Baby Steps

I am happy* to report some progress in my attempts to be more the type of person who is nice and sociable and less the type of person who is introverted and lame and has no friends.

• I was meeting with someone from the Office of Proposal Development about a preceptorship application I was filing, and I noticed she had a Golden Girls mouse pad.  Introverted Alex would have thought that was cool but not said anything, but not that day!  I was like, "so you're a Golden Girls fan?" and then told her about when I went to see the Golden Girls Drag Queens.  Talking to a work-related person about personal things?  Who even does that?
• After class one day I was talking to my classmate and we happened to walk into the bathroom together.  My rule is usually "when you enter the stall, the conversation stops."  This girl clearly did not have that rule, and continued to chat.  At first I was mortified as I am not capable of that level of multitasking, but somehow--don't know how--I managed.  I think I gained some Female Points that day.
• Then I went to a Halloween party, but that was more because I was coerced, but still.  Read about it here.
• I feel like I'm finally starting to fit in with the other grad students in my department (as much as I can, being a bone person in a department full of brain people, I guess).  I would always hang out with just the other people in my year, but now I'm having full conversations with the higher years.  It's probably because I'm doing the quals thing soon and I'm officially "one of them" now, but it's cool.
• Three of the past four days I ate dinner not by myself.

Baby steps, guys.

*Maybe "happy" is a stretch.

Halloween-ween*

Happy (Belated) Halloween, everyone!

I did actually do things on actual (i.e., not-belated) Halloween.  Social things, even!  I originally intended to stay home alone and do a Hocus Pocus/Beetlejuice double feature, but instead my friend roped me into going to a ward Halloween party.  Of course I couldn't just go to a Halloween party without a costume because that would be even lamer than watching movies alone on one of the best holidays, so I decided to dress as a secondary character from an obscure, no-longer-on-the-air TV show:  Dr. Claire Saunders from Dollhouse.

What I was going for

What I was.  Fake scar tissue is hard to manipulate.

Anyway, nobody got it because very few people have seen or remember Dollhouse, which is unfortunate because it has the one-two punch of Joss Whedon's writing and Amy Acker's acting.  People just thought my scars were creepy.

Apart from that, the party was okay.  Halloween parties are kind of like awards shows, I've decided. You don't really care about the people except for what they're wearing.  I did get to revel in the lovely double standards of men's and women's costumes (e.g., how men can dress as shirtless vikings or male strippers and people think it's so clever, yet had I decided to bare my shoulders there would have probably been a riot).  There were some okay snacks, but I couldn't really eat much without the scars on my lips falling off.  But after the party I went home and watched the first half of Hocus Pocus, and finished it the next morning.  It's definitely a movie that I have to watch alone because the scene at the end with the ghost of Thackeray Binx makes me cry.

Later that day I went to the anatomy lab and spent four hours with the cadavers, which I guess is a very Halloween-appropriate activity.  Then I saw an old friend from college and watched Beetlejuice.  I guess I got all of my Halloween activities checked off, though I could have done more.  I think next year, when I am 30, I will go all out for Halloween.  I even have an idea for a costume.  Teaser:  there will be blue body paint involved.

Until next year!



*If you get this reference, you are a cool person.  Also, RIP "The Neighbors."