August 16, 2002
Well, the week's over. It
Well, the week's over. It is now less than one full week until my thesis proposal. Daunting, it is. Won't have much of a weekend off, as I intend to be working tonight and tomorrow, although I am looking forward to Pat's barbecue on Sunday. I think I'll make Hawaiian Salad (aka "green stuff": the pistachio pudding mix turns the cool whip a startling shade of green, but it tastes great!).
People are starting to come back to Providence for the schoolyear, and you can tell. The street is a little less uncrowded, and there's just this feeling of people being back. The best, though, are the incoming freshmen---and their parents. You can tell them every time, since the freshmen have this characteristic mix of "excited to be in a new place", "too cool to look so excited", and "oh my God do my parents have to be so embarrassing?". Meanwhile, the parents are, if anything, even more excited, and gawking at everything. Younger siblings are around too, usually rolling their eyes a lot.
You really have to look out when crossing the street, too, because the out-of-state drivers aren't nearly as pedestrian-friendly. Not to mention that they haven't learned where all the one-way streets are yet, and since they aren't marked I can expect to see at least two or three wrong-way drivers every day for the next two weeks.
Still, it's exciting. I was glad to have the people gone for a few months, and now I'm ready for them to come back. I love the ivory tower.
"This morning I received a test email I sent from myself, to myself, on
the IMSA system shortly after the system changeover. It's passport was
completely full of stamps, its tie had some sort of gravy stains on it.
There appeared to be blood (maybe mud) on its suitcase. It had a black
eye and was roaring drunk. It's 2.5 weeks late, but I think it had a
pretty good time." --Dave Singleton
Posted
by blahedo
at 5:42pm
on 16 Aug 2002
