Monday morning
Another weekend down in the inexorable march towards thesis completion. I'm just going to throw this out there and see what public accountability will achieve: I plan to defend this thing sometime at the start of May. Chapter two is days away from being a workable first draft, which is encouraging. However, my desk needs a thorough cleaning, as it is starting to sap my will to live. Or at least, my will to work at it. This point was driven home when I scrolled through a few paragraphs of the current chapter and realized that I don't have any citations or concrete examples...because that would require opening a book and there is currently no room for said book opening procedures.
Friday night was novel: I actually went out for drinks with a colleague. It was fun to talk trash and theory, and the martinis didn't hurt either. We went to Fancy Drink place (where I ordered lots of pricey drinks and then got embarassed when colleague insisted on paying but not so embarassed that I wasn't secretly pleased to not have to pay for the drinks) and then we hit up Standing Room only Gay Bar for shots of Jim Beam (yeccch to the power of 10), beers and a couple of games of pool**. I actually made some good shots (they call them shots, right?) and earned some cheers from the peanut gallery.
Saturday night was all home baked cookies and Season 3 Buffy with Red. Cozy and restorative.
Sunday, all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. This is the second Sunday in a row, which is evidence of a rekindled curry addiction. Coupled with cheap ($7) all-you-can-eat, this is a clear and present danger to my stomach. We have a saying which we use every time we go to a buffet: "don't be a hero". This means, don't go for that last plate. Don't eat so much naan. Don't pile your tray with sweet clove rice and gulab jamun, when you are already three stops past Way too Full. Do we follow our own good advice? No. There is always that little bowl of Mutter Paneer, or spoonful of Raita or refill of Chai that calls out. It's always a painful mistake, guaranteed to lead to public moaning on the bus home. We ate so much that we got to the point of Curry Euphoria again, laughing ourselves silly over something completely addled.
The only bad thing about All India is that once you've decided that you're done (and that no food will ever pass your lips ever again!), you have to go pay at the take-away counter. Imagine being surrounded by piles of glistening desserts, mounds of savoury mixes, mountains of samosas, oceans of sauces (the glass cases and mirroring at every angle makes this an almost hallucinatory experience). It's all I can do to pay the bill and get the hell out of there, clutching my sides. Luckily I had a couple of wiseacres with me, who gleefully read off the various names of the foods I was trying to ignore, and delighted in making serving suggestions. Now the pain of the memory is but a distant gleam, and the craving is back. Damn you, all-you-can-eat!
Well, back to work. Happy Monday.
**I've always considered pool, like chess, to be one of those things that I appreciate in the abstract but don't want to actually be forced to participate in. This doesn't put a damper on my occasional fantasies of becoming a) a world-renowned chess tournament champion with nerdy eye glasses and a beautiful mind approach to the world or b) a trash talking pool shark who makes a living fleecing the macho dudes who hang out in the various halls on my circuit. Am I so weird for having these alternate-reality fantasies about things that I don't actually enjoy doing? Yes? Oh, okay then.
Friday night was novel: I actually went out for drinks with a colleague. It was fun to talk trash and theory, and the martinis didn't hurt either. We went to Fancy Drink place (where I ordered lots of pricey drinks and then got embarassed when colleague insisted on paying but not so embarassed that I wasn't secretly pleased to not have to pay for the drinks) and then we hit up Standing Room only Gay Bar for shots of Jim Beam (yeccch to the power of 10), beers and a couple of games of pool**. I actually made some good shots (they call them shots, right?) and earned some cheers from the peanut gallery.
Saturday night was all home baked cookies and Season 3 Buffy with Red. Cozy and restorative.
Sunday, all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. This is the second Sunday in a row, which is evidence of a rekindled curry addiction. Coupled with cheap ($7) all-you-can-eat, this is a clear and present danger to my stomach. We have a saying which we use every time we go to a buffet: "don't be a hero". This means, don't go for that last plate. Don't eat so much naan. Don't pile your tray with sweet clove rice and gulab jamun, when you are already three stops past Way too Full. Do we follow our own good advice? No. There is always that little bowl of Mutter Paneer, or spoonful of Raita or refill of Chai that calls out. It's always a painful mistake, guaranteed to lead to public moaning on the bus home. We ate so much that we got to the point of Curry Euphoria again, laughing ourselves silly over something completely addled.
The only bad thing about All India is that once you've decided that you're done (and that no food will ever pass your lips ever again!), you have to go pay at the take-away counter. Imagine being surrounded by piles of glistening desserts, mounds of savoury mixes, mountains of samosas, oceans of sauces (the glass cases and mirroring at every angle makes this an almost hallucinatory experience). It's all I can do to pay the bill and get the hell out of there, clutching my sides. Luckily I had a couple of wiseacres with me, who gleefully read off the various names of the foods I was trying to ignore, and delighted in making serving suggestions. Now the pain of the memory is but a distant gleam, and the craving is back. Damn you, all-you-can-eat!
Well, back to work. Happy Monday.
**I've always considered pool, like chess, to be one of those things that I appreciate in the abstract but don't want to actually be forced to participate in. This doesn't put a damper on my occasional fantasies of becoming a) a world-renowned chess tournament champion with nerdy eye glasses and a beautiful mind approach to the world or b) a trash talking pool shark who makes a living fleecing the macho dudes who hang out in the various halls on my circuit. Am I so weird for having these alternate-reality fantasies about things that I don't actually enjoy doing? Yes? Oh, okay then.
posted by grad student hack at 11:07 AM
1 Comments:
Yep, they're called shots in pool. And, you only get your $7.45 worth of all you can eat curry unless you hallucinate.
Isn't having a clear desk the best thing evar?
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