Couch 67 - Keep calm, carry on, and have a cup of tea.

I love gift cards as well.

Hi couchies. It's been a long day (and it's only 5pm) - dental hygienist at the crack of dawn, then to work for an hour, then T, then back to work, then back to the dentist to fix a cavity, and now I've been discussing my conference abstract for an hour, and am slowly starting to feel that I might be able to do it. It's so weird - I've been too paralysed by fear to even start to write the silly 400-word text, but once I sit down and talk about various angles I could approach it from, with a sympathetic colleague, the fear just dissipates. Weird, but good, of course.

I'm pretty exhausted, but have a couple of hours to go before I can go home.

Gift cards are good. Not the most fun present, perhaps, but good. And light to carry.

neutrino, I promised I'd say something about my research: for my PhD, I investigated language use on the Internet, but since I finished my degree, the research I've been involved with has mostly been on 18th and 19th century drama. So, um, it's varied :-) The common denominator is the method - I'm into quantitative linguistics, and look at statistical variation in populations, and things like that. And I am a pragmaticist, so my main interest is how people use language to do or achieve things. Grammar is something I find pretty boring, to be honest, and I don't do grammar research. I do a bit of phonetics, which is something I got interested in by teaching it. But I'm by no means a phonetics expert.

I think I'm going to go buy a hot lunch and come back and watch a movie. It's only 11:15, but I'm starving.

ETA- After I'm done drinking my cup of coffee.

This is a gentle reminder that speaking of other members negatively and about administrative actions is against our Community Guidelines.

Regardless of how you feel about other members and where they are in their therapy and life, you have the choice to ignore those that you have issues with. If you feel you want or have to respond to them, please keep in mind that if you disagree with someone, you must disagree in a respectful manner.

Remember that we have all struggled with a mental health issue in some way or another. We discover things about ourselves and heal at different rates and in different ways as well. Our journeys are personal and at times extremely difficult. Many times we struggle with the same issue over and over again. That does not mean that we aren't trying to figure things out and understand and make changes. Let's try to keep in mind that being supportive in someone's struggle, no matter how long it takes is key to following the mission of our site.

Doing our own best self care in our process is the best thing we can do for ourselves. We hope that you will all strive to do that for yourselves in keeping with our guidelines of supportive and respectful posting in moving forward.

You are all appreciated!

With Care

Hey, Wikid, if you see this, could you PM me?

Mast, I'm exactly the same way!!

Wiki...I'm thinking of you, it's moving day right?

Yikes- admin post.
Did I set this off? I can't tell what it is in response to??? Am I going crazy (no pun intended)

((((Growly))) I think we are being addressed as a whole. Not any one in particular.

Sorry, growlycat, can't talk about administrative actions .

(Teasing you. I don't think it was anything you said. More the discussion of why some of us are frustrated with PC and feeling unwelcome and targeted. It's kind of meta, or something, to have those posts then be targeted. You know what the #1 rule about Fight Club is.... Anyway, if I had to guess, I'd say someone reported the posts, but I can't say for sure. Hopefully this answers your question!)

I decided not to go out and just have food sent to me. Yum. Would anyone like a piece of pizza?

Sally does Baby Brown like pizza. Here have some

Baby Brown LOVES pizza . Pizza and burritos and Thai food, hot sauce on all of the above. Thanks Jersey!

Yum. Burritos.

Thanks for explaining! Just out of curiosity, do you analyse the way people use language on forums like this as well? Not necessarily for research purposes but because you're so used to doing it.

I think this is it as well, although I used the terms "ironic" and "aggravating" instead of meta. LOL. I thought it was okay to talk about my feelings about certain things as long as I spoke in generalities and I certainly don't believe I spoke negatively about any particular member. I was really trying to focus on how I FEEL about the forum and the ... political climate here (for lack of a better term).

In any event, I adore you guys and I will always be thankful for the friends I have met here. I will most likely check in and read here on a more limited basis, especially for a while. [I wish I could just quit ya, PC forum! ]

Just wanted to say, i did not report yesterday's posts, even tho i felt they were against guidelines, in that 1) they talked about leaving pc and 2) they spoke in an unsupportive manner about other members of pc - It doesnt have to be talking about a particular person. I find it helpful to go back and reread the guidelines from time to time, because they tend to drift in my mind.

How's it going, neutrino? Meant to answer your question about my grad advisor, and what he tells me about the paper... you kinda have to know him to get this, but he basically always says he's "working on it". He's the kind of guy who'll pretty much stick with telling people what they want to hear, whether it's true or not. So I don't really believe he's working on it, but I can't really force him to.

If you'd like to know more about the situation (at some point I'll have to start getting specific!), just PM. Always happy to help if my experience can be useful. It's a loooong story and I'm going to put everyone on the couch to sleep with it.

Aw, Brokeback moment.

I know this probably wont happen but can the MODS pleas come back and explain what I or we did wrong because it is a very general statement and as usural I am convinced it is something I did and I don't under stand the warning because I cant find any one trashing anyone or me or anything I know I have been complaining a lot but I have stopped .I hate that we cant say anything anymore that might be slightly angry unless we are completely insane and then it is helpful for us I think I don't get the guidelines and apparently I have crossed them

I don't really understand it either, granite. Reading the guidelines is all well and good and I recommend doing that, but it's pretty incomprehensible to me what anybody did to violate them in this thread.

(((mkac))) I always appreciate your posts, and as you know I often relate to what you say.

neutrino, how was T??

I don't do any research on these boards - I wouldn't do that even if it were allowed, which it isn't - but it's difficult not to notice features that you've been looking at, and looking for, in other data. I mean, when I have been looking at politeness strategies for a few weeks I pick up on people's use of various strategies without thinking consciously about it. So yes, I guess I do analyse posts sometimes, as a knee-jerk reflex thing, but I don't make any systematic analyses or anything.

Being a postdoc in Sweden is probably a little different from being a postdoc in the US - if you actually get a postdoc position you are employed (by the government, no less), which means you get every benefit that other employees have. But the "publish or perish" mentality is the same everywhere, I bet. In some disciplines it's a bit less cut-throat, especially those where most people publish in the form of books rather than journal articles.

Aw, Granite, I don't think it's you either. I think a lot of us immediately assume we're the ones being singled out, but I don't think it's just one person. I really don't. I understand your desire for clarification, but I did want to say, I don't think anyone (at all) is meaning to single you out.

Granite....ditto to what mom and baby just said above.

thanks sally but I did say I was leaving for a while because I was taking up to much space and time but you all were so helpful to me and I really needed it .thought this was a safe place but nope