from earlier term colloquy (a conversation), from Latin. Colloquy is an noun, plural colloquies according to parts of speech. (5) Because my wife was ill, I decided to wait until she felt better to have a colloquy about her excessive spending habits. The other meanings are Baat Cheet and Mohawra. There are always several meanings of each word in Urdu, the correct meaning of Colloquy in Urdu is محاورہ, and in roman we write it Mohawra. Colloquy Urdu Meaning - Find the correct meaning of Colloquy in Urdu, it is important to understand the word properly when we translate it from English to Urdu.

[trusttampa]

Sononym for profanity

#SONONYM FOR PROFANITY SERIES#

We might not need many mental steps to move from buttload to shitload and, from that juncture, produce a picture, feeling or perception that some would find vulgar, inappropriate for some situations, or with which we might otherwise sit unpleasantly.īutt, in and of itself, for example in (someone/something is) a pain in the butt or give (someone) a kick in the butt seems relatively less likely to offend on the sensabilities of most native English speakers than might a buttload, probably because reactive to butt, we'd expect even the more imaginative among us to conjure up an image of the prototypical fleshy globes so visually similar to peaches (a perfectly wholesome fruit), and often associated with expression of cuteness, humor, and a supple vitality. Symposium: a formal meeting at which several specialists deliver short addresses on a topic or on related topicsģ0.Humans have been producing social meaning from language nearly as long as we've been producing excremental material from nutrition. Summit: a meeting of high-level leadersĢ8.

#SONONYM FOR PROFANITY SERIES#

Session: a meeting or series of meetings, or a portion of an extended meeting or one of various simultaneous meetings as part of a larger eventĢ7. Seminar: a meeting for disseminating and discussing informationĢ6. Round-robin: a small meeting to discuss or decide on a topic or issueĢ5. Rally: a mass meeting to inspire enthusiasm and/or actionĢ3. Powwow: a meeting or a social event, or a meeting to celebrate Native American cultureĢ2. Parley: a meeting to resolve conflict or negotiate with an enemyĢ1. Palaver: a meeting, especially one between disparate partiesĢ0. Panel: a meeting at which participants discuss a topic or issue in front of an audienceġ9. Forum: a meeting that involves a discussion among experts or between them and audience membersġ5. Demonstration: an informal mass meeting, usually held outdoors on public property, to protest about or bring attention to a topic or issueġ4. Council: a meeting to discuss or advise on one or more issuesġ3. Convocation: a meeting of attendees called together, of a college or university’s members, or of clergy (and perhaps laypeople)ġ2. Convention: a meeting to bring together representatives of a trade, profession, or interest group, or to assemble representatives of a political party to select candidates and policyġ1. Congress: a meeting or session, especially of delegates to discuss and act on an issue or topicġ0. Conference: a meeting for discussing issues or topics of interest to all participants, usually including keynote speeches and a wide variety of sessions on specific subjectsĩ. Confab: a chat, discussion, or meeting (informal usage)Ĩ. Conclave: a private or secret meeting, especially that of Roman Catholic cardinals convened to select a new pope, or any gathering of an organizationħ. Colloquy: a serious, important meeting (also, a synonym for conversation and dialogue)Ħ. Colloquium: a meeting at which experts, usually in an academic setting, give presentations on one or more topics and engage in a question-and-answer periodĥ. Clinic: a problem-solving meeting or one at which participants acquire knowledge or skillsĤ. Caucus: a meeting, often in a political context, to select candidates or policyģ. Assembly: a meeting for entertainment, legislation, or worshipĢ. Here are thirty ways to label a meeting, depending on the particulars.ġ. Humans, being social animals, have many reasons for meeting - and many words to describe doing so in various degrees of formality and format.

[trustplanning]

Colloquy synonyms

Council: a meeting to discuss or advise on one or more issuesġ3. Convocation: a meeting of attendees called together, of a college or university’s members, or of clergy (and perhaps laypeople)ġ2. Convention: a meeting to bring together representatives of a trade, profession, or interest group, or to assemble representatives of a political party to select candidates and policyġ1. Congress: a meeting or session, especially of delegates to discuss and act on an issue or topicġ0. Conference: a meeting for discussing issues or topics of interest to all participants, usually including keynote speeches and a wide variety of sessions on specific subjectsĩ. Confab: a chat, discussion, or meeting (informal usage)Ĩ. Conclave: a private or secret meeting, especially that of Roman Catholic cardinals convened to select a new pope, or any gathering of an organizationħ. Colloquy: a serious, important meeting (also, a synonym for conversation and dialogue)Ħ. Colloquium: a meeting at which experts, usually in an academic setting, give presentations on one or more topics and engage in a question-and-answer periodĥ. Clinic: a problem-solving meeting or one at which participants acquire knowledge or skillsĤ. Caucus: a meeting, often in a political context, to select candidates or policyģ. Assembly: a meeting for entertainment, legislation, or worshipĢ. Here are thirty ways to label a meeting, depending on the particulars.ġ. Humans, being social animals, have many reasons for meeting - and many words to describe doing so in various degrees of formality and format.

[gmsahra]

﹟𝙶𝙼𝚂𝙰𝙷𝚁𝙰 ; escrito por noodle (  ela  /  dela  ) para gamsiinhq.

hwang ahra, 28 anos, psicóloga (  humana  )  na academia gamsiin.

sobre  [ ... ]  conexões  [ ... ]  plots

[beauzos]

When my Honors Colloquium I class ended in 2017, our professor gave us all a copy of his favorite book, Man’s Search for Meaning by Frankl, with personalized messages written in each book. I just realized I never read it. I should change that.

[witchkings]

The One Engagement Ring

An Angbang Modern AU drabble as prompted by the lovely @darklord <3

Three seconds. Barely any time at all. Negligible in the greater scheme of Mairon’s life, nothing to the ever-advancing flow of the universe, miniscule, dismissible, stupid. Three seconds was all it had taken to ruin Mairon’s picture book life. Melkor would kill him.

These were the facts as Mairon had them:

1.       He’d slipped into the bathroom at the university library for a short piss and to get a minute of quiet in the constant chatter of his study group which was spiralling head-first into a discussion about the meaning of life. Even though they were anthropology graduate students with at least half the group minoring in either philosophy or sociology, this was never a good idea.

2.       When he’d been in the stall, his engagement ring had still gleamed golden on his ring finger, a constant, warm reminder of the grand day to come. Mairon had planned an autumn wedding, complete with matching tuxes, a seven-course feast and was already training Draugluin to carry the wedding rings down the aisle with Thuringwethil as his reluctant guardian. Melkor, of course, would have preferred for them to pop into Vegas and have some drunken fat Elvis proclaim them married, or better yet, simply hand in the necessary paper work on his way to the office, but Mairon was having none of that. If for one day in his life he wanted to feel special, be marvelled at and fawned over, it was going to be this day, his accursed father be damned.

3.       After completing his business, he’d slipped the ring off and into his pocket to wash his hands. He wouldn’t chance it being dulled by hard water or rough soap. Mairon always did it like this, only putting the piece of jewellery back on whenever his hands were dry and spotless, but when he’d made to retrieve it, his pocket had been empty.

4.       There’d been two other people on the bathroom with him and he couldn’t remember whether they’d ever come near him at all, but their childish faces, curly heads, and mischievous giggles could only mean one thing: freshmen.

5.       For three seconds between drying his hands and reaching for the ring, Mairon had leaned over the sink and inspected his own face. The stress of upcoming exams together with his thesis‘ due date drawing ever nearer gave him red spots along his jawline and he’d glared at them to will them away before Melkor picked him up.

Conclusion: As Mairon had been caught up in his own flaws, one or both of those bastards had sidled up to him and stolen the ring out of his pocket without him noticing. This implied many things, for example that the fatigue was getting to Mairon’s mental capacities or that those freshmen were unusually sneaky. Chiefest of all was this though: Melkor had paid half a fortune for that golden band. For Mairon to lose it, well. It would spell disaster.

Mairon glared at himself in the dirt-speckled mirror, bracing himself on the sink. Three seconds, oh he would show those impertinent, stupid, drunkard gnomes what he could do to a person in three seconds. Mairon took a deep breath and marched out of the bathroom, back to the round table his study group occupied. Eönwe and Tilion were at each other’s necks with arguments dissecting Descartes’ meditations while Osse and Uinen had their tongues down each other’s throats with disgusting slobbering noises. No studying to be done here, one of the sodden constants of Mairon’s life. He grabbed his notes and tablet and shoved them into his bagpack with more force than necessary which had Curumo look up from where he had hovered over his mess of tiny handwritten notes. He looked a little like a deer in head-lights, always lost was poor Curumo. Mairon rolled his eyes and tugged at his classmate’s sleeve.

“What?” Curumo whined, reluctant to forgo the last stretch of productivity he illusioned himself with, but he was already packing up.

“Come with me,” Mairon replied. “We’re going to hunt down some freshmen.”

After a quick text to Melkor to explain he needn’t be picked up today, Mairon dragged Curumo out of the library. The dismayed reply came seconds later, and Melkor wasn’t at all happy with the excuse of needing to tutor Curumo on their upcoming French test. Melkor and Curumo had never gotten along and if Mairon was honest with himself, he would have ditched Curumo after the first week of the first semester, but sometimes the guy proved useful. Especially because, in spite of his timid disposition, he somehow knew everyone on campus, ranging from the most introverted freshman all the way to the creepy maintenance guy who smelled like he lived in the sewers.

“What for?” Curumo asked. They crossed the student-littered yard, dodging peer-pong balls and caffeine-crazed grad students to the cafeteria where Mairon figured his best bet would be. Freshmen were always hungry, and he had a vague memory of four curly-haired heads positively camping in there at all times, claiming they needed seven meals a day to function.

“They stole something from me,” Mairon muttered, raking his hands through his hair. He’d neglected to trim it to its usual chest length and it was getting quite out of hand, tangling at the lightest breeze. Still better than what Curumo’s mother had done to him over the last holiday, short and ragged so that he looked like Jack Frost.

“What did they steal?”

“My engagement ring.”

“What?” Curumo spluttered, and almost ran into the door, but Mairon held it open in time. Under the pretence of having lunch – Mairon never had university lunch if he could help it, the stuff was vile and Melkor was a great cook if he wanted to be – they both got into line, eyes darting about for the thieves.

Mairon spotted the usual groups as he scanned the perimeter. The musical theatre kids led by a haughty grad student with a harp who had a gazillion brothers around. The nature-loving hippies who smoked too much weed for their own good and gave themselves funny names and pretended to be trees on weekends. The burly punk rockers who rode Harleys and had a kink for arson, Mairon had met their gang head Gothmog in a colloquium once, he wasn’t too bad. Even the naval engineering students who usually spent all their free time down by the beaches to test their self-crafted boats where in attendance, picking at salads and discussing hydraulics. Not a sign of those nasty burglars though.  

The guy behind the counter handed him a tray, and Mairon took it, paying with his student ID chip card before turning back towards the room, just in time to see a pair of dark, curly heads disappear through the swinging doors of the cafeteria, chips trailing after them like crumbs. Mairon dropped his food and took off after them, spitting curses. Curumo, the good dog that he was, mirrored this. They tore out of the cafeteria and down the hallway together.

“Hey,” Mairon screamed. “Hey, stop!” The two freshmen threw hasty glances over their shoulders, hollering as they ran and dodged around students, but Mairon and Curumo were faster, knew these halls better and soon enough, they had the two cornered against a row of blue lockers.

“Now,” Mairon crooned and made to advance on them, but before he could, someone interrupted him. “Now you will repent.”

“Hey, what do you want with them,” he barked and two people stepped into Mairon’s and Curumo’s way, obscuring the goblins from view. They were both jocks, broad-shouldered and bearded, and towered a head over Curumo and Mairon. He knew the blond one, Eomer, an agriculture major, from a finance class they’d both taken as an elective, but he’d never seen the other man before. He was the one who’d spoken and wore a sports shirt of a team Mairon had never heard of. A white tree was their logo and their motto was written in a strange swirl of letters that looked almost Arabic.

“Just a friendly chat,” Mairon said through gritted teeth. “Not to worry.”

“That didn’t sound so friendly to me,” the guy growled and Eomer put a hand on his shoulder, nodding. His scowl deepened and his eyes burned, staring daggers into Mairon’s.

“Weren’t you that condescending guy at the back of Accounting 101 who called everyone peasants?” he asked and Mairon sighed inwardly. One bad day to haunt him. Or well, a whole semester of bad days, but who was counting anyway? Melkor had been abroad for that time and Mairon had suffered terribly.

“Why do you even care?” Mairon asked, and Curumo put a warning hand to his arm. It wasn’t unlikely that he’d seen these two beat someone up at some frat party before, but Mairon wasn’t intimidated by such mundane things as physical violence.

“Because they’re our friends,” the second jock growled, crossing his arms over his chest. It was hard not to laugh, these fully grown men proclaiming themselves friends of two troublemakers who weren’t even legally adults yet.

“Look, guys,” Curumo said quietly. “Merry and Pippin stole something very valuable from my friend here and he is rather upset about it.”

Eomer bared his teeth, but the other guy whirled around to stare at the two thieves in question who were huddled against the lockers, but silently giggling amongst themselves.

“Is this true?” he asked, and the tone of his voice implied he knew already. Helpless or not, they probably had a reputation for mischief-making.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” one of them said with a thick accent.

“You said it yourself,” the other added, “he is a condescending ass.”

“Boys.”

“Boromir.”

“Enough,” Mairon hissed and pushed through the two jocks and bore down on the freshmen, holding out his empty palm. “You give me back my ring or I will make your lives here a living nightmare. You can hire as many football players and wannabe wrestlers as you want, I am very good friends with the dean, I have more than enough money to bribe every professor in the state to bully you and my boyfriend will beat every last one of your bodyguards to a pulp. Is that clear?”

Merry and Pippin stared at him, their facial muscles contorting in a series of impossible expressions, torn between laughing and crying. They settled for blankness and, at last, Pippin handed over the ring. It was smudged with grease from his fingers and Mairon pulled out a linen handkerchief to polish it with.

“I’m sorry, they’re still not used to their actions having consequences,” Boromir sighed and Eomer nodded sternly.

“Whatever,” Mairon said with half a shrug and he stalked off the scene, leaving Curumo to deal with the polite formalities or whatever the situation demanded. He had his ring back, he could call Melkor to get him after all, he would get laid tonight while all these losers were busy with their parties and teenager friends and studying until their eyes bled. It was not ten minutes later that Mairon was comfortably tucked into Melkor’s Chevrolet, the heated seat warming his ass-cheeks.

“Have a nice day?” Melkor grumbled, not taking his eyes off the parking lot around them. Mairon leaned over and pressed a kiss to the corner of his beloved’s mouth.

“Nothing special,” he replied and leaned into the backrest. “Nothing special at all.” The ring glinted in the low-afternoon sun and everything was as it should be.

[fractallogic]

reason #239875340 I should be a Professional Academic Paid to Do Academics™: I fucking LOVE giving talks and that question period after? OH MY GOD

this AND after my job talk AND after my earlier colloquium where I gave this talk it's taken me >half an hour to come down from the post-talk buzz

and I've given this talk enough that I can tell it's not the anxious buzz but the like, I GOT TO TALK ABOUT COOL SHIT WITH PEOPLE THINKING HARD ABOUT IT WITH ME FOR 90 MIN IT WAS AMAZING PEOPLE HAVE SUCH GOOD IDEAS AND THINK ABOUT THINGS SO DIFFERENTLY HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT

on top of my I GOT TO SIT WITH A STUDENT AND HELP THEM WITH THEIR HOMEWORK FOR TWO HOURS AND STUFF STARTED CLICKING YESSSS FUCK YES

I am feeling VERY good right now thank you and I had a really nice chat afterward with the grad student who organized the talk who is really great and tbh? favorite student in the lab. can't wait to see if we can make some of these collaborative ideas come to fruition.

I WANT TO COLLABORATE WITH ANYONE* AND EVERYONE* ON COOL THINGS

*nice. no assholes. hard stop.

[dickwheelie]

Day 13: Grand gesture

For the @ineffable-valentines prompt list!

__________

Crowley had been trying to repay Aziraphale since Eden.

He knew he didn’t really need to; Aziraphale had never so much as brought up the incident again, but Crowley had decided he’d do it anyway. After all, when Aziraphale had put his wing over Crowley to shield him from the first rainstorm, he’d committed the first kindness Crowley had received since falling. Honestly, it was more like the first kindness Crowley had ever received, period, but really, who was counting.

A kindness like that deserved a kindness in return. Aziraphale was never one to receive gifts gracefully, especially not from a demon, but Crowley had his ways of getting around it. A bit of leftover oyster here, an oh-just-happened-to-be-in-the-neighborhood-and-thought-I’d-rescue-you-from-some-dim-witted-Nazis there. It was all in a day’s work.

It went on like that for a good long while, each small, silent gesture of thanks being snuck in like a dropped penny into Aziraphale’s coat pocket, but Crowley never quite felt like he’d done enough. After all, what good was a kindness if the recipient didn’t recognize it as one? Aziraphale thought that everything Crowley did was done out of convenience, or chance, or at best, with a begrudging fondness. Crowley had never gotten the opportunity to show Aziraphale how much he truly cared.

It wasn’t until after the danger of Armageddon had passed that Crowley actually sat down and brainstormed. He workshopped it. He drafted up sheets of papers’ worth of ideas, he drew chalk diagrams, he presented colloquiums to his plants and anyone who happened to pass by the windows of his flat. He and Aziraphale were finally free, and bless it, he had to make this one good.

Well, bad. You get the idea.

He rejected as many ideas as he came up with. Make him dinner and dessert was too mundane. Steal Buy him a priceless collection of books was too materialistic. Get down on one knee and propose was too predictable.

By the time Crowley’s brainstorming session was over, he was exhausted, his writing hand was cramping, and he was no closer to deciding on something. Nothing he thought of was quite enough to say what he wanted to say, and none of it was just right for Aziraphale.

The following day, Crowley met Aziraphale for a lunch that they’d scheduled a few weeks back, still in a foul mood. Aziraphale chatted away the same as ever, but Crowley could tell he knew something was amiss. He was smiling too wide and making too many jokes, trying to cheer Crowley up. And that alone did cheer him up, a bit; he couldn’t stay miserable around Aziraphale if his angel was happy.

They left the restaurant and headed downtown for a bit of ice cream, at Aziraphale’s suggestion. It was hardly the day for it; the weather was chilly and the sky was cloudy, threatening a downpour. Still, Aziraphale was one of those people who could eat ice cream in any kind of weather, so Crowley accompanied him, turning up the collar of his jacket against the cold.

Just a few minutes into their walk, Crowley felt little pinpricks of freezing water against his face.

“Oh, drat,” he heard Aziraphale say as the rain began to really come down. “And me without an umbrella.”

And then, suddenly, it was crystal clear. It ought to have been sitting in front of Crowley on a silver platter all along. He felt, for a moment or two, utterly dim for having missed it.

“You haven’t got one?” he said to Aziraphale, giving himself a bit of ramp. Crowley was nothing without a good set-up.

“I didn’t bring one with me today, no.” Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “Foolish of me.” He looked up at Crowley, squinting through the cold rain. Funny, Crowley could barely feel it anymore. “Did you bring one?”

It was the best opening he could have hoped for. He wanted to kiss Aziraphale just for that. “No,” said Crowley slowly, coyly, dashingly. He felt like James Bond. “But I do have this.”

An eye for an eye, after all. One good turn deserves another. (Bad turn. You get the idea.)

Aziraphale blinked, and stopped in his tracks. He was suddenly dry, or at least less wet than he had been. He looked up, above his head, where Crowley’s wing was hovering, on a plane other than his usual one, shielding him from the cold rain.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley was dimly aware that he might have been grinning like a lunatic, but he was beyond caring. Not about that, anyway. “Much easier than touting around an umbrella, wouldn’t you say, Angel?”

Very slowly, Aziraphale started to grin. “I’d say,” he said, crowding closer to Crowley, as the wing carefully followed, “thank you, my dear boy.”

“Hmpf. Yes. Right,” said Crowley, losing his grip on Bond for a moment.

Aziraphale smiled knowingly at him. “How long, I wonder, were you waiting for the opportunity to do that?”

“Ages,” said Crowley. It wasn’t a lie, not really. “Ages ‘n ages.”

“My dear.” Aziraphale gazed at him fondly for a moment, before realizing, “Oh, Crowley, you’re getting all wet! We’d better hurry along.”

As Aziraphale pulled them along through the foot traffic, Crowley said, “Don’t even feel the cold, Angel! And when we get there, dessert’s on me.”

[superlinguo]

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Learning Scientist

Language lessons with Duolingo and other language learning apps can sometimes go so well that you can forget that there are people who make them happen. One of those people is Cindy Blanco, a Learning Scientist at Duolingo.  You can follow her on Twitter (@YeahThatCindy) or just think fondly of her and the team next time you enjoy a good lesson in Duolingo. Anyone for some Welsh? High Valyrian? Hawaiian? Swahili? How many languages do I have time to start right now? Here’s Cindy with what it means to be a Learning Scientist.

What did you study at university?

I majored in linguistics at UNC-Greensboro, which had a linguistics program at the time. I was already majoring in English and Spanish, with a minor in Russian, but since the language departments were focused on literature, it was a while before I learned what linguistics was. I was obsessed with capital-L Language and with languages, but I was shaping up to be a pretty bad literature student - I would get so consumed with words and usage and differences in language across periods and regions that I couldn't focus on the actual reading! I still remember taking a class called "The Structure of English," which was a covert intro to linguistics, and by the end of the first day I realized, "THIS! This is what I am: a linguist."

I later began a PhD program in Spanish Linguistics at Penn State, and in a moment of panic over a life in academia, I stopped after the MA and took some time off. I taught Spanish full time, worked as an instructional designer, and translated as an administrative assistant for a law clinic in Texas. Even though I was never far from languages and linguistics, I wanted to keep learning about linguistics and language science. I returned to graduate school when the opportunity arose to work in labs focused on child language and psycholinguistics. My dissertation was on speech perception in bilingual children and adults, and I graduated with my PhD in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. After the PhD, I conducted research as a postdoc in cognitive psychology at Northwestern University.

What is your job?

At Duolingo, I work as a learning scientist. It's taken me a while to grow into this title, because in academia I identified as a language scientist - but part of transitioning to industry has involved learning to talk about my skill set in an applied setting. None of my degrees say "learning" so it didn't feel right to call myself a learning scientist... but 8 years of experimental research on language learning definitely do make me an expert in my favorite kind of learning!

I think I have the best position at Duolingo: my job is to inform product development in linguistically- and pedagogically-sound ways to improve learning outcomes for language students worldwide. I work very closely with some of my product teams; with others, I'm more of an on-call consultant to answer questions, give feedback, and brainstorm new approaches. I work with teams of engineers, designers, and product managers to find creative, effective technological solutions to the puzzle of language learning. There is no typical day, but in any given week, I will brainstorm prototypes of new products, manage teams of freelance language experts and translators, lead workshops on language acquisition, and develop guidelines for new lesson types. I also conduct user experience interviews (translation: qualitative research) and research on learning outcomes. I'm also really interested in building more direct links between the work I'm doing now and the academic community, so I regularly attend conferences, I co-organize Duolingo's colloquium series, and I am working to build partnerships locally in Pittsburgh.

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

I use my training every day, in every meeting, and I love that I can still be both researcher and instructor. I've designed research studies, written up reports, and presented my findings to experts and non-experts alike. I'm using the principles that I learned in classes on second language acquisition, speech perception, and psycholinguistics to inform new, better ways to teach languages. Right now I'm even preparing a company-wide workshop on phonetics and L2 phonology! I've honed so many new skills at Duolingo, and that has been really fun and rewarding, but here I'm a linguist through and through. I even hold linguistics office hours, where my colleagues can drop by to ask me linguistics questions, related to our work or otherwise. I've recently chatted with coworkers about grammatical gender, Proto-Indo-European, and the regularization of verb paradigms!

I was recently in a situation where I was helping a team brainstorm new ways to teach grammar. We knew we wanted to improve learning outcomes for a particular topic related to verb conjugations, and so I briefed the team on how the particular grammatical feature works, how it varies cross-linguistically, and some of the main challenges for learning it. I then worked with a designer to look at what our options were for creating new exercises and what the technological challenges would be for implementation. I also worked with a product manager to think about how we could scale different solutions across a huge number of language courses and language types, and what kind of guidance we would have to give to the language experts who create content for all those different languages (that's not me!). In these contexts, I have to think like a linguist, and when I do my job well I'm also teaching others about linguistics, and hopefully creating a new way for learners to engage with their new language.

Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

I wish I had been encouraged to think broadly and creatively! Languages and linguistics show up in more places than college classrooms, and the skills I built as a graduate student, researcher, and instructor do translate outside of academia. Really, they do!

I was a Duolingo learner for years before I realized it was a place I could make a contribution. It was just an app I used for fun, and it seemed so far from what my PhD research was about that I didn't consider myself a good fit. And it's true, I no longer plead with bilingual preschoolers to categorize my carefully-created allophones in timed tasks, but my whole job is thinking about how to capitalize on a learner's language background to help them learn a new language given limited time and resources. THAT is a problem I was trained to think through. My research and interests have moved in a new direction for sure, but what tenure-track professor's research interests don't also evolve over time? I'm learning and thinking through new problems, and applying familiar concepts to new domains, and that's what drew me to linguistics to begin with.

The best piece of advice I ever got was from another grad student who, reflecting on her own struggles in academic job markets, told me to get a summer internship before I finished the PhD. Internships are easier to get when you're a student, and having one on your CV (or resume) shows a potential employer that you know how to be successful in industry. I'm good at being a linguist, but I'm much newer to collaborating with people from very different fields (and not different like linguistics and psychology are different - I mean different different). I interned at a small start-up for two summers, and that's where I began learning that how you talk about your trade and your ideas to non-expert colleagues is at least as important as what your ideas are in the first place.

Any other thoughts or comments?

I kept returning to the academic path even after time away (and the occasional existential crisis) because I was really worried that I wouldn't feel challenged, engaged, or fulfilled in industry. Even when grad school and research was hard, I loved learning, and I had a good deal of autonomy in what I studied and how. I thought I'd have to give all that up.

That hasn't been my experience at all! And as a learning scientist I'm making a contribution to language learning on a scale I had never before imagined. I get to work on lots of projects, I have a lot of agency in the work I do, and I work with smart, talented people who know about things I'd never thought about. They are my collaborators now, and I have so much to learn from them. They are curious and capable, and they push me to think more, and think better, every day. They're helping me become a new kind of linguist.

Recently:

Interview with an Internet Linguist

Interview with a Lexicographer

Interview with a School Linguist

Interview with a Journalist

Interview with a PR Consultant

Check out the Linguist Jobs Master List and the Linguist Jobs tag for even more interviews  

[neighbours-kid]

I Don't Even Know

A global pandemic. Who’d’ve thunk it.

You know, the brain is an interesting thing. It’s funny how it functions.

This semester at uni looked like this: Monday through Wednesday, individual work on my bachelor thesis. The creative writing workshop on Thursday (and three times during the semester also a course for feedback on the thesis progress). Friday again individual work on the thesis.

Knowing myself, I thought, you know what? Get yourself a desk at the library. Just so you get out the house and do that stuff in an environment that doesn’t look like home. So you might get stuff done. Obviously, I also got distracted there. People existing around me, interesting books all around, a laptop with internet.

But my point is, this semester the only thing I have to do is write a bachelor thesis. Which I can do all by myself, no need to go to any courses really, or have any class work. All I need is me, my brain, my laptop, my books, and time.

Now here’s the kicker: I still have all of that. I was smart, brought all my books home before it was even official that the university would close for this term, that classes would be held online as much as possible. I have me, my brain, my laptop, my books. And I have time.

My deadline is May 29. The term started February 19. It is now April 05. I’ve been self-isolating for 20 days now. And I’ve got…nothing, really? I have loads of post-it’s in loads of books. I’ve got a document with links in it. I’ve got a whatsapp group chat with myself with more links and notes. I’ve got three papers with some mind maps on them. But…I haven’t really written a single word? For my thesis? Not a single of the 15k words I have to write?

But wouldn’t this be the perfect time?

You know what I have done? I’ve read a bunch of books. I’ve watched a bunch of tv. I am playing video games. But mostly, I am lying on ikea furniture and blankets in my windowsill, leaning halfway out onto the roof, napping in the sun, like a fucking cat.

My social medias are currently doing the following few things: Some people say “now’s the time to be creative! To do thing’s you’ve always meant to do but never got around to! Like learning a new language! Drawing! Creating! Reading!” Other voices say “don’t feel like you need to accomplish anything right now! This is an extraordinary time and what you need to do is take care of yourself, look after yourself and your mental health. Don’t stress!” And again others are just outraged at everything, looking for who to blame and what to do and where to send help and lots and lots of politics.

And I am just sitting here, like? I should be able to do this? It’s not like I don’t have the material and the time that I need? More so, now that I’m not losing time going to the university library, I have more time, really? And I’m lucky compared to other people, because I don’t have to try have online classes, I am not constantly on zoom calls, trying to do the near impossible like having seminar discussions with spotty internet and bad sound equipment. My only job is to read books about a topic and write a paper. A very long paper, but just a paper, really.

But it’s the brain, see? It’s a funny thing, that wet blob of knowledge wedged into my skull. It doesn’t function particularly well when the whole world is suddenly going basically insane.

I was so enthusiastic about this thesis. I was so passionate about this topic. And in some ways, I still am. I want to write this. I want to write about Good Omens and about the relationship that Crowley and Aziraphale have and how that is portrayed in both the book and the show. I want to write about what an inherently queer story that is, and how that can be seen. I want to write about queer theory and queer theology and how those views and ideas can be used to read that book. I really do want to write about that. But I feel like I’m even more roadblocked than I am usually when writing a paper. I know that I am a procrastinator and that, generally, I work better once the deadline comes closer because some switch in my brain gets flipped over that basically gives me a no-bullshit-override and I get the work done and it’s decent work.

But I don’t know. I’m so stumped. I try to read my books for the thesis, try to figure out what I want to say, and I just. I’m not getting anywhere, I don’t think. I read a chapter, maybe, and then I put the book aside because I get to sleepy, I get so tired and I can’t concentrate, and so I just nap. And when it’s time for dinner I eat something and then I play some Animal Crossing or I watch a show or a movie or some stand-up.

I was so excited for this.

And all I can hear is the voices all over the internet, yelling over each other. Take your time, relax! You have time now! Be creative, paint! Draw! Bake! Now’s the time!

But no. Nothing’s changed for me, except that I try not to go outside. That I can’t go to the library to do my work. But other than that it’s still the same. I have books to read. A thesis to write. Deadline May 29. No changes.

I should be sending my supervisor a working table of contents. I should be writing a chapter so that I have one to present in the next colloquium where we get feedback on it. I have two months left only to write this thesis. And I’m just…swimming. I don’t know what I’m doing.

I don’t know.

These are some weird fucking times and I feel like I’m existing in a weird sort of vacuum. Time has become irrelevant. Days are meaningless. The sun rises and the sun sets and that’s all I really care about at the moment.

I just….I don’t know.

I guess, stay safe out there, friends? Stay healthy. Be kind to yourselves and each other. Take care. Do what you gotta do to feel less like you’re going insane. It’s all we’ve got right now, really. Just. Trying to stay as sane as possible. Whatever that means for you.

Be well. Love y’all.

[melaniegutierrezjournalist-blog]

Remote Guest Speakers Enrich CSUN’s Virtual Classes

From the comfort of her living room, Mayra Lopez, a third-year journalism major, got to hear from professional role models — journalists from ABC and NBC.

The journalists spoke to a class of students who produce the Valley View News broadcast program. All journalism students and faculty were invited to join through Zoom.

Since the switch to virtual classes, there have been many changes to the way students are used to learning, but there are some rewards in the new ways that some departments are dealing with this transition. CSUN’s Department of Journalism has taken advantage of this situation by bringing in guest speakers over Zoom to speak to their students about various topics, including tales from the front lines of the day’s most pressing topics.

“I really like talking to working journalists,” Lopez said. “Now that I have so much free time I’ve been going to a lot more [guest speaker events].”

Lessons from national experts

The journalism department isn’t the only department on campus enhancing its classes with experts from far away. Nearly every college has in some form included guest speakers in their rosters. Some of these guest speakers were already scheduled, either in person or virtually, and others were invited after most of campus closed, adding to the virtual learning experience.

The guest speakers come from all over the country, in a wide range of professional fields, including biology and finance, and marriage and family therapy. Some have spoken to a single class, while others were available to students throughout a department.

The speakers have helped prove that although the move to virtual learning was unplanned, the lessons can still be meaningful.

Before the switch to virtual learning, Ray Hong, professor and associate chair of the Department of Biology, had invited speakers from schools including Stanford, Washington State and the University of Mississippi to speak on campus for weekly BIOL 490, Tutorial Studies and BIOL 692, Biology Colloquium seminars. With travel to campus now impossible, Hong worked to move the seminars to the virtual space, where they were still available to all biology students.

“In a way, more students can now be in the front row seats in a virtual environment,” Hong said.

Deaf Studies professor Lissa Stapleton offered a combination of pre-recorded and live guest speakers to her DEAF 360, Deaf Culture, and DEAF 496B, Black Deaf Communities, classes, some of which were pre-planned to be virtual and some of which were originally intended to be live. The speakers for the Black Deaf Communities class were national and international experts, all of which were always scheduled to participate via Zoom. For her DEAF 415, Deaf Community Service class, a live panel was turned into a series of interviews of grad students and faculty members from across the country to expose her students to programs outside of California.

Engaging online

At least one virtual guest lecturer came from not far away — Wendy Murawski, executive director and endowed chair for the Michael D. Eisner Center for Teaching and Learning at CSUN, joined professor Marty Eisen’s special education class to model co-teaching. This was supposed to be a face-to-face endeavor, but the educators adapted.

“We wanted them to learn they don’t need to give up student engagement or differentiation just because they are in an online format,” Murawski said.

In professor Mu-Sheng “Shane” Chang’s FIN 434 Life and Health Insurance class, students were also offered the opportunity to speak with professionals, including Cristian Iglesias of The Cheesecake Factory Inc., Steve Eilers of General Reinsurance – a subsidiary of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and Leslie McKee of Aon, who provided a worldly view on risk management, reinsurance, and healthcare.

“The students learned about relevant subject matter from these practitioners,” Chang said. “I firmly believe their presentations were very rewarding and successful to help students better understand how risk management concepts lectured in this class are applied outside of the classroom.

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning even held mock interviews for graduating internship students with department alumni. The alumni who participate usually live within driving distance, but department chair Rob Kent said the virtual format allowed for participation of alumni from the San Francisco Bay Area, Oregon and Washington.

“It is a great event for students and for alumni alike,” Kent said. “Students get to meet alumni who were in their shoes here at CSUN before and to learn first-hand about the profession and the job market.”

Connecting with students

Adolfo Flores, a journalist at BuzzFeed News based in Texas who graduated from CSUN in 2010, has visited campus several times before. Recently, he joined professor Jose Luis Benavides’s Spanish language journalism class via Zoom to talk about his experiences reporting at the border.

“I’m able to give students advice I wish someone had given to me,” said Flores about chatting with students at his alma mater. “I also see it as a way of giving back the time my professors put into me when I was in college.”

While having guest speakers in their classrooms is nothing new to the journalism students, the new virtual format has allowed students an easier access to these events. Before, a challenge for many students was getting to campus on days they wouldn’t normally have classes.

“It may be easier in this format, because one of the challenges of getting guest speakers anywhere on the CSUN campus is that people always complain about the drive,” said Department of Journalism Chair Linda Bowen. “Now, they don’t have to leave their houses.”

CSUN Today editor Jacob Bennett contributed to this story.

This story was originally published on CSUN Today.

[rabbiteclair]

boop, new fanfic:

Otherworldly Incident Colloquium

AO3 blurb:

After the relative success of the Symposium of Post-Mysticism, Akyuu hosts a second conference: This time, to get the real story behind a few key incidents that have shaped modern Gensokyo.

Consider it a semi-sequel to SoPM’s ‘story’ side and you won’t be far off.

I came very close to not announcing this one ahead of time, ‘cuz honestly, it isn’t a lot to get hyped up about. While I was having my six-week anxiety attack over changing jobs, I found it really hard to focus for long enough to write an actual story. So, I settled for what little I could accomplish, which turns out to be a bunch of characters sitting around chatting in script format. There’s some goofs in there though, so that’s something.

Also, ff.net rules don’t allow script formatted stories, so this one will be remaining AO3-only.