Cold. Dark. Wind whipping its way through the empty spaces.
Some final thoughts on the interns reception and I can finally let that go and move on. First of all, the interns did have a good time. I managed to get each of them a different parting gift for their gift bags as picked/distributed by me and the DS (department secretary). In particular, Vietnam guy got a big glass quart bottle with stuff in it to make beer bread when one regular beer was added to it and baked. He tells me, man, it's going to take a case of beer to make this. I'm like, dude, you only need one according to the directions. Very sincerely he looks at me and says, yeah, but it's going to take a while for it to bake! Apparently, as I discovered after the fact, he also had a speech prepared to give upon receiving his certificate but I managed to chatter on enough so that he didn't get a chance to cut in. But, he was impressed that I was able to speak moderately coherently without notes. That's called teaching, bub: chattering to captive audiences while trying to maintain the merest of semblances that you have a clue as to what you're talking about and that there is some point to it all. All of the interns thought it was cool that their work had been made into big prints and mounted and they all wanted their own posters . . . who am I to deny them?
(On the other hand, when I told this story last night to my blushing bride Mel(ody) the punch line was: I told them they couldn't have the posters because that's state property. She starts giving me the cold-eyed squinchy stare and I'm like, hold on there, hon, of course they can have that stuff. She breathed out a very audible and significant sigh of relief. I asked her, what kind of bastard do you think I am? She gives me look like, what kind of dumbass are you? and says, hey, bub, I'm married to you, okay? Don't try to snow me! Oh, I said. Oh.)
As I've said before, it was a really good bunch of interns this semester. They got a lot of good work done and learned a lot in the process. Some semesters it's like you can't get rid of them soon enough. I'll be happy to get all of these guys back in the spring. Yesterday was one of those days when I was really enjoying my job and wasn't really in that much of a hurry to punch my exit visa out of this place.
(Also, a little perspective might not hurt. My buddy the Grimester who crunches data in an office down the hall from me came by yesterday morning and asked me if everything was ready to go for the reception. Oh yeah, I said, but I'll be glad it's over because it'll just be a roomfull of bastards from the school here who'd just as soon stab me in the front as stab me in the back, the kinds of sonsabitches who wouldn't piss in my mouth if my teeth were on first. He said, calm down, hoss. Nobody on the campus hates you that much. I told him, the operative phrase there is "that much." He rolled his eyes and went back down to run some more reports using MS Access.)
So, it's not even six hours until the big book production company job interview. Of course I should have spent the last few days madly studying copyediting symbols. Instead, I'm like, love me, love my lack of knowledge useful to your company. I did make some cool flash cards so I'll spend the next couple of hours going over them, getting my info together for the interview--hey, it's not bad to have copies of our three most best publications to give them!--and then wrapping it all up as soon as I can so I can shoot two blocks over from where they're at to Waterloo Records and load up on tunes for the month.
Peace out!
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