So in lieu of saying anything important or even interesting, I offer the following snippets from my week:
The director of the graduate program (a math professor) asked me for the numbers on our grad students. I sent him an email that read as follows: The number I have, including the two new GTA's and the six new admits, is thirty-six. He responded with the following: Could you break that down, please, into how many new and how many returning? I thought I had. I guess doing the subtraction was too difficult.
One of the servers I work with is an ass. Okay, maybe not just one. But this guy's an arrogant, sexist ass and I knew it the moment I met him, though I tried to give him a chance anyway. You know, not being too quick to judge lest I become a hostile jerk. He's done nothing to reverse my opinion in the last six months - he's always bragging about how much money he's made in tips, he calls the women he can't get along with "bitches", he never runs his own trays of food, he steals other people's tables, etc. Wednesday night, he completely earned my opinion of him. First, we were both walking through the server aisle, him behind me, and he actually said, "Behind you" in this big, commanding voice that meant he wanted me to move out of his way. I did not. I continued to walk down the aisle - I was working too. So he said it again. I stopped, turned around, and asked him if he honestly thought his business was more important than mine. His response, "Well I have to get something over here." I said, "And I don't?" Then he raised his fist at me. I mean, he actually raised his fist, elbow in the air, fingers clenched tight. And not in a playful way (Just so you know, I would have taken him out). Later, right before closing, he and another male server started to talk about the "two really hot chicks" at another server's table. When his own table's food came up in the window, he was out in the dining room, coming up with reasons to ogle the women. I set his tray up for him, but I didn't run it, as I was trying to finish my sidework so I could go home at a decent hour, and well, why should I do his work when he's out in the dining room being a pig (the women were maybe in their early twenties - he's in his late thirties). Of course, when he came into the kitchen, he complained about someone setting up his tray and being too lazy to run it out for him. I told him I set it up and called him on his piggish behavior. No fist this time, just a dirty look. Ass.
Monday morning, the fire alarm started going off in my building at the university, and I stayed in my chair for a good thirty seconds before I actually got up and left. Embarrassed to admit this, but I will anyway - I actually worried for a moment that maybe it wasn't a fire or even a drill, but that it was possible a mad gunman had pulled the alarm and was just waiting for everyone to step into the halls. Paranoid.
Another server I work with is a high school history teacher. We were talking about my search for a decent school district, and this conversation only added to my depression over the apartment hunting. We both criticized the SOL's and he said that he had to return for teacher orientation in a week or two during which all the teachers had to go to meetings and workshops where they would meet with some sort of teaching efficiency experts who would tell them what exactly they needed to teach their students to get them ready for the SOL exams. To quote him, "For example, last year we had this guy come in and tell us, 'These are the things your students need to know about George Washington: he was our first president, he was a great general, and he's the father of our country. If you teach them anything else, you're just wasting their time.'" Lovely.
And finally, I was out on the second floor walkway for a smoke break when I heard a barrage of random, yet progressive profanity firing up from the courtyard below. I peered over and found two homeless people sitting on a park bench, shouting obscenities into the air. Even more amusing - both of them were wearing bright purple hats. I took a picture with my camera phone, but they kept turning around, and lest they turn their verbal attack toward me, I had to snap it in a hurry, so the resolution isn't very good. Regardless, here they are:
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