Cohort Days

Sorry for the late blog. Between finals week and spring break starting, I haven't been able to spend time procrastinating like I usually do. This week just happened to be the week of edits also, with several applications, cover letters, resumes and the like for several friends. I love helping out it just means blog time is less of a priority.

I often get the question of "How's Ohio" and I don't always know how to answer that. Generally we talk about the weather, since people asking me often experience weather differently. Like how we've had several fluke 70 degree days. Or how its raining then sunny then threatening to snow. Or maybe how the people here are nice but really can't drive. Or how "classes are going fine". Those are all general icebreaker-like conversations. But I think in some sense people are going, well how do you spend your day? How do you have fun?

Generally I spend my day at work in the business college conducting mock interviews, resume workshops, and job hunt tips and in class for a couple hours. Topics include social justice, student development theory, organizational theory, international affairs and the history of higher education. Classes are lecture discussions and you have to do the reading, which lately I do bits and pieces of on Sundays and Mondays or when I need to cite things in papers.

Naturally, you're now bored and ready for me to tell you the more interesting things I do. Well for one thing, as grad students we don't stay out as late as I used to before grad school. I have yet to be in a bar at closing and typically I'm back home by 1 at the latest. Board games have become a pretty big deal around here. A bottle of wine and a new board game is a great way to pass the night with friends. Just the other night, myself, Powder Climber, Tall Bear and Hopeful Introspective tried out Cardmaster Cider's new game Small World. Add to our library games like Dominion, Seven Wonders, Blockus, Settlers of Catan and many many more and you see we don't play your run of the mill board games either. Intellectually challenging games with rules sometimes so complicated you need a Youtube video is more our style. They payoff is high, though Tall Bear does deliberate a bit too much on EVERY turn for our tastes. He's a good sport to our teasing so I gets it balances out.

We also go to an apartment party every once in a while, usually hosted by Judicator Brewskie and his roommates in the self-dubbed Cohort Apartment. We had one such party last weekend and while theres the usual gang of 5-7 of us that try to attend most big events, theres always new faces that make to one or the other. One of our cohort members showed up before I arrived simply to show off her new engagement ring, as her longtime boyfriend proposed that day. These types of parties also let us meet significant others visiting in town and see the people with whom we have class together several times a week in a more relaxed setting. Naturally, we still have a bunch of stupid and then heavy conversations, like our religious dissection followed by how we are going to have to drink a lot in China (apparently wagon wheeling is a welcoming tradition).

We also have other random get togethers, like on Tuesday when we watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers because both myself and Tough Southern Belle were humming "March comes in like a lion, what else..." in class and realized many of us enjoyed the musical. So we went to her and Dandy Woo's house along with Frenchie's Choice, Powder Climber, CC, and Hopeful Introspective to have a romp-roaring time with the show, complete with wine and popcorn and homemade cinnamon roll ball things.

CC, Powder and I have taken advantage of the sun by playing Can Jam, where you try to throw a frisbee into a trash can sized goal. We have also gone restaurant exploring, based on some recommendations for Cali Foodie. We probably shouldn't eat out as much as we have, but theres something about finals week and then spring break coupled with sunshine that just makes you want to be out and about. In California, when it rains randomly, people just kinda of stop whatever it is they are doing and hole up inside on account of the weather. Same thing happens in Ohio, except when it's sunny and people go outside.

I had one, you-know-youre-a-grad-student when moment as I sat on a bench outside eating Chipotle in one hand while grading papers for the class I TA for in the other. It was just one of those picturesque grad student moments.

So yea, that's a bit of what its like out here. We have a conference coming up after spring break, so it'll be road trip time with Dandy Woo and Cali Food (may my sanity survive) as we head to Louisville for the ACPA conference. More on that after it happens. Til then I plan on hitting the bars tonight to celebrate the official start of spring break before people begin heading to their various destinations for the next week.

I'll do my best to update on time next week, but I am on vacation so the motivation is going to be lessened. Happy weeks to all of you and beware the Ides of March!

-JTY

Listening to: Spring, Spring, Spring- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Writing about the play got it stuck in my head.

Reading: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer- It occurred to me I can read for pleasure again!

Playing: Mostly league of legends with dashes of TOR thrown in there with my brother.