Dear Graduate Student Colleagues,
1. Please stop sending me your f*cking job letter drafts. You have a list of people who review that shit. I am not on that list. You are all, I'm sure, nice people, but seriously? You think I have time for this bullshit whilst managing my own diss revisions / publications / teaching? I'm looking at you, especially, Golden Boy. You especially. We both work in Starvistan, but your version of events there suggests you went over some goddamn rainbow I never even SAW.
2. Aww, that apple-picking sounds nice. It does. And your personal invitation TO ME is, ah, ingratiating and weird. I understand that in your eyes I am a silverback and that I say all kinds of shocking and titillating things like "What if poverty isn't actually BAD?" but this does not mean that I want to come to your mold-infested cat-hairy apartment and drink cheap wine NOR do I want to pick apples for Chrissakes.
3. No, I do not have a handout for What To Do When One Of Your Students Starts Projecting Lasers Out of His Eyes So That Princess Leia Can Materialize. It's a trap, motherf*ckers, and you'd best work your own goddamn way out of it. That set of handouts and bibliography I gave you at the f*cking department workshop is it. That's all I've got.
4. I do not give a shit who got elected the new social chair.
5. I do not have that disco ball that everyone claims I have. I had one, and then I sold it on Craigslist along with my tentacle dildo signed by Penn AND Teller (unused) when I needed to buy groceries and speed one week. So stop f*cking asking me for it. (Thems was some good groceries and some even better speed, though. * sigh *)
And, PS: Dear MTF Transgendered Person Who Is Now Off Her Meds who hangs out in the coffeehouse I'm really sorry that I can't go to the J----- P----- show with you tonight. I'm sorry. I have a date with the Smasher and we see each other so rarely...and by 'see' I mean 'interact at times when we are not stumbling sleepily around our apartment' and also when I have a book, it means I want to READ, motherf*cker, and not hear about how awful your parents are or how J---- P--- really should be experienced with a partner.
* sigh * again. Spleen, released!
Bafflement.
ReplyDeleteAgain... people do this? Did I just luck into the only department of relatively high-functioning people in all the humanities?
*giggles madly*
ReplyDeleteYes, they do this. My first week (so it's not just silverbacks, sorry) in my PhD program I was invited to a party by this blonde haired spritely ... thing... whom everybody thought was brilliant because she was JUST! SO! THIN! SHE! MUST! BE! A! HARD! WORKER! ....and the party was themed to the letter B. You couldn't wear anything, bring anything, or probably say anything that wasn't somehow themed to her letter.
It was so Sesame Strassian that I nearly went dressed as Big Bird, but then I decided to save my sanity, raised an eye brow, and told her I'd be busy.
@My Little Proffie:
ReplyDeleteHa! I once heard of a letter-themed party... but that was when I was an undergrad, and a particularly dim witted girl in a particularly softball major was giving. I'm not one to look down on anyone's idea of fun - I have some rather juvenile hobbies myself - but seriously Christ on a crutch what the fuck?
These people in your department? These are some people with issues.
At a "B"-themed you couldn't miss me; I would look like Leon Trotsky.
ReplyDeleteI second Wylodmayer; this crap is straight out of Romper Room.
I'm surprised it wasn't themed to the letter A, as in "the grade I will obtain!" Any parties I have given have involved a lot of alcohol and loud music. Period. Despite owning it (from undergrad), I never used the disco ball.
ReplyDelete@Blackdog -- Yeah I actually wondered about that.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with other grad parties has either been at conferences (go to bars, talk a lot, laugh at silly student stories, commiserate, drink--generally enjoyable) or at someone's house, potluck, drinking, and perhaps drunk boardgames. Also enjoyable. This new variety here was best avoided.
Of course, so was the student planning them.
After having spent years listening to profs rage on and on about her "brilliance," she admitted to me that she cheated on her translation exam. I'll admit that learning a modern language has nothing to do with our degrees, and it's generally seen as a hoop at the department level, but it seemed me anyway. I took that damn test seriously and actually learned something. I also picked up some really amazing friends in a study group--we're planning on going traveling together starting this next year.
Pair that with the other "brilliant" grad flake in the program who was invited to privately dine with at least two profs and could do no wrong till she plagiarized her dissertation and well... I wonder about what we're being judged on anyway.