30 Jan 07

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Planned to call the CSM for his birthday but found, on leaving the gym, that he had in fact called me! He left a lovely message - concluding with "Love you!", which I always appreciate very much - but didn't answer himself when I called back; first I got one goofy kid, playing it like I'd called a pizza place, and the second time one of my favorite kids, very earnest and pleasant, who agreed to marshal everyone up and sing to the CSM. I didn't get to talk to him for long, but it was really cool to think that from here, I asked those kids to something down there, and I even got to listen - the second kid was smart enough to tell the CSM that she had announcement to make and wanted me to hear it too. Awesome, and it makes me miss them (but still not [nearly] enough to cause me to wish I were there instead.)

Had several amusing exchanges with Professor Number Five throughout the day. One, as I recall, involved a discussion of job talks and how I'd better bring her to mine, and later in the day as I waited not only with Number Five but with her voluntary minion for the elevator down, we had reason to talk about Gainesville and even, in line with this blog, more interesting things. Number Five made some comment about the nice guy who was in charge of managing her cart o' school stuff, saying that she had told him and told him and told him: "He keeps having all these BABIES! Didn't I tell you about sex? You graduate students... it's sex, sex, sex. What is this about? [Pause.] But wait, I want to have sex too!" (I realize that this looks maybe a little lurid in print, but it was light-hearted and very, very funny.) Then we got off that topic somehow - I don't know how we escaped in one piece - and landed instead on the fact that Nice Cart Guy was from G'ville. He didn't go there for school, but we did talk for a second about P.K. Yonge and... well, that was pretty much it, because I got off at the second floor.

Put together a bunch of files for the program's doc committee and was told, by one of its members, that I better get ready to participate; I believe the direct quote was, "You're the only one who's really looked at them so far, so we'll expect a rank order before you make the final decision." Then Professor Number Four disappeared into Professor Alpha's office (and, unfortunately for my overhearing possibilities, closed the door), but on his way out I got it again, this time with a "Why wouldn't I be serious? Have you ever known me not to be serious?" This, of course, I could only sputter at and then promise to start keeping track, but in any case I appreciated once again that Professor Number Four is never afraid to ask you to live up to his expectations on a minute-to-minute basis. (Some people might think of it as being put on the spot, but having come from the Pentagon Colonel School of Figure-it-Out-NOW, I actually think it's a lot of fun, and comfortable for all its potential uncomfortableness.)

Looked up a Randall Jarrell poem after reading so much about him (tangentially, but repeatedly) in Duckworth and found that I actually already knew one of his sadder ones - about the ball turret gunner - but continued searching because that didn't seem to reflect what Duckworth was saying about him. I learned that I need to get one of his books from the library (the Bat-Poet, which sounds like something I would say, so this is clearly something I'd need to get even if it didn't seem so charming) and that he has a great, a really great, poem about kids picking books at the library. I used it with my class, which was fun, but the reason I'm writing about it here is that when I handed off an extra copy to Professor Alpha, I was told that of course he knows it; it's first-day material every semester he teaches one or another of his usual classes. Could I have asked for a better confirmation of my feelings about that poem?

Talked once again with Professor Alpha about book-scavenging (brought on once again by Professor Number Four, as I recall), but this time he extended it a little further with the observation that he'd have to have a party at his house so we could "vulture over his library there." First of all, I like the word "vulture" used as a verb, because it's infinitely more vivid and precise than "scavenging," and second... his house? I mean, it's not quite as surprising to me as the Professor Number One thing, because he does have pictures that seem to illustrate the same kind of thing from past years, but still. Twist my freaking arm.

Enjoyed the station-style flipping board at Otto, especially since the LIRR ones have been replaced by far less interesting electronic ones; enjoyed the fact that Anne and Brenan liked it as much as I did even more. (And the pizza was good, although I was a speck bit jealous later on when Anne spotted the big man himself not where we were but outside Babbo, yelling at some fool. That was such a good coincidence that I asked if she were really sure that's who it had been, but as she pointed out, how many very fat, very red-ponytailed men in New York like to stand outside a famous restaurant and bawl people out? Even here, it's not likely there's more than one.)