In Which There is Beer

I am in a classroom full of second-year graduate students that I do not have to be in, but I chose to spend my evening this way. I must be nuts. The reason I'm on my computer instead of doing good student things is that I'm waiting for the second part of the class where they talk about using online tools for academics, which I figure it's good to get a head start on. What makes the whole experience even weirder is that the two professors here (both named Susan) are women I have known since I was a baby. I remember being told a story where one of the Susans had us over to her house, and I was very small. She offered me something sweet, because that's how you generally please children, cookies or something, and after listening to the options, I politely asked if she had any rice cakes. I was that weird a child.

Anyway, so I'm sitting here, and and listening to them, and it's just this weird marriage of present and past that makes for a sort of surreal experience.

I got to dress up in a kilt with stockings and flash and a sporan over the weekend, and I watched jousting and bagpipers and I had a meat pie. This is one of the many reasons my action-adventure grandparents rock. They live in a place with a rad Scottish/Irish Festival and they felt it was important that I come, so they paid for my tickets. Yeah, they are that awesome.

Unfortunately, that means that what I should have been doing over the weekend (commenting on student papers) has been a frantic slog over the past few days as I also do first-draft conferences with all those students. Yesterday, the first nerve-wracking set of conferences happened, and then a class, and then a mentor meeting. In the bar. With a migraine setting in. So I decided to have beer.

Some of you may not realize what a momentous occasion this is. I have not, as a rule, enjoyed beer. I have actively avoided it, and though I kept trying sips of other people's drinks, nothing ever clicked. Yesterday, it clicked. I tried the seasonal Sam Adams, the Octoberfest, and some primally-oriented part of my brain went "Yes!" and so I got a pint and had it and it was exactly the right thing at that point. My Monday was much improved at that point, at any rate.