JR and I are going to be broke soon largely because I'm too awesome at a certain game. That game is called "Grocery Shopping: The Game of Sustenance," and on Saturday, I beat my high score. Even I, a seasoned player in the game of Grocery Shopping, found myself audibly whispering "Oh, holy fuck" when my sworn opponent, Surly Teenage Cash-Register Chick at Copps, tallied up my final score. Granted, it was pre-card-swipe, but it still was so high that another opponent, Grouchy Old Gnome-Lady Only Buying 18 Cans of Catfood, bestowed upon me a look of absolute shock.
I can attribute this most recent food-victory to several mitigating factors. One was that, instead of going with AK or BT or even the elusive EV, I borrowed BT's car and went on a solo mission. On solo missions, there are no teammates to give me looks of quiet judgment when I put the $8 block of aged gouda into my cart or pick up the third package of Thick-Cut Double-Smoked Bacon. So, without those stern and disapproving stares (or, in the least, what I project onto them as being stern and disapproving stares), I turn into a creature of pure, food-directed id. Reality falls away behind me as I gaze longingly upon the perfectly-arrayed cuts of $12 a pound fresh-caught Atlantic halibut; my consciousness is overwhelmed before the prospect of sale-priced bricks of mediocre cheddar; my normally ethereal yearning for Little Debbie Swiss Rolls is consummated in a salivating, guilt-ridden trip down the bread aisle. People: it's all hindbrain once my feet hit those dirty linoleum tiles.
Another major contributor was the shopping list JR wrote, which only included four things: "aluminum foil, sage, ricotta, everything." Granted, our cupboards were (relatively) bare, but that kind of free reign should not be given to me. As most people who know me will attest, I have nothing even resembling self-denial. In my book, "everything" is shorthand for "everything you could possibly justify to yourself as conceivably wanting and/or needing, ever, so just fucking go for it dude because you know you want to and JR won't get this for you when she goes shopping so you may as well just get it now and not think about the consequences of buying so much shit."
I also managed to hit the special Bonus Round, the equally ill-advised "Copps Liquor Store That Is Part of the Regular Grocery Store." Even though I managed to keep it at just two bottles of wine (one for us, one for BT), it was more or less what pushed me over the top of my old high score. Luckily, there was literally no space left in the cart for me to put those cases of beer I needed.
Lastly, and I should know better by now, I went after procrastinating so much (thank you, "Enemy of the State" on the CW) that I became hungry. And shopping while hungry is never a great idea, mostly because A) it makes me shop with my stomach, and B) I make faster (and more ill-advised) decisions so that I can get home sooner to eat all of those ill-advised decisions.
There are probably other significant factors as well, most notably the fact that I went right before we were supposed to get a blizzard that never fully panned out and that, as a result, the place was mobbed. In those situations, my Apocalypse survival mode switch gets flipped and I begin picturing JR and myself holed up in our kitchen, shotgun in hand, waiting for the carnivorous zombies to die off from starvation. And I think to myself, "Shit, well that will probably take a while, so I better buy all these cans of chicken broth that everybody else is buying. I don't want to be stuck in my apartment with no chicken broth." So, like the other pre-storm hoarders around me, my ability to think clearly completely dissipates and I buy about forty cans of chicken broth that will expire in a month anyways.
That's the story of my high score. But now that I've set the bar that high for myself, I'll just have to work harder. With Easter coming up, I'm sure that I can fit at least $400 worth of ham alone into a shopping cart. And there's always the Scotch Section of the Liquor Store Bonus Round. Hooray.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
If You Prick Us, Do We Not Blog?
Sitting in H.D.'s seminar this afternoon, when I should have been wildly pondering just what the hell is going on with sexuality and gender in the end of "The Merchant of Venice" (answer: something about vagina rings), I decided to finally blog (or, rather, blog again, if you count the haiku thing...or the shit I tried to do in college). But, now, holy hell...where do I begin?
I'm writing now as I wait for a student to come meet with me, though at this point I'm fairly certain I've been stood up. This semester, following the advice of teaching guru DZ, I've been meeting with all my students individually for about 10 minutes or so. These little meet-and-greets are entirely social in their nature: I quiz my students about their majors, their hobbies, their career paths, their reasons for picking Wisconsin, their (often dubious) cultural preferences, etc. So far, so good, though there have been some hiccups. I've learned that asking the question, "So, what do you do for fun?", is not a good question to ask, mostly because students just shrug and say "Hang out with friends and do whatever," which is code for what they actually want to say, that being "I get black-out drunk on a shitty handle of Mr. Boston's Rum and proceed to make some dubious life choices that I'll lie to my future spouse about when they ask if I ever did anything I regretted back when I was in college." To which I'd still probably just nod and say, "Neat-o."
Most students have been cool in their own way, but there have just been some outstandingly awkward or "oh-fuck-what-do-I-say-now?" moments, too. In true Dubsian fashion, a brief highlight reel:
1.) Student H who, when asked about how he liked Madison, replied that is was "too diverse" and wanted to go back to his tiny town in rural Wisconsin.
2.) Student R who, when I saw his Radiohead t-shirt and asked if he paid for "In Rainbows" (the newest album that could be downloaded for free), gave me a weird look and scornfully replied, "What are you talking about?" [he'd borrowed the shirt].
3.) Student M, who told me that one of her hobbies is "making fun of people a lot," so I should be "prepared to get some shit from [her] this semester."
4.) Student K, who...well, pick a moment. She cackled (and I mean, cackled) at every third sentence, funny or not, and she spent most of the meeting looking either at the wall behind my left ear or the ceiling tile directly above her. Oh, and ask AK, who has had her as a student. Smart, but fucking nuts.
That being said, I think it's gone well. My own college experience was defined by the great attention I got from professors at Delaware, and that kind of personal detail was what made the school feel small and manageable. Especially here at Wisconsin, with its vast student body, I think it's important to go out of my way as an instructor to have that kind of contact with my students: I don't doubt that there are students who graduate having never once spoken to a professor, TA, etc. outside of class. And that bothers me. I think that, especially with higher education going the direction that it is--that is, getting more expensive but less attentive to individual students (because of the expansion of student populations)--this kind of one-on-one contact should be strongly encouraged. Frankly, it's an idea I wish I had last semester. Time-wise, the investment is pretty nominal (57 students x 10 mins. apiece = about 10 hours), but the pay-off, both for the instructor and the student, is substantial. I already feel like I have a better rapport with my students, and many of them actually greet me by name walking out of lecture, instead of putting their heads down and scurrying by (as many did back in the fall).
Alright. I have to go eat some Chipotle before orchestra rehearsal, so let's call it good.
I'm writing now as I wait for a student to come meet with me, though at this point I'm fairly certain I've been stood up. This semester, following the advice of teaching guru DZ, I've been meeting with all my students individually for about 10 minutes or so. These little meet-and-greets are entirely social in their nature: I quiz my students about their majors, their hobbies, their career paths, their reasons for picking Wisconsin, their (often dubious) cultural preferences, etc. So far, so good, though there have been some hiccups. I've learned that asking the question, "So, what do you do for fun?", is not a good question to ask, mostly because students just shrug and say "Hang out with friends and do whatever," which is code for what they actually want to say, that being "I get black-out drunk on a shitty handle of Mr. Boston's Rum and proceed to make some dubious life choices that I'll lie to my future spouse about when they ask if I ever did anything I regretted back when I was in college." To which I'd still probably just nod and say, "Neat-o."
Most students have been cool in their own way, but there have just been some outstandingly awkward or "oh-fuck-what-do-I-say-now?" moments, too. In true Dubsian fashion, a brief highlight reel:
1.) Student H who, when asked about how he liked Madison, replied that is was "too diverse" and wanted to go back to his tiny town in rural Wisconsin.
2.) Student R who, when I saw his Radiohead t-shirt and asked if he paid for "In Rainbows" (the newest album that could be downloaded for free), gave me a weird look and scornfully replied, "What are you talking about?" [he'd borrowed the shirt].
3.) Student M, who told me that one of her hobbies is "making fun of people a lot," so I should be "prepared to get some shit from [her] this semester."
4.) Student K, who...well, pick a moment. She cackled (and I mean, cackled) at every third sentence, funny or not, and she spent most of the meeting looking either at the wall behind my left ear or the ceiling tile directly above her. Oh, and ask AK, who has had her as a student. Smart, but fucking nuts.
That being said, I think it's gone well. My own college experience was defined by the great attention I got from professors at Delaware, and that kind of personal detail was what made the school feel small and manageable. Especially here at Wisconsin, with its vast student body, I think it's important to go out of my way as an instructor to have that kind of contact with my students: I don't doubt that there are students who graduate having never once spoken to a professor, TA, etc. outside of class. And that bothers me. I think that, especially with higher education going the direction that it is--that is, getting more expensive but less attentive to individual students (because of the expansion of student populations)--this kind of one-on-one contact should be strongly encouraged. Frankly, it's an idea I wish I had last semester. Time-wise, the investment is pretty nominal (57 students x 10 mins. apiece = about 10 hours), but the pay-off, both for the instructor and the student, is substantial. I already feel like I have a better rapport with my students, and many of them actually greet me by name walking out of lecture, instead of putting their heads down and scurrying by (as many did back in the fall).
Alright. I have to go eat some Chipotle before orchestra rehearsal, so let's call it good.
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