Happy St. Joseph's Day! Did you remember to wear red today? I sure did, and so did my coworker who had no idea what I was talking about. He's also not a bit Italian, but today was his birthday, and he brought in treats, so I had some orange cranberry bread because it is a solemnity. Every Wednesday we have a staff meeting, and my boss creates an agenda that we can all add to, even at the same time, so I added an agenda item: COWORKER'S BIRTHDAY!!! And Coworker deleted it. Then another coworker got into the spirit, and she started adding COWORKER'S BIRTHDAY!!! to the agenda, and Coworker deleted it. He said, "I'm deleting them as fast as you two are adding them," and I said, "I'm going to win this round," because I know Coworker is even a bigger Luddite than I am, and he doesn't bring his laptop to the meeting, so as soon as he left for the meeting with his old-school pen and paper, I added COWORKER'S BIRTHDAY!!! to the agenda, and he had no way to remove it. Underneath the agenda is a list of our names, so we can add what we're working on this week, and my other coworker wrote BIRTHDAY!! behind the birthday boy's name in ginormous orange font. That was a nice touch. I think our boss thought it was all pretty funny, but the chair and our young coworker were more nonplussed. We always start the meeting with a riddle, and I provided the one this week, courtesy of the priest on Sunday: Why can't you borrow money from a Leprechaun? Only the birthday boy knew the answer: because they're always a little short!
This morning there were so many people on the shuttle that by the time my buddy got on, there were no seats around me, so we didn't get to talk. The weather was crappy, rain and sleet, so I didn't walk with my colleague at lunch. The big conference room overlooking the lake was free according to the schedule, so I went up there just to find three of our grad students hanging around in there. I said, "Oh, is something going on?" and they said, "No, we're just talking," and they left when I said I wanted to walk in there. The room was booked at one, so I finished just before that and was leaving when a bunch of our other grad students started coming toward the room because one of them was giving a practice presentation before a conference. I don't think they saw me, but is there any reason to be embarrassed anyway? What's so odd about walking around a big conference room when the weather is crappy outside? Maybe I'm just afraid they'll catch me praying the rosary.
On the shuttle ride home, I did get to talk to my shuttle buddy, and by the time we got back to the parking lot, the rain had turned into snow. I was so glad to get home safely, change into comfy clothes, and eat beer cheese soup while watching old episodes of Colbert from last week. He must be on vacation this week. Next week is Spring Break at our university, but the only one going on vacation is our boss. I do love being on campus when the students are gone, but they are the reason we all have jobs, so I can't resent their presence too much...
Is this even bragging?
My French score was over 100 (I don't remember having a score in Irish), so 12 seems pretty pathetic. I keep waiting for DuoLingo to bump me up again, but it looks like I'll just have to slowly work my way up to my actual level of Spanish.
Famous Hat
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