Peninsular Party
That sounds a little dirty, doesn't it? Anyways, last night I got to go to a little shindig put on by two of the professors in the department (they are married, to each other). It was for all the graduate students who are studying peninsular literature, which basically means stuff from Spain. The problem is, if you say "Spanish Literature" it doesn't help, since it's the Spanish department and everything we read is in Spanish. So we have "Peninsular" and "Latin American" literature sections.
The party was actually pretty fun, and most of the professors were there too. It was a nice chance to just mingle with other people and get to know the newer grad students a little too. I did feel a little bad for the one girl who pointed out that she's the only unmarried graduate student in the section right now, but there are only about 8 of us total so it's not like we totally outnumber her (just 7 to 1, it could be worse). I also found it interesting that even though as students we are all sort of awed by titles like "dean" or "department chair" the professors themselves really don't care about that stuff and they all kind of tease each other about their titles.
And I remembered that taking S-Boogie anywhere by myself is not quite that fun. It's not that horrible either, and it usually beats sitting around the house, but she's too big to sit quietly in my lap playing and too little to run off and play without hurting herself or the house we are visiting. So I usually end up starting conversations with people that are invariably interrupted by my getting up to go find S-Boogie and figure out what she's doing. When I do talk to people, I'm usually paying only partial attention while I keep an eye on the child. It's not really that bad--if I didn't like it, I wouldn't go to things like this. But I do have to say the highlight of the evening was when I had to tackle her and pry a melting cookie out of her hand because she was starting to smear it on things. There are I am, in the middle of the living room attacking my screaming child with a napkin in front of all the people I am supposed to be impressing with my intellectual prowess. Nice.
The party was actually pretty fun, and most of the professors were there too. It was a nice chance to just mingle with other people and get to know the newer grad students a little too. I did feel a little bad for the one girl who pointed out that she's the only unmarried graduate student in the section right now, but there are only about 8 of us total so it's not like we totally outnumber her (just 7 to 1, it could be worse). I also found it interesting that even though as students we are all sort of awed by titles like "dean" or "department chair" the professors themselves really don't care about that stuff and they all kind of tease each other about their titles.
And I remembered that taking S-Boogie anywhere by myself is not quite that fun. It's not that horrible either, and it usually beats sitting around the house, but she's too big to sit quietly in my lap playing and too little to run off and play without hurting herself or the house we are visiting. So I usually end up starting conversations with people that are invariably interrupted by my getting up to go find S-Boogie and figure out what she's doing. When I do talk to people, I'm usually paying only partial attention while I keep an eye on the child. It's not really that bad--if I didn't like it, I wouldn't go to things like this. But I do have to say the highlight of the evening was when I had to tackle her and pry a melting cookie out of her hand because she was starting to smear it on things. There are I am, in the middle of the living room attacking my screaming child with a napkin in front of all the people I am supposed to be impressing with my intellectual prowess. Nice.
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