I am mostly writing right now to record the events I have seen this evening so that tomorrow when I read them I can be sure they actually happened. You see, tonight is a bit of a surreal time for me. I am in the laboratory running a computer program I wrote for a class on three computers because they take way too long (I think I wrote them poorly, but that's not the point. They work, and because they work, I am going to be done with grad school). I will likely be here for a few more hours, and I am starting to have those bleary visions when you've had your contacts in too long and it looks foggy indoors. Also, I have had a mug of tea and a bottle of Vault, which I think is bad news GI-tractwise. I think perhaps 20 oz. of that stuff is too much for mortal men to consume in one sitting.
Anyway, I've been sitting here a while, playing a lot of Zuma as I keep an eye on my computers. I am going to save that Aztec frog if it's the last thing I do as a Clemson student. I have also made a few trips to the restroom (tea and Vault will go through you) and I feel the need to mention one of my neuroses that I don't think has come up: when I enter a stall, I don't like to see or be seen by anyone. I don't really know why, but I feel the need to be undercover when I'm behind closed doors. It's like Clark Kent's glasses, except more convincing.
You might think that this goal would be easy to achieve at 12:30 at night on a college campus during the summer on a Wednesday (Thursday?). It was not. Foreign graduate students tend not to buy (split infinitive narrowly averted) internet access at their apartments, because it is expensive. So at this time of night, you can find a lot of folks who have eaten way more rice than you probably ever will. While I have been waiting, one of my lab mates got into a shouting match in Chinese (I only know two words in Chinese, and I didn't hear either of them) and while in the bathroom, my cover was blown. I'm less concerned now about the fact that my cover was blown, but more along the lines of how I was detected in the men's room.
As I exited to wash my hands, there stood a Chinese graduate student over the sink with his head bent down. I caught it with corner of my eye (failure number one) and figured he was just washing his hair or face. If you spend a lot of time in the lab, a quick whore's bath isn't such a bad idea. Especially with this heat, I could probably use one by now. When I exited to wash my hands, though, I saw in more detail (and he saw me -- failures two and three) and he wasn't doing either of those things. He was shaving his head with what looked like a Gillette Mach 3. I have never watched anyone shave their head before, so I didn't really think about the role that shaving cream would play. But this soon to be bald Asian man was covered in it.
If this were an actual dream, I would have no idea what it would mean. Perhaps a preoccupation with the Chinese, since there was a lot of yelling in Chinese (which, interestingly, due to the intonation system makes many sentences sound like they are not really over when they stop talking) and a Happy Gilmore dream sequence surreal image. Hopefully, this insanity won't continue for too long.
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