Weekender

Well last week was, frankly, a bit of a bitch. Thursday was the worst - and it wasn't a great day for Jess, either, who arrived that afternoon after a delayed departure from Chicago, a missed connection in Phoenix, and a suitcase 'mislaid' by the airline.

However. Friday and the weekend definitely made up for things!

I got up early to teach my morning class and go to my syntax discussion, while Jess slept in (we'd both been running on next to no sleep the previous day) and then we met up for a coffee and a pastry, and a bit of a wander around the immediate university environs - with a side-trip so that I could finalise purchase of my tickets home for the long break. (Yay!) I had another class, then we had late lunch and I dragged Jess to the Friday afternoon linguistics colloquium. Happily for her, it was a particularly accessible and interesting one regarding a longitudinal study of youth language use in a Yup'ik village in Alaska. She met a few of the linguists, and had her vowels duly mocked by Mike Hammond, as was inevitable. I also dragged her along to the post-colloquium meeting of the LingCircle to witness preliminary planning of next year's conference, as well as general elections.

It should be noted that hereafter, all correspondence should properly be addressed to "Madame Vice-President". ;-)

After the meeting we went to the pubs for the weekly Friday Drinks with Linguists, which were fun, and followed by Further Drinks with Canadians, which would have been much more fun if we could've gotten rid of one grotty little guy who kept telling obscene stories and trying to hit on Jelena. Urgh.

Oh! But I forgot to say that in amongst the general vowel-mockery, Mike Hammond usefully pointed out that it would be dreadfully amiss for us not to go to the Sonora Desert Museum while Jess was in town, and apparently Kara felt suitably sorry for us, so she volunteered to drive us (since there's basically no other way to get there). We spent most of Saturday there, and it was really, really cool - absolutely as good as advertised! Expect photos in subsequent posts. We saw hawks and bobcats and mexican wolves and prairie dogs and the otter was possible the coolest thing ever! Alas, we didn't see coyotes, javelinas or coatis, but we still got our money's worth!

Afterwards we had coffee and cake in a cute little cafe on 4th Ave, because no day is so good that it cannot be improved upon with a little dessert.

Saturday night we met up with Jelena and saw the St Petersburg ballet do Giselle at the UA concert hall (for only $10). It started a bit slow, to be frank, I wasn't impressed by the first half, but the second was pretty good, and it was an excuse to get a bit girlied up!

Sunday - sleep in and pancake breakfast in the courtyard of a nearby cafe, followed by a stroll down to 4th Ave where all the local colour is (within walking distance, anyway!) and then we walked downtown and caught a bus to the mall so Jess could buy souvenirs. And then that night was my standing engagement of an Evening with Austen at Mary's house. (This week was the first episode of Pride & Prejudice.)

So that was Jess's visit... we had to get up very early this morning so she could catch her flight, and Tucson's taxis lived up to their usual unreliable reputation! However, I am assured that she did make her flight on time. It was a really lovely weekend, and even though I'll have to race to catch up on some work after taking the time off, I had a fantastic time!

Photos of the Desert Museum will come soon, I promise! Oh, and I mentioned I bought my tickets... I'll be arriving in Briz on May 30! I'm going to head over to see Mum and Dad on June 16 for about two weeks, and after that, if all goes according to plan, I'll head down to Sydney for LingFest 2008, but I should be back in Briz again around July 12, and will stay until August 6.