- Tonight I went out to a nice dinner ("nice" = the casual front room of a fancy restaurant, sitting at the bar). For dessert, we ordered a plate of 5 cheeses. Our friendly waiter/bartender gave us 7. Then he realized that he had mistakenly given us a different goat cheese than the one we had asked for, and gave us a big sample of the original one.
- I must have eaten a half pound of cheese tonight.
- Then he asked if we "liked booze," and made us delicious cocktails out of cognac, Benedictine, absinthe, and Chartreuse.
- I think he liked us because we were a) younger and b) much more willing to chat like normal people than most of the other folks at the bar. Half of them were just waiting for their tables in the fancy section of the restaurant to open up, and half of them were super preppy. Also c) we expressed enthusiasm when he described the special appetizer, a plate of charcuterie made from pigs that had just come in from some special farm. What can I say, I like eating special pigs.
- We all introduced ourselves as we were leaving, but now I already can't remember his name. Something like Travis.
- Sitting at the bar is usually a good idea; this I have learned from friends who have waited tables/tended bar themselves. Stay there long enough eating cheese, and you make friends with Travis, who gives you free cocktails.
- I really don't think I'm committed to a professorial career. I like it when people compliment me on my writing, but I like it just as much when they compliment me on my teaching, or when I feel like I've done a good job at it. That is, when I graduate I'd be more than happy to teach high school or work in an administrative capacity at a school, if it meant I wouldn't have to return to a long-distance relationship.
- Between the cheese and the booze, we had a great conversation about Michael Clayton, the thriller genre, and horses, but I can't start to reproduce it now.
- We walked about 5 miles to the restaurant; think that offsets the half-pound of cheese?
Monday, February 18, 2008
Bullets of cheese (with one hidden bullet of work)
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3 comments:
Mmmmmm. Cheese. :)
And as both a bartender and a long-time bar patron, I have to agree that sitting at the bar is *always* a good idea. :)
Mmm, yes: to cheese, sitting at the bar, to the offset power of walking five miles, and to your ambivalence (if that's the right word for it -- it may not be) on a professorial career.
I like my scholarship and research work, but teaching is hugely sustaining. My concern, though, if I were choosing between professorial and non-professorial options, would be that 85% of the stuff that I like to teach wouldn't be permitted in a public h.s. curriculum. This is not to say that a private high school job (Phillips Exeter, maybe?) wouldn't be absolutely sufficient...
I don't know if we'll ever go back to sitting at tables, especially in that particular restaurant!
And yeah, JD, I'm assuming that it would have to be a private high school -- I looked into teaching in a public school after I graduated college (without a teaching certificate), and it was pretty much impossible to get certified and teach at the same time, unless you taught math, science, or Spanish, or were in a special Teach-for-America-like program. Now, I also think I'd like teaching math (and could probably do it at a middle school level), but no one would hire me. :)
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