reading

I thought I had it all under control. I really did. Then my syllabus finally arrived for “Language and Culture.” All 27 pages of it. Oh man. This is supposed to be a killer course in both content and its effect on the students. But I wasn’t prepared for:

Giglioli, LaSC: *Hymes (21−44); !Goffman (61−66).

Blount, LcaS: Hymes (248−82, esp. 255 – 69)

Silverstein & Urban, NHD: 1 – 17.

Duranti & Goodwin, RC: Goodwin & Duranti (1−42).

Goffman, Erving. The interaction order. American Sociological Review 48.1−17 (1983).

*Lyons, LS: ch. 1; ch.2, sec. 2.0−2.1; ch.9, sec. 9.0−9.3.

Lee, TH: Intro; !ch. 1 (1−39).

!Bauman, Richard & Briggs, Charles. Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19.59−88 (1990).

That’s for this week. Part of that is due for class today. Which starts in about an hour and a half. Less actually. I’m off to read.

For those counting I did a quick tally and it’s easily over 200 pages of dense material. Welcome to the Social Sciences boot camp Matt.

one day down… lots to go

Yesterday came and went and with it, the first day of class. It went well. The obtuse readings came back into focus very quickly once I understood the concept and goals of the course.

I’m currently waiting for my second class to begin.

As to the questions raised about how to get wireless going, my understanding is to follow these steps:

• Get a wireless card and install it in your computer.
• Leave your computer on and wander into a wireless zone.
• Let your computer do the rest.

  That’s about it. Until something goes wrong I typically don’t get into the nitty gritty. So right now the entire thing is magic.

Speaking of computers, mine is sick. The tablet features aren’t working correctly. So I’m packing it up and sending it to tech support today for about 5 days. While I’m pretty bummed about this, it seemed like a better idea to do this now and get it resolved rather than waiting until I get later in the quarter.

piggy back

I’m blogging thanks to an unsecured wireless account in my apartment. If this keeps up I might not need to get a home internet account. Let this be a lesson to you folks. For those with wireless connections: lock them down! For those poor grad students like me: live like a parasite and save money!

So a question came in through the comments: What are you studying? And I realized that this is something that I had not talked about in a while. The short answer is the social sciences.

That leads to question two: what are the social sciences. From the U of C’s perspective its:

• Anthropology
• Archeology
• Economics
• History
• Political Science
• Psychology
• & Sociology

This leads to the third question: Ok, so which one are you doing? And the answer is: I don’t know. My program is an interdisciplinary program in which my courses are based on my research interest.

Which leads to: OK wise guy, what is your research interest? Great question. To sum it up its:

How do groups observe and integrate new technologies? How does that adoption effect group behavior? And how do those changes in behavior effect the development of the technologies?

How that splits up among the sciences remains to be seen. Oh well, I’m heading back to campus to work on my reading for a bit.

brief breather

I’m taking advantage of the University’s wireless network to blog. I’m currently on the third floor of the Pick building in the MAPSS (Master’s of Arts Program in the Social Sciences)lounge. It’s also apparently the only place on campus with comfortable seats. Today is the second day of orientation, the first specifically for my program.

My brain is full. Like about to spill over.

On the cool side, the hall that I was packed into was used to film an early seen in Raider’s of the Lost Ark.

I still owe a blog on what happened with the move. It’s coming, some day. Oh, and I have yet to open Yahoo Mail. That’s something for this afternoon.