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Addendum

I sat in on a seminar at Berkeley. Fantastic. I feel like a fish back in water, my mind latching on to novel approaches to familiar problems—the Problem, really. Human language, what is its form? What are its possible forms?

There are reasons I love Cyteen.

The department seems to offer the most wonderful mix of field work and cognitive theory. The brain is most certainly not a Von Neumann architecture computer, though I think that the arguments for considering it a species of computer are compelling. And to talk of Language, of course you need a broad spectrum of data.

Berkeley

First impressions: I like this place a lot more. It reminds me of Cambridge, MA: the urban environment is vital, not kept at arm’s length, and has and independent life. Also, the area is denser with people I know—not something to sneeze at.

Yesterday, went to a ling department colloquium, and had great fun there and at the post-talk reception. It had a pervasively academic feel.

I’ve come away from both visits with more targeted ideas of how to write my Statements of Purpose. That’ll be good. If you catch me on I’M the next week or so, yell at me to write. I don’t expect I’ll take much cajoling.