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he's only 34!
Feb. 15th, 2007 05:10 pmHe was wearing a suit today. I don't know why. I should have asked Nell, but I still feel that if I suggest too much interest in that direction she's going to get suspicious. After all, Nell's the mom. Today she wouldn't leave me alone about getting nasal spray for the phlegm in my throat. She even sent me an email with web links about it.
Even if I didn't ask Nell, I should have figured out something myself, since I was at the Ricoh copier machine turning old yellowing books, thin and fraying along the spine, with loud black and red covers with words like POLITICS and POWER and subjects like pre-Third Reich Germany and authors like Samuel Huntington (the evil one!), into PDF files, for an hour and fifteeen minutes today, and the copier machine is just one stairwell away from his door. His office is sequestered at the far end of the Political Science department, you see. In fact, I daresay he's surrounded by History professors, and in fact there's just one professor with a worse office location - whoever has the office even closer to the copier machine, right beside the janitors' supply closet. You can't even see it until you walk right up to it.
But he's very insistent on keeping his door closed unless it's office hours (and unlike my environmental science professor, he actually has office hours, because he's not interested in getting fired for having "relations" with students). One girl who may or may not be a girl from my colloquium knocked on his door and said something about talking to him, and he curtly told her to come back during regular office hours. She stood there looking dumbly at him (I peeked my head out of Nell's office when I heard his voice) for another second, and then he said with his cheerful but leaving-no-room-for-discussion voice, "Okay, bye!" and she said, "Okay, bye..." as if she wasn't quite sure what just happened. I ducked back inside Nell's office as she came down the hallway, and when I looked back toward his door, it was indeed shut again.
The only time he was happy to open it was when the department chair, another I.R. specialist who happens to be a woman (and the craziest, smartest woman in the department), saying something about a signature. I really should have just stopped my copying efforts to eavesdrop, since they left the door open, but I'm too diligent of a departmental assistant for that. After she left he left the door open and I could hear him typing - I'd say peacefully, but I think it erred more on the side of frenetic today. All I could see from my angle were boxes covered in plastic wrap, as if he's still moving into the office. No, it probably had to do with his ceiling leaking a while back. He doesn't seem like a neat-freak to me, judging from the few times I've been in his office that I've managed to think about anything other than the fact that I'm sitting in his office. And not sentimental about anything, either, because the only cute little artifact I could find in his office was a little good luck Japanese kitty, probably given to him by my advisor. I think they're friends. I'm not sure. If anything because they're not old white guys, like the other men of the department. But no photos. No memorabilia. No nothing. Just shelves and shelves of books and boxes and boxes of documents, manila folders, research. His life is political science, I can tell.
And it's been decided - I'm marrying a political scientist. I don't think I could marry someone who has no perception of political science. I really doubt I'm going to marry him, though. Chiefly because I'm sure he only sees me as a student. Probably not even the smartest of his students, and not one who's going into his regional field.
He's up for tenure, I believe. That's probably why he was all dressed up. And the suit looked really good.
Even if I didn't ask Nell, I should have figured out something myself, since I was at the Ricoh copier machine turning old yellowing books, thin and fraying along the spine, with loud black and red covers with words like POLITICS and POWER and subjects like pre-Third Reich Germany and authors like Samuel Huntington (the evil one!), into PDF files, for an hour and fifteeen minutes today, and the copier machine is just one stairwell away from his door. His office is sequestered at the far end of the Political Science department, you see. In fact, I daresay he's surrounded by History professors, and in fact there's just one professor with a worse office location - whoever has the office even closer to the copier machine, right beside the janitors' supply closet. You can't even see it until you walk right up to it.
But he's very insistent on keeping his door closed unless it's office hours (and unlike my environmental science professor, he actually has office hours, because he's not interested in getting fired for having "relations" with students). One girl who may or may not be a girl from my colloquium knocked on his door and said something about talking to him, and he curtly told her to come back during regular office hours. She stood there looking dumbly at him (I peeked my head out of Nell's office when I heard his voice) for another second, and then he said with his cheerful but leaving-no-room-for-discussion voice, "Okay, bye!" and she said, "Okay, bye..." as if she wasn't quite sure what just happened. I ducked back inside Nell's office as she came down the hallway, and when I looked back toward his door, it was indeed shut again.
The only time he was happy to open it was when the department chair, another I.R. specialist who happens to be a woman (and the craziest, smartest woman in the department), saying something about a signature. I really should have just stopped my copying efforts to eavesdrop, since they left the door open, but I'm too diligent of a departmental assistant for that. After she left he left the door open and I could hear him typing - I'd say peacefully, but I think it erred more on the side of frenetic today. All I could see from my angle were boxes covered in plastic wrap, as if he's still moving into the office. No, it probably had to do with his ceiling leaking a while back. He doesn't seem like a neat-freak to me, judging from the few times I've been in his office that I've managed to think about anything other than the fact that I'm sitting in his office. And not sentimental about anything, either, because the only cute little artifact I could find in his office was a little good luck Japanese kitty, probably given to him by my advisor. I think they're friends. I'm not sure. If anything because they're not old white guys, like the other men of the department. But no photos. No memorabilia. No nothing. Just shelves and shelves of books and boxes and boxes of documents, manila folders, research. His life is political science, I can tell.
And it's been decided - I'm marrying a political scientist. I don't think I could marry someone who has no perception of political science. I really doubt I'm going to marry him, though. Chiefly because I'm sure he only sees me as a student. Probably not even the smartest of his students, and not one who's going into his regional field.
He's up for tenure, I believe. That's probably why he was all dressed up. And the suit looked really good.
