Just another Thursday

The university news paper rocks on Thursday. It totally does, and as a result, is the only day of the week I read it these days. It’s not the paper, it’s the entertainment supplement. Where they mock and rip everything to shreds. Dude A spends 27 million and 4 years of hard work to get something done, and dude B spends 30 seconds writing this stupid piece that totally mocks it to oblivion. Totally awesome.

Anyway, today was oddly different. It rocked, mostly, but still sucked. There were FOUR articles on Kill Bill. Three were all “It owns you all and you will see it, twice”, and one was all “Oh my god, not another movie from this madman”.

Guess which were the male reviewers and which was female. And seriously, guess which three I want to grow up/get a brain/…

Getting to “work”. You know, it’s funnily scary when conversations are like so:

Prof A: And you do what exactly?
Me: Umm, not much really. I just
Prof B: Oh, just sit there and drain the grant

Sure, these weren’t the exact words. And sure, it was not meant entirely seriously and the overall tone was humorous, but still, it gets you thinking. It is hard when the rest of the world measures productivity by how much you get done, and when you base it on how much you’re learning. I have got to learn to bridge these two, before, you know, something not entirely nice happens.

Thinking about this a little, I thought I could make some quantum leap in progress by reading up some stuff. I then realized I’ve never learnt anything from reading. I’ve either been told stuff, or I’ve figured it out myself. Point being, I’ve either known, or not known. And the only way I’ve crossed that gap is if I was insanely curious, or someone held my hand. I need to be able make that leap for things that don’t drive me as much too.

Moving on to scarier things, I’ve been forgetting faces. It’s so embarrasing. I don’t remember names or things like that, but I never usually forget people I’ve met. Granted, it’s cause I don’t meet too many people. It’s normally me (getting embarrased again) who smiles/greets/starts conversations with people who I know I’ve met, and they don’t have a clue.

Today, I ran into two people, at different times. The first guy was all “Hi, how’re you?” and what not. And I am giving him the cold “What the fish do you want from me” stare. And he’s all, (I think a little offended/scared?) “Oh, me, remember you met me with that other person?”. I’m like, “Oh yes, I’m so sorry, I do”.

I suck.

If that wasn’t bad enough, in the evening again, this lady in a store, “Hey, you’re in engineering aren’t you?”. I’m like, “Umm, yes and you are?”…

I suck.

But then again, you never know. They might really be random people. This annoyed the hell out of me when I first got here. Geeks need to make an effort to be all social, and geeks don’t tend to waste energy. Like Ed Helms, from New York, observed—People in Ann Arbor are just too darn friendly. Like this person walked up to him and greeted him, and he’s all “What the fish do you want?” and stabbed her.

He was kidding, I hope.