Dealing and Wheeling

I write awesome thank you cards.  It's one of my best skills.  Unfortunately, my poor mastery of other skills means that cards often don't meet their intended audience.  Skills like "holding onto the card," "finding a stamp," "addressing the envelope," and "putting card into mail slot."  These are all skills that I have failed at in the past two weeks.  I did, however, manage to hand deliver a thank you note to Advisor Who.

Who: The US Postal Service could have really used your postage.

I'm not convinced that he read the whole card (he read it in front of me), but he did like it enough to put it on his magnetic cabinets.  Which means that this card fared better than the 2-3 that preceded it.  My biggest achievement, however, was when he took down the pictures of his sons to make room.

He probably had enough magnets to fit all these things (other things on the cabinet: baby pictures of his boys, drawing by his son, and my postcard-thank-you-card).  But he was suddenly dismissive of his children, took them down, and tossed them on his desk-- a fate that surely, my card will face one day soon.  But for now, the score is

Moi: 1    Offsprings: 0

Learning From Mistakes

Sitting at lunch with Sukey and Michelle today, I relayed, probably for the 798th time, the story of how I thought Good Friday was The Day God Died.  We chuckled at the story.  Then Michelle did me one better.

She thought Jesus had an annual life cycle.  Born each year at Christmas, grew up to be a man in a few short months, died for us on Good Friday, and raised from the dead at Easter.  Every.  Single.  Year.  Rather than live in fear like me, she always marveled at how quickly Jesus grew up.  

People Who Teach Children About the Bible:  Be very careful how you pick your words the next few days.

Liberation

I remember trying to calculate my grade before grades would come out.  I remember summing up my grades before a final exam, trying to figure out what the lowest score I could get to achieve an A (or a B).  I remember multiplying quiz grades with anticipated participation points and homework grades and all sorts of complicated metrics.  

I had a scare today that made me realize how lucky I am to have left all that.  I suppose it's an easy sentiment to escape most of you.  Most of you are not still in school in your third decade.  But here I am, still taking classes, doing problem sets, and sitting through exams.  But without the grade anxiety.  

That is the beauty of 20 years of schooling.  There are no more schools to apply for.  I just don't care about my grades anymore.  And even if there were, I have gotten by very far whilst doing very little assigned reading.   

That cavalier attitude was almost tested this afternoon.  For a few hours, I was convinced that I'd get a C.  I also managed to convince Liz that she was about to get a C.  It would have been beautifully symmetric.  We'd have 3 apiece.  One each from high school, college, and now grad school.  I didn't need to do any math.  There was no leeway.  I was fairly certain that a C average plus a C average would result in a solid C.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Except for my calculations.  

Apparently, if you take a C average plus a C average, and add generous, merciful grade inflation, you get a solid B.    

You Are Not From Here

Two posts in two days, guys.  I must be procrastinating.

I met with a professor yesterday to explore collaborations and in the process, had never felt more New England. 

Moi: ... the town is called Westford.

Prof CSI: Is that how you'd say it with the locals though?

Moi: Oh, you mean, west-fuhd?  

Prof CSI: That's more like it!

I tried to explain to him that none of my friends grew up with thick (or any) Bostonian accents (because we didn't live in Southie or SNL sketches- go 495!). But he said it was because I didn't move to the Baystate until I was 9.  The cutoff age for accents is 7.  He then went on a whole exposition on how Bostonians pronounce 'caught' and 'cot' the same, and while I get the mild distinction, I also think he pronounces one of the two words completely wrong.  He is, however, a really cool professor.  I hope I get to work with him down the line.

(discussing where the Bo' is)

Moi: It's about 20, 30 minutes north of Portland.

Prof CSI: Wow, north of Portland.  What's up there?

Moi: Well, most of the state is north of Portland.

Prof CSI: Yeah, but who lives there?

Fair point, Professor.

Identity Thief

On days like today, I marvel at how Young Me managed to perform well enough for the likes of Doc Nice and Doc Whitecastle to keep offering me work to foot the bills.  It's a nice reminder this finals week, as I'm juggling B's and work and carving time to just think about what a dissertation might be, to know that somewhere back then, Young Me, with far fewer skills than I currently possess, managed to be employable and make a good impression. 

Of course, it's not so good an impression that Whitecastle respects me and Nice doesn't start emails with "Dude*."  But it's good enough.

I called Whitecastle this afternoon, as he asked me to, and promptly after I said "Hello?" He broke out in laughter.  Apparently, the research assistant manning the phones had told him that there was "a woman with a scheduled call" with him.  I found that to be an accurate assessment of the situation.  Whitecastle found it hilarious that the words "woman" and "call" applied to me.  

Whitecastle:  I thought it was something else, but it's just you!  

Moi: [?]

Whitecastle: You didn't tell him who you were?

Moi: I don't think he knows who I am.

*He really likes to do that, which just further confuses my mind.  I have a hard enough time not calling colleagues 'dude' as is.  I am || close to blurting a "dude" in Advisor Who's office.

Mum's the Word

Blue tits (and siskins) are garden birds.  Of the Northern European variety.  Though Nick tells me that we have plenty of tits in the US.  I'll take his word for it and not investigate via google.  Learning all this today, after Hannah casually dropped how she loved watching blue tits in a Scottish cafe in her newsletter, made me very sad to be sitting in B'more, not speaking the Queen's English.

Hands Across American

Dear Neglected Diary. 

  I can't believe I haven't told you this story.  I should have a long time ago.  In fact, I dreamt about it a few weeks ago.  You see lately, my dreams have become my to-do list.  Last night, I dreamt that I cleaned the toilet bowl and took out the trash.  When I was young, I dreamt of being a poet.  Then I went to grad school.

  But let's not get distracted.  A few months ago, Advisor Who, Liz, Geraldine, and me met in Who's office, ostensibly to talk about the course we were teaching, but it was mostly to watch Who spin yarn.  Advisor Who, when he is on a roll with goofy ideas, is a delight to witness.  The meeting began with him assigning nicknames for all of us, he ran out of steam after just two, so Liz got called "the sidekick."  Which devolved into a discussion on kicking and psychics (he likes to keep his pun grounds covered). 

  It would have been too easy to let it end there and gotten back to the syllabus revisions we needed to do.  It would have been wise.  But we instead went on a tangent on this day being Who's late grandmother's birthday (sorry?).  Where do we go from that revelation?  Why of course, a seance.  The perfect bridge between sidekick and psychic.  Who had the 4 of us hold hands around the table "to see if his grandmother would impart any wisdom."  "Are we really doing this?"  I kept asking.  And then I stopped asking.  Because we'd bowed our heads in silence.

  During the entire stretch (it felt like a long while), I kept thinking, "where is he going from here?  Now that he's committed, how could he possibly pull off this gag?"  Of course, he couldn't.  There wasn't anywhere to go after a fake seance.  There was nothing.  We looked up at each other.  "Well, I didn't get anything."  And went back, finally, to the tasks at hand.

Dissertation Damnation

I hope that this is a post I can look back at years from now (will this place even last that long?) and laugh.  But for now, trying to come up with ideas for my dissertation has been a process of racking my brain [for hours, days, weeks], finally coming up with ideas, then realizing [hours, days, weeks] that someone else has come up with the idea.  Sometimes as a product that they sell to make money.  Sometimes as an article in JAMA.  Not yet as something that I can work on.  

You Are Not Wood

This made me giggle in my Sunday Times today.  It is, per the Times' ridiculousness, an article on a basic romain salad:

The Canlis is in some measure a basic steakhouse salad: chopped romaine with bacon and croutons and cherry tomatoes, all cloaked in a thick, lemony dressing that recalls Caesar (you all did love him once, and not without cause).

A sly Shakespeare shout out.  This is why I love the Times.  It also reminded me of a New Yorker piece on Depardieu earlier this month:

The pigeons appeared in the fall...  "Pigeon" connoted a sucker or a chump. The pigeons wrote letters, too. One was delivered on YouTube by an animated bird, who warbled sadly from the pavement against a backdrop of commuters' calves. "Monsieur le Président," he sang, "It's been years now / that I've worked like an ass / to augment my wealth / that I didn't steal / Unlike the others who have left / I had confidence / I stayed in France / and you betrayed me." Tomorrow morning, he was flying away.

I read this when I should have been paying attention to my biostatistics lecture and audibly gasped.  We had to learn the song the parody was based on in Didi's French class.  I am smart enough to catch a French satire reference!  There's hope still for that PhD.

Lenny: Please tell me you've lorded [your knowledge of Le Deserteur] over someone.