The departmental shindig last night was fun. It was worth going just for the bucketfuls of teriyaki chicken skewers. I got dressed up, mostly just because I was bored and haven’t had much chance in L.A. to wear a jacket. Each of the faculty members read something they’d written. The best-received of these, it seemed, was the one by the guy who wrote the Jim Carey movie Liar, Liar. He read a humorous reworking of Poe’s “The Raven,” punning on the name of our department head.
Most grad students in the program live far off campus and only show up for evening classes and never really interact socially with the other students. I think this is insane, since one of the biggest benefits of this sort of program is meeting other people who’ll be working in arts and entertainment. I’ve been trying, with mixed results, to organize people to get together outside of class. There’s an email list for the department, but no one seems to know about it. I couldn’t understand why no one had ever just put a note in every student’s departmental mailbox informing them of the email list, and offered to do so. For making this brilliant suggestion, I was instantly dubbed a member of the “Social Committee.” So this morning I printed up 160 notes and put one in every student’s mailbox. We’ll see if it works. Honestly, even fewer students seem to know about their departmental mailbox than know about the email list, but it’s worth a shot.
Tonight I’ll be going on a midnight group bicycle ride through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Damn, I am one badass mofo. Yeah, what’s up now, L.A.?
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