Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Collaboration, Coffee, and the Little Things

That's what's getting me through grad school thus far. I had a really good experience collaborating this evening in the midst of the bad assignment in the class that I have a fundamental philosophical, pedagogical, issue with. We don't need to go into the issues I have with the class, but the important point here is that we have a ridiculous assignment due for next week, which almost no one in the class is equipped to handle. So, I met with three of my classmates this evening, and we worked through it together. I can't say that the assignment was fun, but we all worked very well together, and we all brought very different skills and backgrounds to the table, and I think we got a good handle on it. It was a rewarding experience of collaboration, and another reminder that I really do like the people in my cohort!

Coffee. Kind of self-explanatory. I drink a lot of coffee. I go get coffee with various people when I'm sitting in my office. I while away an afternoon drinking coffee in a bookstore and chatting with someone interesting. I have coffee at dinner time, and I stay up till 1:00am and post blogs ;)

The little things: trips to the wine shop, lunch with friends, kitty cat snuggles, random voicemails from friends, crushes that make life interesting.

4 comments:

Marita Siddal said...

Funny how the low-res life parallels yours for a moment. I have a friend who is struggling as a waiter in this dreary town while he works on his film and visuals arts career, so as I trudge through my day job and work on my degree I feel that I have a compatriot of sorts. It's been a long week, but tomorrow night my friend and I will open some lovely wine and set up shop in my basement to paint and whatnot together.

The little things, yes . . . and now I'm curious if you thought of a particular crush when you wrote this post ;)

Emily said...

hmmm, i'll never tell ;)

Whitney said...

Ah, I feel I am truly missing out on coffee. I don't have the taste for it yet. But crushes? Got a few myself. We would be lying if we pretended they didn't exist, even in grad school :)

Emily said...

Hey Whitney,

You don't drink coffee? Wow. I'm always amazed by people who don't like coffee. You're probably better off though.