styx, students, sushi, and summer

Mr. Roboto, Mario Bros. style (via Sarcasmo)

I'm so close to being free of the semester I can almost taste it. Just have to enter in my students' final grades. There's definitely a slightly scary sense of power when we get together to determine how to assign the letter grades. I've joked to my students about not pissing off the person who wields the red pen but I'm only half joking. Students who make a good impression and try hard are remembered and I become an advocate for them and it goes both ways - slacker students are shown little mercy.

When I was a student, I always wondered about the arbitrariness of letter grades and now that I've been on the other side, I know for sure that sometimes you have to make some tough decisions and the difference between a B+ and an A really is only a point or two.

Got together with friends last night to make sushi. Husband to Be made me raise my hand and take an oath that I would not stress out about the craziness of making sushi rice for a dozen people, and I didn't. And it was a good and tasty time. Hung out with a slightly different crowd than usual, which was nice.

And not for the first or last time, I admire how perfectly Husband to Be fits into any context he's put in. He's so good with people, so warm and funny that everyone's at ease with him from the start and I've yet to meet the person he can't make laugh.

Was just about to bite into leftover sushi when the officemates asked me to go to lunch (A. calls me and asks what I'm doing for lunch, I ask if Miss A wants to go to lunch and he says "Only if you do". Who knew I had such power?). As if I've ever said no to food. There's an Indian buffet with our names on it. Mmm, naan....

I've been thinking a lot lately again about how lucky I am to have the circle of friends here that I do. Really great folks that I am lucky enough to see a lot of. On any given week, there are plenty of social doings. Tuesdays are cheap wings or dollar slices, the occasional dollar martinis on Thursdays, our beloved happy hour on Fridays, and in between we grill and play poker and board games and watch movies and make sushi and drink some more. Most working stiffs I know don't get to socialize nearly as often as we do.

You don't get a lot of pay or respect, but being a grad student slave isn't all bad. You get a close knit support group who work hard and party hard and the flexibility to come in when you want and take off in the middle of the day to stake out a patio and drink. This summer is our last summer all together and I plan to squeeze every last drop of fun out of it.

summer turns me upside down
summer summer summer
it's like a merry go round
-the cars