I Would Like To Get Above 70% In All My Modules This Year! (That’s A First Class Mark Here In The UK.)

07/09/2018 Biology notes in the local library!

I met up with a friend and we are having a very productive day.

13-18/12/18 - 94-99/100 days of productivity

Mocks are finally over and I think they went okay. So now I get to chill out and read!

This term is always hectic but it’s nice to find time for myself :)

🎧 Loïc Nottet - On Fire 🎧

03/10/19 I’m doing the uni thing!

Long time no see, guys! Now the academic year has properly started for me, I’m getting into the swing of making summaries comprising lecture notes and information from textbooks and further reading. It’s my day off from any lectures, workshops, tutorials or labs so I’m just reading and keeping it low key

27/11/18 - 1/12/18 - 78-82 days of productivity

Hi all! So November just decided to defy the laws of time by not existing haha

Time to get festive!

But first I have my Cambridge interviews on Tuesday 4/12/18 and then the week after I have mocks. So lots of revision up ahead, on which I have already made a start over this week as you can see.

Sorry for my absence this week - been busy having a breakdown over how incompetent my school is at organising things. However, I’m okay now!

OMG I needed this

How to teach yourself linguistics online for free

Wish you were enrolled in an intro linguistics class this semester? Starting a linguistics major and looking for extra help? Trying to figure out whether you should study linguistics and what comes after?  Whether you’re just trying to grasp the basics of linguistics or you’re trying to construct a full online linguistics course, here’s a comprehensive list of free linguistics websites, podcasts, videos, blogs, and other resources from around the internet: 

Linguistics Podcasts

Specific episodes:

The International Phonetic Alphabet and vowels

Constituency

Gricean Maxims and presuppositions

Kids These Days aren’t ruining language

Learning languages linguistically

Phonemes

Prepositions and determiners

Morphemes and the wug test

Podcasts in general:

Lingthusiasm

The History of English Podcast

Talk the Talk

Lexicon Valley

The World in Words

A Way With Words

Linguistics Videos

Modular topics:

NativLang (cartoons)

The Ling Space

Tom Scott’s Language Files

Arika Okrent (whiteboard videos)

Structured video series like an online course:  

Introduction to Linguistics (TrevTutor)

Another intro linguistics series (DS Bigham)

Phonology (TrevTutor)

Mathematical linguistics (TrevTutor)

Syntax (TrevTutor)

Another syntax series following the chapter structure of a free online syntax textbook (Caroline Heycock)

The Virtual Linguistics Campus at Marburg University

“Miracles of Human Language” (on Coursera from Leiden University)

Blog posts

General

How much do I need to know before taking intro linguistics? (Spoiler: not much) 

28 tips for doing better in your intro linguistics course

How to find a topic for your linguistics essay or research paper

For typesetting linguistics symbols: What is LaTeX and why do linguists love it? (with sample LaTeX doc to download and modify).

Further linguistics resources about specific areas, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition (first/second), historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, prescriptivism. 

Phonetics & Phonology

How to make your own paper model of the larynx

Teaching phonetics using lollipops

How to remember the IPA vowel chart

How to remember the IPA consonant chart

IPA transcription practice

A detailed explanation of sonorants, obstruents, and sonority

A very elaborate Venn diagram of English phonological features

The basics of how Optimality Theory works, with coffee analogy

Allophones of /t/, explained with internet gifs

Several good visualizations and explanations of the vocal tract

How to type IPA on your phone (Android and iOS) 

Various ways to type IPA on a computer

Morphology & Syntax

Morphological typology cartoons

So you asked the internet how to draw syntax trees. Here’s why you’re confused.

Types of trees: a sentence is an S, a sentence is an IP, a sentence is a TP

A step-by-step guide to drawing a syntax tree, with gifs

Distributed Morphology

Garden path sentences: how they work, some examples

Structural ambiguity and understanding people in Ipswich

How to draw trees on a computer (TreeForm and phpSyntaxTree) 

Pronoun typology and “the gay fanfiction problem”

The solution to violent example sentences: Pokemon

Semantics & Pragmatics

The difference between epistemic and deontic, necessity and possibility (with bonus modals as Hogwarts houses)

Why learn semantics? Comebacks to annoying people.

Presuppositions, implicature and entailment, and more presuppositions in Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Gricean maxims in Welcome to Night Vale

Scalar implicature and a duck gif

Giving a shit about Negative Polarity Items, NPIs explained using Mean Girls references, and a follow-up on Free Choice Items

The lambda calculus for absolute dummies

The Lambda Calculator (software for practising in Heim & Kratzer style)

Teaching & Academic/career advice

Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Teaching linguistics to 9-14 year olds

On writing an IB extended essay in linguistics (& follow-up)

IPA Bingo

IPA Jeopardy and IPA Hangman

Practising syntax trees using cards and string/straws

Find a linguistics olympiad near you!

Editing linguistics Wikipedia articles instead of writing a final paper that no one but the prof will read (see also wikiedu.org)

Should you go to grad school in linguistics? Maybe

Figuring out if you actually want to go to linguistics grad school

How to decide which linguistics grad school to go to

How to look for linguistics undergrad programs

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk

An extensive list of undergrad and/or student-friendly conferences - apply to one near you!

Advice for linguistics profs on increasing enrollment and supporting non-academic careers

Linguistics jobs - a series about careers outside academia

Languages

Linguistic approaches to language learning resource roundup

Will linguistics help with language learning? / Will learning a second language help with linguistics?

The problem with “economically useful” as a reason for language learning

Further link roundups

This list not enough? Try these further masterposts: 

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

A list of books (fiction and nonfiction) about linguistics

A comprehensive list of language and linguistics podcasts, from Superlinguo 

A very long list of linguistics YouTube channels and other free online videos about linguistics 

20 linguistics blogs I recommend following

How to explain linguistics to your friends and family this holiday season

You are exceptional.

Thank you for existing.

I feel like so many people need to hear this because this message is getting lost in the noise of dismal politics and the aesthetics of everyone else’s lives.

P.S.

You do not need straight A’s to be exceptional.

You do not need to spend 24 hours a day making aesthetic notes to be exceptional.

You do not need to have your shit together all the time to be exceptional.

You do not have to be in an amazing mood 24/7 to be exceptional.

I finished A Levels!

I’m free! But at the same time, I feel like my purpose has been pulled out from under me. Knowing I don’t have anywhere to be today - or tomorrow, or the day after that...etc - is strange. At the end of Year 11 it was ok, because I knew that I would return to my school for sixth form after summer. Now I am only returning to my school to collect my results before I spread my wings and go to university.

I don’t have this pressure any more, but my subconscious is paranoid that I will get poor grades, even though I have worked consistently hard for two years, because I had disappointing exams. Indeed, my first night of freedom consisted of an unpleasant dream in which I only got a B in French (not bad at all but I consistently have been my teachers’ hopes for their first ever A* at A level) and C’s, D’s and E’s in my other subjects, so everyone was judging me. They were disappointed and so was I.

I do have some plans for the summer - I am going to London and Cambridge to do some work experience in July and I want to read as much as I can, get back into drawing and regain my love of chemistry ready for uni. I might find some cheap flights and go to... wherever for a weekend. A day trip to Dublin sounds fun. I might learn to drive.

If you too have survived the horrors of A levels 2019, I congratulate you and sincerely hope you get what you have worked so hard for. Now let’s go and find a social life 😂

I can’t believe I have signed myself up for at least 4 more years of exams and mental burnout

Education in its current form is completely unsustainable. I feel like I hate chemistry even though I have to go and study it in October

18/09/18 - 7/100 days of productivity

Today was very busy but I started writing my personal statement in my free period and then typed up biology notes, did a French listening homework and uploaded a load of German vocab to Quizlet. And now I’m in bed - night all! :)

07/02/2020

Organic chemistry is addictive torture