#jumpingoffthewalls

yeah i watch orphan black i love it! and i know a couple people who watch defiance so i’ll look into that!

is your icon a cat w/ a pancake on its head? i love you

THERE’S A PUPPY IN THE FRIDGE OMG

your face is not dumb at all tbh bruh

i feel your pain coming up with a title

Snitches and talkers get stitches and walkers: Share a secret.

i dont think this is a secret since i cant remember how many ppl ive told but im gonna tell more ppl when i was younger when i got mad at my older sister id put soap on her toothbrush and my mom refused to believe that i was the one doing it

Young volcanoes: What helps you forget your troubles?

47. I usually keep my music at a reasonable level because I’m really self-conscious about people hearing my music that’s too loud and then judging my music taste.

58. I’ve never really had an actual talent besides being good at sports, but I guess a weird talent is fitting into small spaces? I don’t know if that counts, but I’ve always managed to hide in small spaces while playing hide-and-seek or something of the sort.

Wait, what? What?! Would I recommend UC Berkeley—specifically UC Berkeley linguistics—which is literally the school/program that radically altered for the better the entire course of my professional and personal life? Uh, yeah, a little bit.

Now, before I go on whatever the opposite of a rant is about how awesome Berkeley is, I will say that I know absolutely nothing about the Communications department or major there. I don’t even know someone who majored it in offhand, so I can’t even get any second-hand information for you. If that’s really important to you, you may want to do your own digging there.

There are several things I really liked about my undergraduate linguistics education at UC Berkeley that made it unique, some of which may or not be relevant any longer. I’ll try to make a short list below:

The phonetics class (there was only one for both undergraduate and graduate students) was taught by John Ohala, a student of Peter Ladefoged, and was the best possible introduction to one of parts of linguistics that’s most closely related to the hard sciences. That experience was invaluable. John Ohala retired, but I heard he was still teaching that phonetics class in an emeritus role. Unfortunately I see he’s not teaching it this semester, which means he may not be doing it anymore. Whoever is teaching it, though, will likely have continued his legacy, so I assume that it’ll still be a strong introduction.

Unlike most universities, apparently (but maybe not anymore?), Berkeley has an undergraduate class dedicated to morphology. (UCSD does too, but apparently this isn’t common.) Berkeley’s morphology class is split with an intro to phonology, but that’s because before it didn’t have a phonology class (and honestly didn’t need one; Ohala’s phonetics class was that good).

Definitely unlike most universities, Berkeley has an undergraduate introduction to historical linguistics, which is vital to a strong understanding of language. Their historical linguistics professor, Andrew Garrett, is the same professor I had, and he’s excellent. He should remember me.

Looking outside linguistics, Berkeley’s Cognitive Science department is one of the strongest in the world, and it has great ties with the Linguistics department. This is where George Lakoff and Robin Lakoff teach (at least George still teaches; not sure about Robin), and Eve Sweetser, who taught the intro CogSci course I took, is incredible. (She also came to the Second Language Creation Conference at Berkeley!) Having an outstanding linguistics department and an outstanding cognitive science department at the same university is rare (though UC San Diego also does).

Additionally, Berkeley is unmatched in the number and variety of language courses it offers. Something that (I think?) is a bit odd is that most departments teach their own languages, so none of this is under the jurisdiction of the linguistics department, but however it ended up working, Berkeley offers like fifty language course—and rarer ones. Its Japanese program is famous, but I’ve had personal experience with Arabic, Russian, French and Middle Egyptian, and I was pleased with all of them. I seriously wish I had taken more languages (like Finnish and Turkish). I also noted just now that apparently they’ve started teaching ASL (it was a student-run DeCal course when I was there), and that this is done within the linguistics department. That’s great news!

Finally, the linguistics department is pro-conlanging. I fixed that.

Actually finally, there’s an active undergraduate linguistics club there (SLUG). That’s where I met my wife thisallegra, as I mentioned (I also know of at least one other set of spouses that met there), but aside from that, it’s fun! It’s a place to get together and chat about linguistics and language. I’ve been to visit SLUG twice in the past three years, and a lot of the major members are graduating this semester, which means they need new blood! Someone has to make sure the SLUG’s cape is still flying!

Now, that’s just talking about linguistics/language. As for the rest, Berkeley is consistently ranked the top public school in the US, and one of the best colleges in the world. It’s the oldest college in California, but has recently been getting a lot of structural upgrades, so it’s getting a lot of the amenities associated with modern campuses (when I was there, it was still pretty old when it came to things like on campus eating options, etc.). Berkeley has always had a vibrant music scene since at least the 60s, when it became a beacon of counterculture. Amoeba Records should, by now, be famous. (In fact, the Decemberists are playing there May 1st, at the Greek Theater. That’s the theater that’s literally next door to the dorm I lived in my freshman year. We could hear every single concert there for free.)

One outstanding thing about living in Berkeley the city is if you’re able to cover your lodging (and, by the way, if you can’t afford the dorms or an apartment, I strongly recommend the Berkeley Student Cooperative, which is much cheaper and gives you a more…interesting experience. I lived in the co-ops for three of my four years), you can otherwise live and enjoy yourself rather cheaply. It’s actually best if you don’t have a car, because the public transportation is that good, and you can take the buses for free as a student. Plus, there are a lot of cheap and diverse food options everywhere. If anything, it’s difficult not to bleed your bank account dry with nickel and dime expenses here and there. (I learned my lesson my first semester.)

And if I can talk about diversity for a moment, there is no more diverse place in the world—and mostly tolerant. For food, you’ll find vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan, gluten-free, aggressively meat-only, low-carb, raw, organic, kosher, halal—everything at almost everywhere. Though famous for being progressive, there are a lot of churches right outside the campus (all types), and an aggressive Republican club on campus (they’re in the minority, but they’re vocal—in fact, that describes a lot of groups on the Berkeley campus, as it’s more of a plurality than a majority). There are generally protests every weekday on upper Sproul (and sometimes in front of Dwinelle; never anywhere else, really). Some you’ll agree with; some you won’t; some will appear to be totally nonsensical. Unless something major happens, though, they do tend to cluster there, so you can choose how much you want that part of Berkeley to be a part of your life. And in addition to actual protests, there are always three or four people who go out there to shout to get attention (like Yoshua). If you need quiet, though, it’s generally not too hard to get away from everything—especially if you live on the north side of campus (the south side is the party side).

I’ve also heard good things about the campus’s Disabled Students’ Program. I’ve never benefited from it, but I have contributed to it several times as a volunteer note taker (I’d take notes during class and xerox copies for a student who couldn’t take notes during class). In general, Berkeley is a place where different types of people are tolerated and celebrated, though different ideas are always up for debate. (Oh, and a link to Berkeley’s Gender Equity Resource Center. Definitely LGBT friendly.)

Weatherwise, Berkeley’s in the Bay Area, so it’s no Southern California. It’s cold, foggy and rainy there most of the year, and then, for some reason, boiling hot in October. Summer’s are not hot. It never snows, but it will rain quite a bit, and since Berkeley’s on a steep hill, that can make walking to and from campus a chore. The campus is small, though, so that helps.

San Francisco is close and accessible without a car (you can take the BART), and the same is true of Oakland. If you’re from out of state, you don’t really have to worry about having someone take you to and from the airport, unless you have a ton of bags. That was always nice.

Oh, and kind of random, but the Tang Center is wonderful, and right next to campus. Grateful for that when I got strep throat during finals my second semester. I’d never gotten it before and didn’t know what it was, because the pain in the rest of my body overpowered the sore throat. If I didn’t have easy access like that, I might’ve just let it slide for a while and not checked it out.

Also, since we’re the Golden Bears, there are a bunch of bear statues around campus, like this one:

That’s me, thisallegra and my little sister. :)

Whaaaaaa?!?! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! ~:D YAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!!!!!!! WE’RE BOTH WHATEVER AGE YOU ARE TODAY!!!!!!!! #eternalyouth #nailedit

So, linguistics… (Note: Tumblr, your mobile app is missing some very basic functionality.) If it were me, I’d just double major. The workload for linguistics was minimal, so adding it as a double major was no problem. If you’re just interested, you can always just take whatever specific courses interest you and ignore the others. It kind of depends what you want out of your college experience. If getting a linguistics degree is important to you, you’ll have to get it. If you just want the knowledge, no reason to bother with the major requirements. A related field you might consider if you’re more interested in the brain is cognitive science. Not all universities have a cogsci department, but it’s a fascinating field that runs the gamut from purely theoretical to hard science.