Finishing the Program

This is going to be my last post on this blog, unless I later return to the UK. I received notifcation of my final mark on my dissertation, which was an 80%, an upper level distinction. According to Ed, this is an absurdly high grade for the British grading system. All three of the examiners agreed that my work is of publishable quality, which of course my dissertation supervisor (one of the examiners) has been saying all along. So we'll be working on publishing a new version of it in the upcoming months. Anyway, because I got a distinction on my dissertation and most of my other courses, I'll pass with distinction from the program, which I think is less common at Master's level.

In related news, my supervisor and I have submitted an abstract of a paper for presentation at Euralex, and lexicography conference in Norway in August. Our paper is related to the topic of my dissertation and is a summary of why the current dictionary entries for "like" are insufficient, giving suggestions for improvement. If it's accepted, my partner will present at the conference, and I miiiiight be able to go too, but I'm not sure yet.

In other news, I got a job at a Catholic women's junior college in Kagoshima, Japan, starting in April, and I'm very excited about it. It's good money, room and board included, only seven classes a week plus an hour of tutoring, eleven weeks of vacation, and it's in a warm climate on the coast. So I'll be starting a new blog once I get into that. I haven't thought of a clever name yet, though.

Anyway, Brighton was a lot of fun and probably the best place I've lived so far. I was sad to leave it for various reasons.