Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Monotone.

Today in my language studies class (the one with the teacher who looks kinda like Robert De Niro) we kicked our day off by watching a lecture by Noam Chomsky. The man may be one of the leading leaders in the field of linguistics, but he could put plants to sleep. They would just curl up their leaves and die. About three minutes into the video, which promised to last for an hour and 27, my eyes were beginning to droop. I tried to remain conscious with a crossword and a few sudokus I had squirreled away in my bag. I barely even know what he was lecturing about. I know it was something to do with biolinguistics and language and the brain, but as far as I could tell he just kept repeating himself and dryly recounting ten-minute long theories that all seemed to be controversial and unsubstantiated (to hear him tell it). Every so often our teacher would shake the computer mouse to see how far in we were. After one of the longest half hours of my life, the teacher said, "Enough of this," and had us start discussing some of the things we didn't get to last time. He had warned us beforehand that Chomsky was very skilled at inducing narcolepsy, but Noam went above and beyond anything I could have imagined from that description. As my teacher so aptly put it, if sleeping pills don't work, try listening to one of Chomsky's lectures. You'll be out in no time.

Listening to: "Ticket to Heaven" by 3 Doors Down
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

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