Random Graduate Student Notes

Last Friday, Roomie and I attended a Graduate School Awards Ceremony. Of course, we were excited about getting our certs (and the tres chic free totes and pens that came with them) from the President of the University. Being the most observant (i.e. nosy) people in the world, we noted a few small but very telling things. The first thing we noticed was that the crowd here seems to be pretty different from the crowd in the graduate socials. If our Department's contingent had the most colorful (and if I may say, most stylish) attires in the room, it must be an extra-dowdy affair. Seriously.

Another thing we noticed was that in spite of the abundance of relatively good food and alcoholic drink, we were the only people who stuck close enough to the buffet table to be within easy reach of the cocktail shrimp and the fancy canapes. No one else seemed to be eating or drinking, in spite of the President's exhortation to party hearty. Was there a pre-awards ceremony cocktail hour that we were not invited to? Are these people really grad students? Because if they were, they would have wrapped five of those mini potato cakes in a table napkin to last them for the rest of the week.

We also noticed that the Departments whose names start with P seem to win a large number of these awards. Therefore, on Monday, I am going to visit the Chair of my Department to try to convince him that the only way for us to corner more of the University Funding is to add a P to our Department name. P__________s. Yep. Excuse me while I bang my head on the whiteboard.

Aside from these issues, I wasn't really paying attention. Most of the time, I was staring at the Dean's jewelry, all the while thinking that my necklace sitting at home was better than hers.

On an interesting note, our tiny little contingent was talking about the buildings on campus and how some of them are extremely old. Roomie (scaredy cat that she is) commented half-jokingly that there might be spirits walking around these buildings, particularly since these buildings were once (and some continue to be) residential structures. I told them that there is a priest on campus who holds a talk every Halloween on The Exorcist because he starred in and served as a consultant for that movie. In fact, a scene in the movie was shot in a particular room in one of the dorms.

Suddenly, a knife and a couple of pieces of cheese fell with a loud noise, startling us out of the conversation. Examining the scene of the crime, we could not see why the knife and the cheese just suddenly jump off the buffet table. No one was nearby except for us, and we were standing closer to the tasty quesadilla-like hors d'oeuvre rather than to the cheese plate.

Insert Twilight Zone theme here.