General and Specific Stupidity

So, as you all (pretty much) know, I’m spending a year in Germany on an exchange fellowship from UGA. It’s administered by UGA’s Office for International Education, and every year numerous grad students travel abroad on these fellowships. I have a Credit Approval form signed by the Dean of the Graduate School, so that the courses I’m taking here in Germany count toward my degree requirements (5 hours fall, 5 hours spring).

I tell you all this now so that I can share with you the following email I received on Friday from the Graduate School: Continue reading

Level Up!

I’m tired of having birthdays. Birthdays mean getting older, and I don’t want to think about getting older.
Instead, in the tradition of the role-playing games I love, I achieve a “LEVEL UP”!!

LEVEL UP birthday card

I admit, I didn’t come up with the idea, but it’s damn cool anyway. Kevin is making me a GURPS-based character sheet (Level 41!) with all my stats and achievements. My favorite? “Summon Coffee”! When he finishes it, I’ll share it here.

Dead Jeans

I lost my favorite pair of jeans yesterday.

No, I didn’t misplace them, although you wouldn’t be foolish for thinking that, given my proclivity for stashing things under the bed, in boxes, etc.

My favorite pair of jeans was a pair I bought while my buddy Linda and I were shopping in Athens one afternoon. As PhD students, occasionally our need for stress relief would outweigh our need to be frugal, at which point we would head to the nearest clothing store and try on stuff, assuming that we could replace our feelings of inadequacy stemming from dissertation trouble with feelings of inadequacy stemming from poor body image. Anyway.

I happened to find these jeans while on one such shopping trip. They fit me perfectly, didn’t bind at all, didn’t need to be hemmed (a minor miracle in itself!), and were decorated with a subtle embroidery pattern down the left leg.  I loved these jeans! I wore them all the time. They were dressy enough to wear in the classroom, yet comfortable enough for shopping and such.

Unfortunately, even the best jeans won’t stand up to years of constant wear, and the fabric finally wore through in places. So alas, I had to retire these jeans to the trash bin. Sigh.