the weather outside is frightful

You won't find me bashing a Bengali. I'd marry one, if I got the
chance. Are you available, by the way? We seem to have similar tastes in
movies, television, music and books, to say nothing of the deep
oriental-midwesternism that permeates through both of our inner cores. If
interested, please send your relevant bio data to my parents.

----from an email sent to me by my friend Kedar, an Indian-American Fulbright alum from a small town in Illinois. We met at the FB conference last year in South India. He's the one who just wrote a book review on Amartya Sen.

*sigh* I'm sitting in our elaborately decorated T.A. office trying to put off calculating my students' final grades juuuuust a little bit longer. I can't believe how far backlogged I got in grading during the couple weeks I was loopy on painkillers and outta commission.

Worcester is getting dumped on--12 inches of snow by the end of today. Today was the first time I employed my clunky, unsightly blue snow boots. I am honestly beginning to question whether or not human beings were meant to inhabit such extreme climates. Why don't we just stick to our evolutionary boundaries instead of trying to "conquer nature" with North Face gear? The furnace upstairs in IDCE is broken, so I'm freezing my butt off up here.

Last night was the IDCE end-o-the year potluck. I was in the building all day talking to my stressed out students anyway, so decided to stop by to fill up on hummus, cookies, raw broccoli, and beer. I never get full at those things because I'm always too busy running my mouth. Before I knew it, I turned away from a conversation about "the formation of the modern nation-state," and all the babaganouj was gone. Damn!

After the potluck, I made the prudent procrastinatory decision to join some colleagues at the local Irish pub Moynihan's. Some UPS guy there ended up buying us a pitcher as a "good luck on finals" treat. Needless to say my "one beer then straight home to grade papers" plan was utterly foiled. It only took me one cup of PBR to start openly lamenting about my unreturned crush.

Oh well, I suppose I should go. Have students coming in a few moments. I would love to sit here and type self indulgent crap all day, but there is work to be done.

Have a great weekend, and thanks for all of your comments. I can't believe you people actually care what I'm doing...

adios

TKP