Author Archives: Audrey Looby

Weekly meetings with PhD advisor

“So in the PhD program, there are some rules for success with respect to you and your advisor. Uh, rule number 1 is that you should try to have weekly meetings. If you do not have weekly meetings, there will not be, you know, there will be no pressure on you to get things done, and there will be no pressure on your advisor to read a thing that you’ve don, or to think about you at all. So the best is to have some kind of weekly meeting where you are expected to have a little bit of something done, even just a little bit. Which carries me to rule number 2, which is you should try to do something every week. You should try to bring to your advisor when you see them, because if you are just going to your advisor empty-handed, then neither you, nor your advisor are going to get anything out of that. So if you go to a meeting, you should have a thing at the meeting.”

 

“I’m getting a Ph.D. in Linguistics, which is the study of how language works in the mind. It has to do with why we sometimes have trouble distinguishing “f” from “s” on the phone, why speakers of Japanese seem to mix up “r” and “l”, and why it’s perfectly reasonable to say “Aluminum bird-feeders sleepily wrestle with simple fractals” but not *”Whose was Mary reading novel?” (cf. “Whose novel was Mary reading?”).

I work in particular on sound things. My most recent work has to do with why the “c” at the end of “electric” sounds like a hard “k”, but turns into a soft “s” in the word “electricity”. There are also words like “divine” (pronounced with “ai” as in “fine”) that change to “divinity” (with an “ih” as in “fit”). This sort of thing happens in a lot of languages, and is rather strange. I believe it’s worth studying for many reasons; in particular, it tells us about how the mind stores words, and therefore has implications for psychology/medicine (e.g. understanding how aphasia works) and for cognitive science in general.”
The informant is studying at the University of Southern California, and is currently in the second year of his Ph.D. program. This folklore was collected by asking the informant what are some common practices of PhD students, or advice that he has received. He learned this from speaking with his PhD advisor and some of the more senior PhD students in his department.
According to the informant, the first rule of being a PhD student is to have weekly meetings with your advisor. Everyone in his department has at least one weekly meeting with their advisor, though it is not a requirement—it is just an unspoken practice of these PhD students, that they learn from each other. Each student likely has his or her own take on the rule: how long the meeting should be; whether the meeting should be made up if the student cannot make it that week; whether the time should be set in stone or can be flexible. That is the variation of the folklore custom.
Another custom of these meetings that the informant speaks of is to always have something to talk about, even it is very small. This increases the connection between the advisor and the student, as the student is required to prove that he has done some work over the week—as work should be done every week—and it allows the advisor to think about the student and the student’s work and provide feedback on what they are working. It is also awkward to walk into an hour meeting with absolutely nothing to talk about except what was discussed the week before. That would just waste the advisor and the student’s time.

The standard rule of a relationship

“Uh so  the standard rule of a relationship is to never go to bed mad, uh which is one my parents like, and on e I really like too: never go to bed mad, because you don’t have fun you are asleep and you’re mad so you should hash out things or if you can’t hash out things completely, then you should take a break and have some ice cream or something, and everything’s going to be fine. Uh, in ballroom dancing, as well, though it’s not as common, I’d like you to think that if you are, uh, mad at your partner, then you do not want to end a practice mad, because then you are probably never going to practice again. Uh, you want to, well same thing as going to bed, only it’s not the bed thing, so if you and your partner get mad at each other, 1) stop it! That’s dumb. 2) You want to fix that and apologize to your partner, and 3) if it happens consistently, then you want to find a new partner because that’s not an ideal way to dance.”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, studying linguistics. He is also a member—and next year’s president—of the University of Southern California’s Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. He specializes in the American Smooth dances (Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot), though also knows the International Latin dances and many social dances, like Hustle and Salsa. He has been in the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team for 2 years, and did ballroom dance at the University of Michigan for 2 years. He competes in the Silver and Gold level Smooth dances, and has placed highly in numerous competitions.

 

The saying “never go to bed angry” is common advice for any relationship. The reasoning behind it is that if you do not sort out the argument before you go to sleep, then it will only fester, and will eventually grow into the destruction of that relationship. Things may look better in the light of day, but each person would be less likely to sort out their issues the next day, and will just keep the anger bottled up inside. The informant also suggests that the argument cannot be sorted out right away, then take a break from the conversation, and eat some ice cream or something, but still come back to it before you go to sleep. This allows both people to calm down and look at things logically. The disagreement is more likely to be sorted out, then.

This folklore was collected after asking the informant about advice for new dance relationships. The informant learned this proverb from his parents, who probably heard it from their parents or their friends. It is a proverb because it never changes much, but is passed from person to person, and offers advice in a short catchy phrase.

The informant goes on to apply this common relationship advice to his ballroom dance partner relationship. Instead of “never go to bed angry,” it becomes “never end a practice angry.” The anger will be all you can remember about your partner, not how well you dance together, and it is much less likely that those partners will ever practice again.

The informant offers three pieces of advice in relation to this proverb. His first point is that you should not get mad at your partner in the first place. There are few reasons to get mad at your partner, and none of them should include their skill level. Never get mad at your partner for being unable to get a move, because there will come a time when you have trouble with a different move. If you do get mad at your partner, then you should calm down, explain why you are upset, then apologize to your partner for getting mad. Both partners are just doing their best and there should not be a reason to stay mad. However, if you do keep getting angry with your partner and they do not fix whatever the problem is when you tell them, then maybe it is time to switch dance partners, because it is very hard to dance well when you are upset, and no one wants to be angry all the time you are dancing.

Don’t correct your ballroom dance partner

“So there’s a whole, uh, laundry list of tips for doing well at a competition, and uh, interacting with a dance partner. As it turns out, interacting with a dance partner is a lot like having a life partner in the sense that you’re stuck with them, uh, until something terrible happens and, well that’s we call them your dance wife. I don’t like those terms myself, but they’re on t-shirts, too, you can find, uh, I’m, uh, you know, ‘I heart my dance wife’, uh. Uh, so, there are some rules, though, like there are rules for being in a real relationship. Rule one is that you, um, never ever want to correct your partner, if you can help it, because if they are your dance partner, then that means that you two are probably at the same dance level, which means that if they are doing something stupid, you are also doing something stupid, probably even more stupid than them, because you are the kind of person who wants to correct them, and you probably never realize the stupid things you are doing yourself, and you never get called out on because your dance partner doesn’t want to do the same thing, so your dance partner because it’s rude and you are probably the one to make a mistake in the first place. They’re probably doing just fine. So there’s that.”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, studying linguistics. He is also a member—and next year’s president—of the University of Southern California’s Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. He specializes in the American Smooth dances (Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot), though also knows the International Latin dances and many social dances, like Hustle and Salsa. He has been in the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team for 2 years, and did ballroom dance at the University of Michigan for 2 years. He competes in the Silver and Gold level Smooth dances, and has placed highly in numerous competitions.

 

The collection was made after asking the informant about certain customs of ballroom dance for when you are interacting with your dance partner. What he speaks of is a common concept among many ballroom dance couples, and is considered necessary for a successful dance partnership.

 

Ballroom dancing is different than many other dance forms, because it is entirely danced with a partner. If there is solo work, it is in connection with what your partner is doing. How dancing with a partner works in ballroom dancing is that there is one person who is designated as the “lead” and one who is the “follow.” Leads are generally male and follows are generally female, but that is certainly not exclusive. As the names suggest, it is the leads job to lead the follow in the many dance. The lead is in charge of moving the couple around the dance floor, deciding what moves to do where, and matching the tempo of the music. The follows job is to follow all of this, without any verbal communication with the lead. All the follow has to go on are hand signals and what ballroom dancers call “connection” which is the tension between the two dancers’ hands which allows the lead to move the follow where he will.

A dance partner, as the informant explains, is often compared to a life partner because of the amount understanding and respect that must be felt by both dancers. Even the least active dance couple is still required to be in incredibly close quarters with their dance partner for at least a few hours, and the most active dance partners practice a few hours a day together. Any anger or mistrust can escalate quickly and dissolve the partnership as easily as any relationship. That is why dance partners are often referred to as “dance wife” and “dance husband” as the informant says.

One of the main guidelines to a successful partnership is to never correct your dance partner. This is not something anyone is officially taught, but something that can only be learned by listening to other couples mention it or watching how they work together. Each dance couple has a different dynamic, yes, but all of the very successful partnerships, the ones that last for years, have this in common. It is as the informant says: if you are correcting your dance partner, than you are likely doing something even worse because you are focusing on them not yourself. There must be come constructive criticism during practices, especially if one person is teaching the other a new move, but the corrections should never be constant and should never get personal. This will lead to the deterioration of the partnership over time.

Christmas Sugar Cookie recipe

Cookies:

1 cup shortening Crisco

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

4 ½ cups sifted measured flour (sift flour fluffy)

 

  • Cream shortening, sugar, egg, salt, vanilla,, soda stir in together
  • Add flour ⅓ at a time. Shape dough in oval rod, wrap up in put in plastic bag.
  • Chill 2 hrs in refrig. at least.
  • preheat to 350
  • Let sit ½ hr
  • Rolling pin, flour pin+counter lightly, cut ¼ of dough
  • Roll to ¼ to ⅜ thick
  • Cut w/ cookie cutter
  • Bake 12-15 min. —not brown

 

Icing:

Cream together:

2 cups shifted confectioners’ sugar

¼ cup soft butter or 3 tablespoons hot whipping cream

Add and beat until smooth:

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 to 4 tablespoons milk, dry sherry, rum, or coffee

If the icing is too thin, add more:

Confectioners’ sugar

If too thick, add:

A little cream

 

The informant had gotten the recipe for the cookies from her mother-in-law, who had gotten the recipe from her mother. The mother-in-law is from Ohio, and her mother was from Italy and came to America a few years after her marriage. There have been a few changes to the recipe over the years, as ingredients become more available—hence the option of milk, coffee, dry sherry, or rum to the icing.

 

The mother-in-law started the tradition of having these cookies at Christmas. The cookies are only made during the Christmas season every year, usually a few days before the holiday. There is one designated day of cookie making, where the cookies made that day are expected to last until the end of the holiday season and the visiting of all relatives. Depending on how many relatives are expected, and especially how many children are around, more or less batches are made on this one day. Because of the multiple batches, the icing of the cookies can be moved to the morning of the next day, though this often causes more stress.

 

In recent years, about 50 cookies are made. There are 3 different cookie shapes: a Christmas tree, which has green icing with little green sparkly sprinkles; a yellow star with multi-color non-parreil sprinkles; and a Santa Claus head, with black-frosted eyes, a red-frosted hat, and white-frosted beard with coconut shavings. Each relative tends to have his or her favorite cookie, with the Santa Claus being the least popular, though the most revered as it is the most aesthetically pleasing.

 

There are many stories told about the cookies from the time when the informant’s husband was a child with 2 brothers and a sister. One of the popular stories is how when the cookies would first be made available to the children, each sibling would steal 5 or 6 and hide them under their respective beds, with no covering. Jokes are made on finding icing stains on the underside of the mattress years later. Another is when the mother-in-law was a girl and would be sure to help make the cookies, so she could steal the cookies of the cooling rack before her mother could notice and her sister could get them.

 

This previous year, the informant was not going to go to her in-laws until later in January, but felt her husband and daughter would miss the cookies at Christmas, as they are one of the main aspects of her family’s Christmas celebration, so she made them with her daughter on Christmas day. She did not have the same cookie cutters, so she used a dolphin cutter with blue icing with a black-frosted dot for an eye.

 

When asked why these cookies were so important, she said that it is one of their family’s Christmas traditions. In order for it to feel like Christmas, there should be some kind of a tree (she’s had a Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree the past few years), some present giving, a good meal…and the cookies when she goes and visits her husband’s family. Her mother-in-law puts in a lot of effort for those cookies—a whole day’s work—and they have been around for years. The informant does not even like the cookies very much, “too sweet for my salty taste buds,” but that does not lessen their meaning.

 

The cookies will continue to be served by all of the mother-in-law every Christmas, and the tradition, or at the very least the recipe, will remain a part of her children and her grandchildren’s lives, and fond memories of Christmases at her house.

Holy Innocents Day

“En Latinoamérica, diciembre 28th es también conocido como el día de los “Santos Inocentes,” el día en el que niños inocentes murieron de acuerdo con la religión Cristiana. Se acostumbra en mi familia hacer una broma en este día en particular. La broma consiste en pedir algo prestado, y si el que pide prestado dice la siguiente frase:

“Inocente palomita, que te has dejado engañar, sabiendo que en este día nada se debe prestar”

….entonces, la posesión del objeto prestado pasa a ser suyo. (La seriedad de esta broma depende de cada miembro de mi familia.)

Ejemplo: (Suponga que hoy es diciembre 28)

-¡Hola hermana! ¿Puedo mover tu carro para poder jugar en el estacionamiento?

-Claro

-Mmmm… ¿Entonces me prestas tu carro?

-Si

-¡Caíste! ¡Inocente palomita!

-¡Ay! ¡Olvidé que hoy es día de los inocentes!

-Así es, y ahora tu carro es mío. Voy a tomar las llaves de mi nuevo carro.

-¡No! ¡Dame mis llaves! ¡Yaaaa!”

 

“In Hispanic America, December 28th is known as “Holy Innocents” day, the day where innocent children died according to the Christianity. It’s common among my family to play a particular prank during this day. This prank consists of borrowing a special item from a lender and if the borrower says the following saying,

“Naïve little dove, that has let yourself be fooled by me, knowing that today nothing has to be lent”

…then, the ownership of the item is supposedly transferred to the borrower. (The seriousness of this joke depends on the members of my family.)

Example, (Suppose that it’s December 28th)

-Hey Sis! Can I move your car so I can play in the garage?

-Sure

-Hmmm… can I borrow your car then?

-Yes

-Gotcha! “Naïve little dove!”

-Oh no! I forgot today is “Holy Innocents” day!

-Yes! Now your car is mine! And I will proceed to take the keys of my new car.

-No! Give me my keys! Stop it!”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of California, studying Electrical Engineering. He is from Mexico City, Mexico, where he was born and lived most of his life. His native tongue is Spanish, but he is fluent in English, as well. He got his undergraduate degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, which he graduated from in 2012. He enjoys ballroom dancing in his free time.

 

The informant was asked to send the collector a description of a holiday celebrated in Mexico that has a particular tradition associated with it. He typed it first in Spanish, then was kind enough to translate it. This tradition is a particular game of his family, that everyone participates in, but he knows of other families who participate in similar games or pranks.

 

As the informant explains, his family has a prank that they play on each other on Holy Innocents Day. If a member of their family loans them something, then they get to keep it. The example that the informant gives is that he gets his sister to land him her car, then he says the special phrase, and gets to keep her car. He would likely return her car, but there are other members of his family that take this game more seriously and would keep it. This is a popular game of Mexican children, that they get to borrow things from friends or family and, if they say the phrase, then they get to keep the thing.

This arrises from the forbidding of lending on this holy day. Christians, up to at least Shakespeare’s time, were not allowed to lend money or items with interest. Jews took the niche market and became money lenders. This is a major part of the plot in The Merchant of Venice. This rule is not enforced anymore, but the idea of lending is still enough of a forbiddance that it is attached to this holy day.

The actual phrase said to catch someone lending changes from family to family or town to town. Sometimes it is a short song, sometimes just “Naive dove.” The informant, for example, shortens the phrase to “Naive little dove!” instead of staying the full phrase that his family normally uses. The idea of the dove is the symbol of innocence ties into holy Innocents Day. The rest of the phrase just calls the person out on their lending when it is forbidden.