Catching Up With...Chris Green | 09/14/08

Hello to the whole former Tallahassee gang! (is there anyone still down there…Ricky?) Mike Catania (a.k.a. The Best) has asked me to write a guest entry to catch everyone up on my life (and I guess Michael’s as well) up in Indiana. It’s hard to believe that we’re going on our third year living up here already. I think that the last time that I saw most of you was our first Spring break (!!!..that’s for Jamie) after we left. I’ve seen Marty of course once up in Ithaca when I was visiting home and then Mike and Jamie met us up in New York City for the day this past March, but besides that…it’s been a really long time. Thankfully for Facebook and AIM, we can all more or less keep up on each other’s lives. I’m thinking that we’re just going to have to move to DC one way or the other and reunite the whole gang. I have been trying my best to be K-Chris here, but it’s just not the same. Michael has started a poker night of his bass friends though, but they have not been graced with my pepperoni bread yet. No one even knows about birthday brownies either! So I guess I can’t just think back on old stuff…I’m supposed to be doing an (p)update.

So, I’m starting my third year at Indiana. I started here as an MA but I was “status changed” to PhD after my first year. My interests have surely changed concerning what I’m doing in linguistics and what I want to do after school. I came to school wanting to get involved in language policy and planning, but all the sudden I’m a theoretical phonologist. For those of you who don’t know linguistics, that means that I’m a “sound guy”. Since I’ve been here, I have been an officer in charge of publications of the IU linguistics club and founded the IU African Languages Club. I’m still on a fellowship that requires that I study Bambara (Mali), but I’ve also worked on Swahili, Wolof (Senegal), and done a year of “fieldwork” on Luwanga (Kenya). That’s just language stuff of course. I work for three of my professors as well, so I keep myself very busy…which is how I like it. I have three major lines of research going at this point which are taking me in some interesting directions where I can meet very famous and influential people in my field. I discovered something this past year in Luwanga that has never been documented in a language before, and so I was invited to give a talk about it at the 39th Annual Conference on African Linguistics in Athens, GA this past year. I’ve also published three papers so far, which is a definite plus. I’m going to be heading to New York City this January for an important conference and I’m also presenting a paper in Minneapolis next month. Busy, busy…I know. I suppose that in more important news, this is my last full semester of coursework. I have two classes to take in the Spring, and I’ve just actually completed my first qualifying paper this past week…the second won’t be due until April. After that, the plan is to do some pre-fieldwork in Africa over the Summer and then end by vacationing around Europe a bit and presenting a paper at the World Congress on African Linguistics in Cologne next August. That is as far into the future as I know at this point, since I still have to figure out exactly what my dissertation topic is going to be.

In other news, Michael is doing well, and we are really enjoying life in Bloomington. We are both super busy all the time, so we try to take advantage of the "date night" concept so we can at least see each other one day a week when we’re not running around. Michael has been busy taking auditions all over and is on the sub list for about 5 regional orchestras. He’s taking the Atlanta audition in just a couple weeks. This year, he is sitting principle of one of the university orchestras here, so he’s keeping very busy as well. We both finished our Masters degrees this past Spring, and so as I said, I’m staying on for the PhD, and Michael is working on his Performance Diploma (an extra 3 semesters). Life is very quiet in Bloomington, and it is the perfect place to do research, so I couldn’t be happier. I’m sure that Michael would like to be a little closer to some bigger cities so that they would be more “big” orchestra playing opportunities, but alas, here we are.

So, I guess that’s about it for my guest entry. I hope that everyone is doing well and is happy in their respective places. It seems like we’re all more or less spread out at this point (with the exception of the DC crew). If you ever find yourselves in the area, give us a holler…we love having guests!!! Take care!!! xoxo…K-Chris (and Michael)

Comments

Jamie (Unknown)

DC is calling for you guys to visit!!!

Congrats to both of you for everything with school :)

KBS (Unknown)

Yay! Thanks for the update, K-Chris!

T-Chris (Unknown)

Man, do I miss your pepperoni bread. And Michael's laugh. And our discussions on fashion and closet organization. If you're ever in/around Boston, gimme a buzz!!


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