The light; Committee meeting; Drama; More mooching off of neuroscience; Grad school party
11/28
Once again, I glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. Chris from our program had his defense (the public part of which went smoothly, and, honestly, the work he presented looked wonderfully straight forward). It's always nice to see that the words of the Magnolia Electric Co., "Almost no one makes it out..." are wrong, at least when I misappropriate them to describe grad school.
So there was a party that night at Char's (et al) place, which was rather nice, but not brilliantly exciting. Once it wound down I snuck over to Cecil's for the traditional gathering with Dan's crew.
11/29
My committee meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, so I spent most of Tuesday procrastinating, which, as many of you know, can be hard work. That night I finally got down to business, getting some nice solid work on from 9:00 to 2:00.
11/30
Got up early to pick up cookies for my committee members since the boss had complained that I didn't bring food to the last one. They ate two of them. Two! The meeting itself went amazingly well, with nary a negative comment. I was thrilled. Let's hope for a repeat performance in May. Maybe if I get a paper out...
So I went home shortly afterwards and collapsed on the couch for a while. Cindy called to see if I wanted to grab a beer, but Chris had already guilted me into going to the (International) Noise Conspiracy show. The band's too overly political for my tastes (subtlety is good sometimes), and as that seems to be their only distinguishing characteristic (well, other than the costumes), I don't really find the all that compelling. But it was for Colin's birthday, so I went. That would come back to haunt me the next day.
The most entertaining part of the evening was a drunk Kitten doing the Roger Rabbit for anyone who ventured out into the parking lot. Well, entertaining before it just became completely embarassing...
12/1
So I'm sitting at work when I get an e-mail from Cindy, informing me that I have no interest in her, ignore her, and that we should stop seeing each other. This, in spite of our initial agreement that this would be a casual, low pressure, zero obligation thing since she didn't feel she had time for a boyfriend (of course, not that I minded).
I finally convinced her that we should, oh, say, doing something rational like discuss the situation. It took me an hour and a half to talk her down, but she eventually apologized. It's funny; she doesn't strike me as particularly girly, so I wasn't expecting to have to deal with an episode of Crazy Girl Syndrome (CGS). It totally harshes on my Drama Free Lifestyle (DFL).
Once she settled down, we went to Woodrow's for a couple of rounds, as Will had been bugging me about borrowing the newest Harry Potter book. We tried their micheladas, made by special request, which I found to be quite tasty.
12/2
Neuroscience had a holiday party (which apparently someone in our program decided wasn't a good way to spend money), so I tagged along with Cindy once again to Ouisie's table. More free booze and free food (which was more impressive this time, actually), and they had a little jazz duo playing as well. Very classy.
A friend of Cindy's was moving away and having a farewell party at Ginger Man, so we went by there for a while, though I was pretty dead, never having recovered from the committee meeting. Now on the third day of The Streak, it was a feeling that would recur often over the next few weeks...
12/3
There was some ambivalence between Cindy and I as to whether to go to Numbers for Dan's DJ set or to head down to Pearland to check out a grad school party down there. Cindy knew the crowd that was hosting (somewhat), but they're sort of a generation of BCMers that are on their way out and aren't really the crowd that I know.
We decided to go that route, though, and after the trek to Godless Suburbia (GS), I discovered that there were plenty of people I knew there. There were attempts to get Jessie to, say, talk to girls (the man is quite clearly wasting his God-given gifts). Char and Leroy were competing for the affection of April (which has turned into a drawn-out thing), despite the fact that they both have more serious romantic entanglements. There was also beer pong. And a beer bong.
I partook of my first beer bong. I don't remember how much beer it was, but it was more than a pint. "Stop trying to swallow it; just let it roll down your throat" my host said, and I think I managed that, but it was a bit painful. And when it was all over, I felt like I was going to die. But a lot of strong belching later, I was golden. All in all, it was an enjoyable night, even if we were in GS.
Driving home, a drunken Cindy said, in a bit of a teasing voice, "I know what I'm getting you for Christmas." Fuck. That's a whole can of worms right there, the Christmas gift for the girl that you've been dating for an intermediate amount of time. So much for just leaving it closed...
Once again, I glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. Chris from our program had his defense (the public part of which went smoothly, and, honestly, the work he presented looked wonderfully straight forward). It's always nice to see that the words of the Magnolia Electric Co., "Almost no one makes it out..." are wrong, at least when I misappropriate them to describe grad school.
So there was a party that night at Char's (et al) place, which was rather nice, but not brilliantly exciting. Once it wound down I snuck over to Cecil's for the traditional gathering with Dan's crew.
11/29
My committee meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, so I spent most of Tuesday procrastinating, which, as many of you know, can be hard work. That night I finally got down to business, getting some nice solid work on from 9:00 to 2:00.
11/30
Got up early to pick up cookies for my committee members since the boss had complained that I didn't bring food to the last one. They ate two of them. Two! The meeting itself went amazingly well, with nary a negative comment. I was thrilled. Let's hope for a repeat performance in May. Maybe if I get a paper out...
So I went home shortly afterwards and collapsed on the couch for a while. Cindy called to see if I wanted to grab a beer, but Chris had already guilted me into going to the (International) Noise Conspiracy show. The band's too overly political for my tastes (subtlety is good sometimes), and as that seems to be their only distinguishing characteristic (well, other than the costumes), I don't really find the all that compelling. But it was for Colin's birthday, so I went. That would come back to haunt me the next day.
The most entertaining part of the evening was a drunk Kitten doing the Roger Rabbit for anyone who ventured out into the parking lot. Well, entertaining before it just became completely embarassing...
12/1
So I'm sitting at work when I get an e-mail from Cindy, informing me that I have no interest in her, ignore her, and that we should stop seeing each other. This, in spite of our initial agreement that this would be a casual, low pressure, zero obligation thing since she didn't feel she had time for a boyfriend (of course, not that I minded).
I finally convinced her that we should, oh, say, doing something rational like discuss the situation. It took me an hour and a half to talk her down, but she eventually apologized. It's funny; she doesn't strike me as particularly girly, so I wasn't expecting to have to deal with an episode of Crazy Girl Syndrome (CGS). It totally harshes on my Drama Free Lifestyle (DFL).
Once she settled down, we went to Woodrow's for a couple of rounds, as Will had been bugging me about borrowing the newest Harry Potter book. We tried their micheladas, made by special request, which I found to be quite tasty.
12/2
Neuroscience had a holiday party (which apparently someone in our program decided wasn't a good way to spend money), so I tagged along with Cindy once again to Ouisie's table. More free booze and free food (which was more impressive this time, actually), and they had a little jazz duo playing as well. Very classy.
A friend of Cindy's was moving away and having a farewell party at Ginger Man, so we went by there for a while, though I was pretty dead, never having recovered from the committee meeting. Now on the third day of The Streak, it was a feeling that would recur often over the next few weeks...
12/3
There was some ambivalence between Cindy and I as to whether to go to Numbers for Dan's DJ set or to head down to Pearland to check out a grad school party down there. Cindy knew the crowd that was hosting (somewhat), but they're sort of a generation of BCMers that are on their way out and aren't really the crowd that I know.
We decided to go that route, though, and after the trek to Godless Suburbia (GS), I discovered that there were plenty of people I knew there. There were attempts to get Jessie to, say, talk to girls (the man is quite clearly wasting his God-given gifts). Char and Leroy were competing for the affection of April (which has turned into a drawn-out thing), despite the fact that they both have more serious romantic entanglements. There was also beer pong. And a beer bong.
I partook of my first beer bong. I don't remember how much beer it was, but it was more than a pint. "Stop trying to swallow it; just let it roll down your throat" my host said, and I think I managed that, but it was a bit painful. And when it was all over, I felt like I was going to die. But a lot of strong belching later, I was golden. All in all, it was an enjoyable night, even if we were in GS.
Driving home, a drunken Cindy said, in a bit of a teasing voice, "I know what I'm getting you for Christmas." Fuck. That's a whole can of worms right there, the Christmas gift for the girl that you've been dating for an intermediate amount of time. So much for just leaving it closed...
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 11:09 PM
