The Key to Success

I have discovered the secret to success in my Monday night class. We have to turn in reading response papers for this class so last night at about 9:30 I sat down at the computer to hammer out my two-page paper. However, by the time I sat down to write the thing I was already 4 beers into my evening and definitely feeling buzzed (I don't normally drink on Sunday nights, but Penn and I had been out with his friends watching football). I remember thinking as I wrote it, "This is nonsense! Also, probably NOT correct!" So imagine my surprise when I got the paper back this evening and scrawled across the top was the phrase, "Excellent work. You raise some great questions." I had four beers! I was basically one or two more beers away from drunk when I wrote that paper. And it earned me an "Excellent work"! This has the unfortunate effect of making me feel pretty much invincible, which is definitely going to come back to bite me in the ass eventually.

In other news, I have pretty much convinced myself that I need to go to Russia next year. There's a course being offered next semester that involves spending a week in Russia, and over the course of the past, oh, six hours or so I have gone from thinking, "Russia would be fun but that's really no use to me or my research," to, "I've always wanted to see Moscow and this could be my only chance to do it since it seems like it's going to get increasingly difficult to get a visa," to, "I'd be a complete idiot not to take advantage of the chance to go to Russia with people who speak the language and actually know what they're doing, especially since the program cost is going to be very heavily subsidized by the school." So yeah! Russia! Wouldn't that be awesome? More updates after Friday when I go to the informational meeting and find out exactly how much money I'd have to come up with to make it happen.

Now I'm off to finish my reading for tomorrow since I spent most of the weekend kayaking, drinking beer, getting naked, and eating baked spaghetti...although not necessarily in that order and certainly not all at once.