Last night I was at a party of a different sort. It was the thank you party for Professor Newman. This was an idea I had last semester. I wanted to do for him what my students did for me in Beijing. To give him a good dinner so that he could feel appreciated.
Somewhere along the line I became disillusioned with Newman. I felt that he was all talk, constantly self-aggrandising. Further, and perhaps more importantly, I worried that he wrote me a mediocre reference letter. These worries were only reenforced by his attitude towards my graduate school admissions. I was shocked that he was pleased that I got into Carleton and told me not to expect anything else. He was supposed to be on my side. Helping me to get into places I wanted to go, but instead he was patronising me. These feelings lead me to drop the leadership position of organizing his thank you dinner.
Luckily, Elisa picked up where I had left off. She organized the dinner and made sure people showed up. It was good to see her, as well as Sam and Matt as none of them showed up to my party. Dinner was lame. Stupid restaurant, but the beer was good and I did my best to get drunk. I felt that I should have put more effort into getting to know Sam because he is a cool guy who will probably go far in Singapore. We talked about summer plans and Asian issues while I polished off the better part of three pitchers. At 8:30 Matt and Sam left while the rest of us went to Shaharazad's place.
There, we talked again about Asia and how interesting it was to have students from all over. At 11 Elisa and the rest of the Chinese crew took off, leaving Shaharazad, Leo, a 70 year old French-Canadian woman, Newman, and myslef. From then on it was the Newman show as he unburdened himself of everything he wanted to talk about. He is a smart guy and definately has some interesting things to say, but I am still not sure whether I forgive him for (probably) writing me a crappy reference. Finally, at 3am I said enough was enough and broke up the party. In all, it was a good night. Much better than I was expecting.
Tonight, I go to a Taiwanese club night. I hope it is fun.
Marc
Somewhere along the line I became disillusioned with Newman. I felt that he was all talk, constantly self-aggrandising. Further, and perhaps more importantly, I worried that he wrote me a mediocre reference letter. These worries were only reenforced by his attitude towards my graduate school admissions. I was shocked that he was pleased that I got into Carleton and told me not to expect anything else. He was supposed to be on my side. Helping me to get into places I wanted to go, but instead he was patronising me. These feelings lead me to drop the leadership position of organizing his thank you dinner.
Luckily, Elisa picked up where I had left off. She organized the dinner and made sure people showed up. It was good to see her, as well as Sam and Matt as none of them showed up to my party. Dinner was lame. Stupid restaurant, but the beer was good and I did my best to get drunk. I felt that I should have put more effort into getting to know Sam because he is a cool guy who will probably go far in Singapore. We talked about summer plans and Asian issues while I polished off the better part of three pitchers. At 8:30 Matt and Sam left while the rest of us went to Shaharazad's place.
There, we talked again about Asia and how interesting it was to have students from all over. At 11 Elisa and the rest of the Chinese crew took off, leaving Shaharazad, Leo, a 70 year old French-Canadian woman, Newman, and myslef. From then on it was the Newman show as he unburdened himself of everything he wanted to talk about. He is a smart guy and definately has some interesting things to say, but I am still not sure whether I forgive him for (probably) writing me a crappy reference. Finally, at 3am I said enough was enough and broke up the party. In all, it was a good night. Much better than I was expecting.
Tonight, I go to a Taiwanese club night. I hope it is fun.
Marc
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home