Les Bonnes Choses

I received notification today of my departmental defense. I don't know what proportion of readers are familiar with postgraduate academics (yes, I realize it is a bit of a funny overstatement to describe you as being part of my 'readership', as if I'm in syndication or something) so let me just say that our departmental defense is basically a dry-run where they make sure that you're not going to embarrass yourself during the senate defense. This is important because if you fail your senate defense, that's it. You're done. Hope you enjoyed wasting the last 6 years of your life. My defense date will be the afternoon of September 25th, one week after my 34th birthday.

There's a reunion for my high school graduating class on the previous weekend. I'm still sitting on the fence about attending. I watched the deadline fly by, but, because of ticket sales, it was apparently a 'soft' deadline. So just when I thought my fence-mounted perch would have to come down, I find myself still trying to come up with reasons to go. On the cons side, the people with whom I would most likely spend time talking with are those that I could easily have in my kitchen for a game of Settlers of Catan, forgoing the $51 hors d'oeuvres and awkward explanations of what the hell I'm doing.

Yes, I'm still in school. No, it's not because I'm scattered. I mean, yes, I am scattered, but that's not why. And no, forget I even mentioned psychology. I don't care about your relationship problems. I'm more into neuroscience - brains and stuff. The only problem you could possibly have that would interest me would be if a steel rod shot through your head — and even then, it would be more of an academic curiosity than a concern.