announcement

It's official. I'm staying here.

That is to say, I've decided to stay at Lancaster for my PhD, as long as things work out like I hope they will. I am still applying at UNT, and there is still a possibility that I will end up there. But, Lancaster is now my top choice for a PhD.

My supervisor, Elena, also happens to be the Research Student Director (or something like that), and she has been amazing. Sometime in about Week 2 of the term, I asked her whether it was possible for research students to teach here, as I was considering staying for my PhD but wanted to be sure to get some teaching experience as well. She informed me that the possibility does exist, but that it would yeild much less financial aid than a teaching assistantship in the US was likely to. She also mentioned some other possibilities.

Well, then a few weeks ago I asked her if she might be willing to write me a letter of recommendation for UNT -- which I was really worried about, since I felt that the faculty here didn't really know me that well yet, and have had no assignments or anything yet by which they could assess my abilities. She said that she would be happy to, though, and even asked another of my teachers (who happens to be her husband) if he would as well.

Today, she gave me my letter of recommendation and then sat me down and had a long (well, 10-minute) talk with me about PhD options, and basically said that she and Jonathan would both be willing to do whatever they could to help me get funding if I wanted to stay here. Specifically, she mentioned a few research projects that they are each working on where they would be willing to take me on as a research assistant, and Elena also said that she will be teaching the undergrad stylistics course next year and would need someone to help out with the seminars for that. "And we have very few research students here who would be qualified to teach a stylistics course," she added (thereby implying, through flouting the maxims of relation and quantity, that I would be one of those few people).

Anyway, I guess the point is, that if Elena, Jonathan, and Marj (the linguistics postgrad secretary) are willing to put that much effort into helping me find a way to stay here for my PhD, and since this really is where I would most like to be for a PhD, I am also willing to publicly state my determination to stay at Lancaster for my PhD if it is in any way possible. Just wanted you all to know.

(Sorry Margo!)

Oh, and Thanksgiving was very nice. We had a great meal, and lots of fun with all our American, British, and Chinese friends.