The days of Friday, October 30th to Sunday, November 8th marked a very significant portion of my life. Adrienne was here, Halloween was scary, Adrienne got to see me teach, I got observed by a faculty member as well, I actually bought new clothes, I defended my dissertation proposal, and we celebrated Adrienne's 27th birthday. So, I'm dedicating this blog post to a recap of sorts of that stretch of time.
After Adrienne got here late friday night (10/30), the first major piece of business on the table was the next day - Halloween. What would we do on this day? One option - party with undergraduates at Rice, who would be dancing the night away naked. Yes, naked. Halloween this year happened to coincide with a certain tradition at Rice known as the Baker 13, in which students from Baker College (Rice is divided into separate colleges) gather on the 13th and 31st of every month and prance around campus wearing nothing but shaving cream. We decided against that. Not really our thing, ya know, and besides - I didn't want to risk running into any of my students.
So we ended up doing other things - significantly scarier things...
There's this restaurant right around the corner from me called "Prima Pasta". It's not the most attractive looking restaurant, but one feature of it always caught our eyes in the past. It's this sign they use to advertise one of their products. Check it out:
Hmmmmm. Best Lasagna In Town, for $5.99. Now that's scary. The whole thing is scary: Italian restaurant in Texas, with a stupid name like "Prima Pasta", next to a laundry mat (the picture doesn't do justice to how beaten this place looks), sporting the "best lasagna in town", for only $5.99! Well, Adrienne and I decided that we had to, once, try this place. We had to see what all the fuss was about this lasagna.
So we went there for an early dinner on Halloween. We figured Halloween was the most fitting time to go. The place, while beaten looking on the outside, was perfectly neat and respectable on the inside. They didn't have much of a waitstaff - just two hispanic workers, one doing the cooking, and one doing the serving, appeared to be all there was to the staff. There were some other folks sitting at the tables - one dude who had some awful facial scar that for some reason was colored blue. Now, I certainly don't mean to make fun of this man's accident (it clearly was the result of some accident), but forgive me for thinking it somewhat ironic that this dude was sitting in this odd restaurant on Halloween. Anyway, the food...
They had complimentary garlic bread, which was probably more like toasted bread with some oil and seasoning sprinkled on it. The fried calamari we ordered as an appetizer wasn't terrible, because anything fried is never terrible, but something was off about it. It looked... I dunno... sad.
And then came the lasagna...
Adrienne and I both got the vegetable lasagna. We agreed that it was, um, mediocre at best. We skipped dessert.
Anyway, on the way out, we noticed an article that was posted on the outside of the restaurant from earlier in the year. It was about the owner of the restaurant and why he put that sign up. It turns out, he put up the sign because in early 2009, they started a major road-construction project right outside Prima Pasta. The owner was afraid it was going to kill his business. So he lowered the price of his lasagna, and advertised it as the best lasagna in town, on a big ass sign. And wouldn't you know it, the guy saw his revenue increase by 25%! That sign actually attracted people to his restaurant. Amazing. But then again, in a weird way, it attracted me to it as well (though for obviously different reasons).
Here's the really funny part though. You know what the owner's name was? His name wasn't something like Donatello Soprano, or Mario Pizza, or Luigi Puttanesca. His name was Muhammad Akbari. Yes, the owner of this italian restaurant that boasts the best lasagna in town for $5.99, with two hispanic workers on the cooking and waitstaff, is Mohammad Akbari. Like I said earlier: significantly scarier things...
Anyways, after eating the best lasagna in town, we headed to the Rice Village for some dessert and for some shopping. Adrienne wanted to get some stuff at Victoria's Secret. Let me tell you - I love just standing around aimlessly with my arms crossed in Victoria's Secret while Adrienne and countless other women examine panties. It's exhilarating.
Actually, it's not. I was happy to leave there.
Now, I had no intention of buying anything for myself on this day. No intention at all. I buy clothes... well... never. Usually I get my clothes for christmas and for my birthday, from other people. I hardly ever shop on my own. But somehow, we ventured into Banana Republic. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew I was trying on outfits at the rate of a Saturday Night Live star.
You see, I needed clothes. I've lost a bunch of weight this year, and - well - my clothes don't really fit that well anymore.
Anyway, one thing led to another, and Adrienne convinced me to spend a small fortune on some new digs. You won't believe this, but I bought a blazer. Yeah. A blazer.
Not bad, eh? What was particularly scary about this experience was that I actually enjoyed it, for the most part. Dinner at shady "italian" restaurant... check. Shopping spree for me... check. Like I said earlier: significantly scarier things.
We capped off the night by going to the movies to see a scary film:
Paranormal Activity. Let me tell you - it was fucked up. If you live with your significant other, be alarmed if you wake up in the middle of the night and he or she is just standing at the side of the bed, staring at you.
Then the week started, which was exciting, because Adrienne would get to see me teach for the first time. On that monday - 11/02 - I was also observed by a faculty member, who is going to write a teaching letter for me when I go on the job market next year. Anyway, my class went really well that day - AND - I got to wear my fancy new professorial blazer! Yeah, I was rocking it. Adrienne came to my Rice classes as well as to my HCC night class. At the HCC class, she managed to sneak a picture with her cellphone:
That's me. Molding minds both young and old. You may find that significantly scarier than anything else I've talked about in this post so far!
Tuesday night, Adrienne and I had a BADASS dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We took advantage of a gift-card we got as an engagement present. I had been to Ruth's Chris only twice before, and neither time was I that impressed. But this one was so damn good. I had the New York Strip steak, medium rare, with broccoli au gratin, and lyonnaise potatoes. Mmmmmmmmmm. Yes.
Fast-forward to thursday. Adrienne has two major tasks on this day. Actually, three major tasks. (1) She has to make her signature tortellini soup, because I demanded it. (2) She has to make her AMAZING signature chocolate chip cookies, both because I demanded it and also because she wanted to. Actually, although I got to eat plenty of them, she didn't make them for me. The idea was to make them for my Rice students for class on friday. (3) She has to help me with my dissertation defense presentation.
(1) and (2) were easy, because Adrienne is awesome. Although, she always laments the lameness of my kitchen. I didn't even own a ladle, or an oven mit (I make due with large spoons and towels). So I had to buy these things for her. (3) was tough.
To bring you up to speed with what a dissertation proposal is: In a
dissertation proposal the student "refines the statement of a problem in such a way that it is both an original contribution and likely to be manageable in an amount of time and number of pages appropriate for a dissertation, and produces a document (usually between 15-35pp) which states the thesis for departmental review. To get a proposal accepted by the department the student needs to demonstrate familiarity with a general body of literature in a philosophical field, identify areal and important problem or issue that has not been exhausted in that literature, show an idea of how to treat that problem in a more or less original and promising way, and produce a plan that promises to get the job done in three years or less." - From the Rice Philosophy Department webpage.
At the defense, the student has to give a 15-20 minute presentation, and then the student gets questioned by faculty members for about 35-40 minutes. The faculty members then convene and deliberate about whether to pass the proposal. (It is of course assumed that all of the faculty members have read the proposal, although one never really knows to what extent this is true.)
Thursday night, when I first went through a mock trial of my presentation, it took me 16 minutes just to explain what chapters 1 and 2 were all about (my dissertation will have 5 chapters). That's trouble. If I exceeded the 20 minute mark, I would likely be cut off by the faculty. But what was worse at this particular moment was the fact that I had recently gotten an email from my advisor saying to keep the presentation to 10 minutes! I wrote him back saying that other faculty members told me 15-20, asking if he was sure 10 was right. And he never got back to me! (It turns out, the email was somehow lost in his inbox. I dunno. But he said he was mistaken about the whole 10 minutes thing).
So I was a bit flummoxed. Adrienne, patiently, and in spite of the fact that I was visibly aggravated, calmed me down and asked the right questions in order to make me see that I could very well do the whole thing in 15 minutes. After, oh I dunno, 7 or so mock trials, I finally got the presentation down to a solid 17 minutes or so, with all the info packed in there in the right way and to the right extent.
The next day, my students LOVED the AMAZING signature chocolate chip cookies. And I got to introduce them to my fiancee, which really got their attention. When I said, "My fiancee made these cookies, and she's here - right there in the back," everyone simultaneously turned their heads to Adrienne. It was cute.
We went home for lunch, and I did one more mock trial. I was ready. Back to Rice for the defense...
Nervous and anxious as I was, once I started talking - I got into a groove. I was fine and feeling good. Some of the questions I got were really, really tough. I didn't always have a great answer (which is to be expected, since it's a proposal), but I always had some answer and so while I got knocked around a bit, I never got knocked down. Overall, while I got grilled, it felt more like a good discussion rather than that I was merely getting grilled.
The department took a long time to deliberate, which made me nervous. But I passed with flying colors, with no revisions necessary. My advisor told me that the reason they took so long to deliberate was that they got distracted and kept talking about the issues, which is good!
So I've now been "advanced to candidacy". I'm a Ph.D. candidate. I'm "ABD" (All But Dissertation). It's quite a relief, because for a while I was feeling pretty stagnant and unsure of myself and whether I could make it and see it all through. But it looks like I can do it now; just have to write this thing now. No small task, of course. But, it's doable.
My close friends in the department were all away for the weekend, which actually worked out nice for Adrienne and I, because we got to celebrate just the two of us. She took me out to our favorite restaurant in Houston -
Cafe Rabelais, where we enjoyed champagne, a bottle of win, and a badass meal. It was great, and fitting, because there's not another person in the world besides my Adrienne with whom I would have wanted to spend that evening celebrating a significant accomplishment. I couldn't have gotten to this point without her support, and likewise with respect to the support of many others.
Adrienne turned 27 yesterday. We celebrated her birthday on saturday night (since she had to leave on sunday). I surprised her with a night at the Opera! Yup, I took her to see an opera: Donizetti's The Elixir of Love. It was actually my first opera. It was a wonderful evening.
And that was that. The next day, sadly, Adrienne had to leave. We had lunch at another of our favorites - Ruggles - and then I took her to the airport. But no worries - Thanksgiving will be here soon! - and that means I'll be home soon. And then shortly after that, I'll be home for Christmas break. Sweetness.
In any case, that was a recap of sorts of The Journey of 10/30 - 11/8: Nine of my most favorite days of my life so far.
