A Department Thing

Today, I stayed at school to grade, instead of hotfooting it home like I usually do. There was also a "Good Bye" party for the faculty Fellows who aren't returning next year (either because this was their Third Year or because they got a decently-paying job elsewhere) at a local pub, about a mile and a half from the school. Not only did I want to say goodbye to a couple of my friends, but hell, let's face it: free food. Sometimes I'm still in graduate school mode--I can be lured with food. Of course people could have wine or beer too, though I stuck to Cokes, being as I detest beer and wine detests me.

One of the Third Years, a dear, brilliant, man who is leaving, had applied earlier in the year for a tenure-track job at my school--and should have been a shoe-in, except that he got screwed. I won't go into the details--they steam my clams--but I was so angry for him today. I mean, he couldn't have been more cordial and friendly if he tried, and when the head of the department was talking to him, and saying how much the department will miss him, I wanted to beat the GD lying SOB with my shoe. It was so fricken phony. It's possible that the head of the department was NOT on the hiring committee, but I find that hard to believe. And moreover, how could he say all these nice things, full knowing how shitty the school had been to him? He was just so unbelievably phony--I do not like that man. I couldn't have been so gracious as my friend was. But I was seriously disgusted at the hypocrisy. I was totally channeling Holden Caulfield or something.

Anyway--despite the obnoxious phoniness of the whole shebang--"oh, we're going to miss you people so much" PUH-LEEZ--I did get to hang out with my Second Year friends and chat with them and eat good bar food and that was fun. And we were there till 8:30, and the thing started at 5:30. It was the most socializing I've done in a long time. Normally, I'm such a hermit.