Tuesday, August 31, 2004

terrified by cheese and crackers

The department had its start-of-year-meet-the-new-students reception. I lasted 15 minutes, which is 5 minutes longer than my modal time. (No offense to anyone.) I don't like crowds of strangers, especially crowds where I am supposed to be talking to somebody, but often I seem to find crowds of acquaintances even harder to take if I don't settle into a regular conversation with someone right away. I think when most other people talk about being painfully shy, they mean the painful part only metaphorically.

As I type this, an e-mail comes in from someone else who was there: "Why did I go to that thing? Do I really want a free beer that bad?"

3 comments:

Brady said...

I'm starting a comparative study of meet-the-new-student events, having endur..enjoyed three at Madison and also having my first USC one today.

There doesn't seem to be any beer at this one.

grrrrrrrrr......

jeremy said...

Claire: I don't know the new students here yesterday were all just pining for a chance to go "read alone" or not, although I'm sure many of them were glad to get out of there when they could.

Brady: The presence of beer at all University functions is one of the great things about Madison. You'd been taking it for granted all this time.

Brady said...

Why do we always take the things we love for granted?

There was no beer. There was, however, soul food. Fried chicken, collard greens, yams, peach cobbler. . . .mmmmmmmm.

(Of course, if Wisconsin wanted to live up to its number-one sociology department in the WORLD status, they'd have to start having mixed drinks as well as beer. I mean, sometimes a man wants a well-made Old Fashioned, and a Leinie's red just won't do.)