Bach Too's Cool

Uni started again yesterday.
I have now had a taster of the three subjects I'm enrolled in for this semester- Semantics, Phonetics and First Language Acquisition.
First up was Semantics, taught by David Thewlis in an oscar-worthy performance as Brett Baker, who also taught me Syntax last year. I'm trying not to hold that against him, I really am. Suffice to say we won't be studying pragmatics this year, which I personally think is one of the most interesting areas of semantics (it's to do with implication and context- which are absolutely fascinating linguistically). I'm currently trying to switch Semantics for Language in Aboriginal Australia, which for some reason is not offered at Edinburgh.
Next was Phonetics, and the professor seemed oddly nervous- I don't know if it's his first time teaching or he just had a bomb strapped to his leg, but he repeated himself a lot and at the...end just...kind of...faded... ...a....way. Sadly, he's up against the titan that is Patrick Honeybone as my previous professor in phonetics and, well, that's an extremely tough act to follow. Like Invocal. Or Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (Daniel.) As for phonetics, it's not my favourite field anyway, as it's rather dry- lots of science, TONNES of biology- but it's not as bad as syntax, as I can at least see the need to study phonetics, and it does have some interesting facets. 
Finally, I headed to First Language Acquisition- the Professor of which has the same name as my grandmother and only paternal aunt. What a small world. First Language Acquisition has always been one of my favourite topics cos babies are just so damn cute when they try to talk. Case in point:

 

I'm pretty sure he calls me 'Nony' in that clip. I dunno if that's better or worse than 'Ory', which was Sam's attempt. 

Anyway, in First Language Acquisition we have to go and record a child talking and interact with it, which will at the very least be a different way to spend an afternoon (though I essentially did exactly that every Friday morning for eighteen months). I'm quite looking forward to this course actually, especially since my professor said she was a sociolinguist by trade, meaning maybe in later life I can combine two of my favourite fields after all (if we can just work in watching penguins somehow I'll have it made).