In this season of Thanksgiving, i am most thankful this year for written words and language — they underlie most of the things i care about and keep me busy through most of my days.

One of the beautiful things about words and language is that people don’t often think about them; they just use them unconsciously and naturally, like the air we breathe.

Admittedly, i was an English major and studied linguistics in grad school; so i’m a little biased. And now I’m beginning to combine my interest in language with my interest in computer science through natural language processing. I have some catching up to do; my computer skills are a little atrophied.

But it gives me something to do, so i’m happy.

And in terms of math/science stuff, I am also thankful for Goldilocks data-sets — not too big and not too small, just right.