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In case you couldn’t tell by my ever so slightly longer than average silence, it’s been a busy week here in Robbyville. This last week I somehow managed to be both generally productive ~and~ exceptionally social. I’m usually one or the other, but rarely am I able to combine both. So, even though I’m not a big fan of the laundry list format, it’s the only way I think I can give details without making this entry several thousand words long.

Monday: The week started off slow. My students watched the first half of a movie in class, and I cancelled office hours and a racquetball game to go home and finish up a paper due Tuesday. I spent the evening writing my paper and grading student papers.

Tuesday: Went to both of my classes (of course). I learned two things of note in the second class. First, the New Media center in Carver was having an open house immediately after class. Since I hadn’t seen the new center yet, I decided to go. Second, a professor from Texas whose work I happen to enjoy was giving a presentation in Ross that afternoon. I decided I wasn’t going to miss that, either.

I hung out in the New Media center for a while with Quinn, Geoff, and Brooke, talking geek. The food was good (I stocked up on shrimp and cheeses), which I appreciated, as I hadn’t eaten anything yet that day. Quinn and I then headed back over to Ross for Clay’s presentation. The presentation was very entertaining, and I was exceptionally pleased to discover that Clay, whom I’d previously thought of as an intelligent but disembodied voice, was embodied in a real frame and had a great personality to boot. At the end of the lecture Dorothy announced there would be a social gathering at Katie’s house. I decided I couldn’t miss that one.

I had an intelligent conversation on the bus home with Jean, who had been my rhetorical theory professor in undergrad. I got off the bus feeling capable and adult, which are two feelings I’m not often able to muster. I graded a few student papers and headed over to Katie’s. I felt awkward when I first walked in, as I was the only masters student present, and there were only two Ph.D. students around (including Katie, and she was the hostess). The rest of the partygoers were professors. After a few minutes, though, I realized people were talking and acting according to their personalities, not their roles, and I decided to enjoy myself, so I switched from coffee to white wine. Geoff, Lee, Dave Ro., and Dorothy all left fairly early, but I spent several hours hanging out with and talking with Clay, Katie, Carolyn, and Dave Ru. I went home feeling great.

Wednesday: My students watched the second half of the movie while I graded papers in the back of the room. I cancelled office hours, hung out for a while in Landscape Architecture talking with Amanda, Kate, Miranda, and a couple other people I can’t immediately remember, and then headed home to grade more papers. I played racquetball with Quinn at 3pm (won 3 of 3 matches), then headed home to start preparing for a presentation on Thursday. I was forced to forgo my traditional Wednesday at Welch Ave. (though I’m making it there so infrequently this semester, it can hardly be called a tradition), as preparing the presentation took until the wee hours of the morning.

Thursday: My presentation went smoothly enough in my first class, and the second class was great, as Clay was the guest speaker, and I got the rare opportunity to discuss a class reading with the author. :) Afterward, Katie, Clay, Geoff, Lee, Karen, Quinn, and me walked over to Howe Hall and spent half an hour playing in the C6 Cave (ISU’s 6-sided VR room), which is something I’ve wanted to do since I came here in 1999. Afterward, I rushed home and caught up a tiny bit on all the websites I’d been neglecting. Katie and Clay picked me up at 4pm, and we headed to Dublin Bay, which is a nice restaurant/bar on the south side of town I’ve always wanted to try. We hung out there for a couple of hours with Bob, Jim, Al, Dave, and Kathy, drinking Guinness and having a generally good time. I spent the rest of the evening finishing up my student papers and preparing for my Friday classes.

Friday: My classes went smoothly enough, though I had far more to say than I had minutes in which to say it, so most of the stuff got pushed back to Monday. I rushed back to Ross after class, as I had a meeting with Geoff at 10am. When I got there, Geoff and Brooke were being annoyed with Javascript, so I lent a helping brain for a while. By the time we finished, Kate had shown up for ~her~ meeting with Geoff, so Brooke and I sat around talking for a long while until it became my turn again. Geoff ripped apart my paper for me, though was nice enough to leave me with the feeling that my paper had merit. I headed home, ate a quick lunch, then headed to the Rec. for racquetball with Quinn (lost 3 of 4 matches).

I headed home for a quick shower after my stunning defeat. I’d just finished getting dressed when Julia arrived. While I burned her a DVD, she gave me a manicure and plucked my eyebrows. We have an interesting relationship. :) The DVD was taking a while, so she and I decided to go grocery shopping at Fareway. We then decided to go eat/drink at the Olde Main Brewery, which is a brewery/restaurant not four blocks from my house that I’ve been dying to try. The food was excellent (though expensive for a grad student; I paid $14 for shrimp scampi) and the beer was pretty good, too. I had a glass each of their wheat (a good idea) and stout (a bad idea, considering the pasta).

Later in the evening, Lisa and I headed to Bali Satay to see Parallex play. I got to talk for quite a while with their guitarist Matt, who lived next door to me in Towers several years ago. I also met the lead singer Rusty, who seems like a good guy, though our relationship was immediately a little awkward, as it seems he’d just broken up the night before with one of my students, who was also in attendance. *g* She and I didn’t get a chance to talk, but for now I’ll just assume that either she was busy or found the concept socially taboo, and not that I committed some sort of irrevocable faux pas.

The show was great, and I had several beers. I continued my trend from earlier in the evening and had one glass of several varieties: Boulevard Wheat, Blue Moon, Samuel Adams, Amber Bock, and one more I’ve now forgotten. I spent a while after the show talking to Matt and Rusty, then Lisa and I headed back to my place. We watched a movie with Justin, and all three of us ended up falling asleep on the couch. :) Luckily, Sammie eventually came home from whatever party she’d been at and woke us up. I got to bed around 3:30am.

Saturday: Woke up late and lazed around for far too long. I finally started revising my paper for Geoff’s class around 5pm, but Kara came up from Des Moines around 6:30, so I didn’t get much done. I drank lightly (and only Bud Light and a touch of cheap champagne), watched Spies Like Us and Shrek 2, and got to bed by 2am.

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Which brings us to today, friends! I congratulate you if you made it this far. I’ll assume most people started skimming around Tuesday. :) Today should consist of more work on my paper, laundry, and a trip to Target. This coming week, I fear, will have a much larger scholastic component and a much smaller social one. C’est la vie d’un étudiant, no?