Advertising Geraldine

About two weeks ago, someone from the library contacted me about advertising my talk for the library in November. As the talk is connected to the scholarship that the library gave me, I had to think carefully about how to advertise Geraldine. I finally got around to writing an abstract and title yesterday, but the library wanted a picture as well.

At first, the title and abstract were a challenge. Knowing that I have to present my dissertation research to a group of non-linguists, I had to come up with something that sounds both impressive and comprehensible. Geraldine has an official title, and comming up with it was a feat in itself. Early on while reading articles and book chapters for Geraldine, I decided to never name anything with a title that required a colon. For some reason, it is a growing trend in academia to name publications in the following manner:

Something catchy and/or funny goes here: this is where it says what your research is really about

The part before the colon serves the purpose of making researchers feel better about their work (as if having a witty title will make more people read the paper). The second part of the title is much more dull, but it gets to the point. It is the only part that interests the people deciding whether or not to read the article. Half annoyed with having to type long titles into my bibliography and half not wanting to join in as a trendy title groupie, I named Geraldine wisely and have had a difficult time coming up with variations for other presentations that don't sound exactly the same. No one wants to read 10+ titles on a CV that only differ from eachother by one or two words.

The library employee sent me example posters from past presenters and scholarship winners. Some of the abstracts sounded overly boastful "award winning dissertation research", "top doctoral scholar of the university" and the like. I suppose that I did win an award for Geraldine and I had to be the top applicant to do so, but I don't need that advertised with my face attached to it. I wrote what I hope is a modest abstract that gets straight to the point but is interesting enough to attract a diverse audience.

The picture requirement was more fun. It seems that I don't have a wide range of serious pictures of myself as a scholar. I entertained myself at the end of my work day today with hubby's camera. Below are a few highlights, as well as a few examples of me on a typical work day.



Typical day teaching one of my classes

  

Archiving really important stuff



Conducting linguistic experiments

  

Saving bunnies and guinea pigs from weird experiments





Presenting at conferences (notice no one is sleeping)

 

  



Collecting Data

  





What I really do all day long



More of what I really do all day long

What I usually wish I were doing instead

 

And finally the picture that I actually submitted:

It's all Greek to me!

It's another hot summer day here in the middle of the country. I made it into the office today to get some work done, mostly because there were big books waiting for me in the library and I didn't want to take them home. Just how big are these books? They are as wide as balance beams and I could use them for about 10 different calisthenic exercises (and thus help myself fit back in to my slacks before the fall term starts). I already exercised this morning though, so I decided to give myself a big mental exercise while reading the dictionary today instead.

Today's dictionary is in German and it has word histories of old words related to Germanic words. The second volume is a key to the first volume. Because I don't speak Indogermanic, I use volume 2 to look up the words I want to find in volume 1 and, if the word is listed, I am given a page number. The words in volume 2 are listed alphabetically by language. My adventure today had me looking up word roots from Geraldine's database in German, English, Russian, Old Church Slavic, Latin, Italic, Old Irish and Greek. I saved the Greek for last. Actually, I was going to ignore that it was even there and hope that no one noticed I didn't look up Greek etymologies when they read the drafts of my dissertation. Since that was a stupid thing to hope for, I checked the department office to see if the coast was clear to make copies of what I need from this dictionary. My secretary was still around, so I pouted, then started reading Greek. Greek is complicated because a) I've never studied Greek, b) it is the only language listed in this dictionary with a different script, c) I transcribed my Greek notes into a Latin script about 3 years ago, d) I never attended a university with a Greek system to help me recognize the Greek alphabet, and e) I hate math. Not wanting to let the fact that I never attended a toga or frat party hold me back from this last year of college, I suffered through the Greek section and found about 5 more roots that weren't cross referenced in the other terms I found. Yay! About a month ago, my office mate and I wasted a good afternoon taking dorky quizzes online to see how much random knowledge we had (and of course see who knew more useless knowledge than the other). We took a Greek alphabet quiz and earned 100%. It seems that between watching Revenge of the Nerds and being forced to take 4 math classes in my college career, I can fake my way through reading Greek words. Won't Indi be proud of me? Maybe I'll keep the I've-never-been-to-a-toga-party part to myself for a while...

Then again, maybe I should host a massive toga party this year. We can be like the philosophy department a floor above us and have a party in our offices late at night. Only our party will be better because we're not the philosophy department and two other linguists around here want a margarita bar in their office.... Hmmm.....

While walking from the library to my office, I passed a fountain that appears on every campus advertisement the university publishes (probably because it's one of the only pretty things on this whole campus). As I passed the fountain, I was overwhelmed by an urge to run through it, splash, swim and laugh. I resisted and fantasized doing those activities with flippers on my feet and a snorkel in my mouth on the first day of fall term instead. Or maybe I'll wait until I pass my dissertation defense. Indi can pronounce me Dr. Kelsie and I'll run directly to the fountain and start a new department tradition.

These may seem like random ideas, but as the summer comes to an end and I start my last year as a student here, I keep having moments during which I realize that I won't be a student again after this. This will be my 9th year of college and, unlike the other times I graduated, there isn't another degree to earn after this. Instead, I'll be the professor deciding who is able to earn a degree. As that approaches, I'm becoming aware of the gaps in my knowledge. A person with a PhD should be able to read some Greek and Latin. Even though it was difficult and I have a Greek dictionary waiting for me at home, maybe I shouldn't be so intimidated.

With that written, I'm going to the department office and making copies and I will ignore that my department chair is still in his office next to the copy machine on a Thursday night, after house, in summer. Maybe he can read Greek too and help me out.