Hi Ivan

Thank you, for giving me one of your famous ‘alternate calls’ back then in 2001. I only had applied to Stanford, so it wasn’t exactly the best news to be the 6th of 5, but you artfully made me not feel rejected. Luckily, some dude decided that he was better off converting heathens in Abagabbagubbu land and I was able to go to Stanford (which, after somebody finally stole my “Fuck Stanford” T-shirt from my laundry, ended up being really nice). I also remember the interview itself– you, of course, had your feet on the table, probably fanning yourself and being amused by something.

Thank you also for your wonderful introduction to my thesis proposal defense, which I –surprise- scheduled a little late (Your advised the younger students not to take me as an example: “usually one first writes a proposal, then a thesis, and then applies for jobs. Not the other way around”).

And between these two things (the call and the introduction), there was that ‘little thing’ called a Ph.D., which for me included countless moments of classic Ivan teaching (engaged, always curious, always ready to argue, passionate); you ‘briefly’ explaining the history of syntactic theory in what ends up being a cluster fuck of sorts on the blackboard; your advice on linguistics, academia and life; you telling me why I was wrong about X (of course, I wasn’t; you were); me having to rewrite my term paper on Bulgarian direct object clitics for what felt like the 50th time (to pass the Ivan threshold; I now do that to my students, too, kinda as an homage to you ;)); and, and awesome summer without air conditioning at the LSA Institute in Boston (thanks to you organizing a house for all of us students and your buddies) – thanks to you, we had the best party (well, and the better theories, of course). But seriously, I truly appreciate all the energy and that you made it easy but interesting. And the potato.

Florian (Jaeger)