A Conversation with my Dad

My Dad called me this morning:

My Dad: Hi, Ionuka! What are you doing?
Me: I'm working.
My Dad (surprised): What are you working?
Me: I am writing a paper.
My Dad (relieved): Oh, I thought you were really working.

{ [ ( ) ] }

I was planning to wait on this one, and just put it on the list of stuff to write about later, but something happened this morning that made me write sooner.

The phenomenon I am about to go crazy about is the use of brackets to replace parentheses. From what I remember, brackets were used in math, as higher order punctuation to enclose paranthetical material. Accolades followed. In terms of text, I have learnt from writing style manuals such as the APA Publication Manual that you can structure your phrases in such ways as to avoid using anything more than parentheses. For example, you can use commas or just start new sentences. One expeption is when you want to enclose material insterted in a quotation by some person other than the original writer. This is why I never anticipated THE BRACKETS. I was doing just fine without them.

Trying to decipher the causes of the popularity of the brackets, I came up with two possible solutions:
- parentheses are used more and more to suggest (in a horizontal plan) smiley/sad/drooling faces. When one wants to enclose the smiley face, one needs a higher order punctuation symbol, and thus uses the bracket. This still doesn't explain why they are used otherwise.
- people think brackets look better, at least from a computerized-esthetics perspective.

Forgive me if I am getting too worked up about this. But I am seeing more and more people using the brackets. What topped it off this morning was that I noticed one of my most admired professors doing it. How could he? I thought those Ivy League schools teach you stuff... (insert smiley)

Maybe I should get a better grasp of how languages change in response to changing times. But it just seems that smiley faces are not such a good reason for change.

It's a plan

What I plan to write about as soon as I have some time:
- the twentysomething crisis or How I'm not Living My Life
- the imperative that Michael, my man, starts a blog because he has so much to say.
- the new beverage from Coke - Blak.

Ketchup

Yes, I've been absent for far too long. I am so busy I now understand why people say "I don't even have time to think". It's not like I don't have 10 minutes to write, it's just that I don't have the time to come up with something more interesting than a list of the stuff I'm doing.

On a lighter note, my superfriend Oli came to visit us and stayed for a few days. It was lovely to be together again. Old friends remind us of who we really are. And they are good to drink with.

I am going home in a few weeks.
I am looking forward to:
- my sister and everything related to her
- the rest of my family (mum, dad, and Vivi-the-dog)
- dancing (Michii, Postal Service?)
- going to Bucharest and meeting Alex, Bogdan, & Stefan
- spring Romanian cherries
- the lovely May weather in Romania
- Ursus, Ciuc, and Romanian wine
- going to the dentist
- my mum's potatoes with onions and pilaf cu pui si ciuperci
- having coffee with anybody who would want to have coffee with me
- seeing Ariana, Sorin, and Cristi


I am not looking forward to:
- the cigarette smoke, now that I quit and I don't want to start again
- people commenting on how much weight I've put on
- being away from Michael for a month, I'll miss him like a dog
- going to the embassy to get another visa
- not being able to go to step aerobics with Patti
- not seing the season finale of Gilmore Girls
- trying to seem entertaining when I arrive in Budapest after many hours in flight, just so that my dad doesn't scold me because I'm not enough fun

I also sometimes wonder if Vivi will smell Stella on me and if Stella will smell Vivi.

But until then, I have to write a paper on children's experience of discrimination, a book review, a paper on the role of guilt and self-efficacy in reducing prejudice, a paper about my academic geneaology, and to present my work in the labs. And I promise I'll write here more.

The need

I feel I need to write. It's like working out, I just have to do it. I don't want to lose the momentum, whatever that is, it's physics, I know.
I just came back from Patti & Jay's wedding. It was the most beautiful wedding ever, with some of the most beautiful people ever. If somebody HAS TO get married, that's Patti and Jay because they are so good for each other. And they did get married. So we were all soooo happy...

I want to dance forever.

LATER EDIT: you can look at pictures from Patti & Jay's wedding here.

blog blog log log og og og gh...

US News and World Report published an interesting article about blogging in gradschool, which you can read here. It's interesting to see how the academic world adapts to these changes.