Why My Friends Are Cool

Really, I should probably title this entry "Why My Friends Are TOTAL NERDS."
The most hilarious e-mail exchange has been going on this week. Actually, truth be told, I don't know if this will be funny to anyone but me and the select group of friends who have been writing the e-mails. But because the e-mails flying back and forth have been one of the highlights of my week, I decided to copy and paste them here.
Earlier this week Nicole sent out an e-mail inviting all the grad students in our department to go out on Friday night. I'm in a tiny department (there are only about a dozen of us working on campus and taking classes right now) so whenever one of us plans a social activity we usually just e-mail all the other PhD students and invite them. Typically only about half of us end up on any given outing, but over the past two years we've developed a tradition of at least trying to go out in a big group once a month or so.
This time, rather than just writing an e-mail saying, "Hey, I'm going to City A on Friday night, who wants to come with me?" Nicole modeled her e-mail on the call for conference papers that our inboxes are bombarded with on a daily basis. Here is the original "call":

Dear Graduate student and recent graduates,

Here's another call for partiers. The event will take place Friday night at 9 pm in [local nightlife neighborhood]. The theme is "How Much Can You Drink While Still Being Able to Eat a Piece of Pizza the Size of Your Torso Without Being Sick on the Subway?" I will be accepting responses until Friday morning. Late registration will have to call me at [phone number], and there will be a fee of a drink. :)

I highly encourage you all to attend this event. It behooves all of us to attend as many party nights as we can, while still keeping our rigorous academic standards.

I hope to see you all there,

Nicole

P.S.-Apologies for cross-posting.

When I got the e-mail, I laughed and then responded with a simple, "I'll meet up with you after my belly dancing class."* But it turns out I'm lame, because everyone else composed responses like this:

Hello all,
M. and I are in if the plan is still on.
M. will be presenting on The Need for Alcohol in A Post 9/11 Satirical Liminal Culture and I will be presenting on The Aesthetics of the Body Shot.
J.

and

Although prior educative engagements prevent me from attending during convocation, I nevertheless feel obliged to be in attendance at the latter session,where I will be presenting my work The Aesthetics of Kissing on Multiple Planes. My primary research partner may well join me in this venture, provided his extradisciplinary obligations do not require concurrent attention.
E.

and

Dear all,
I thank you all for your good wishes during my most recent brush with the monkey pox. But since my temperature is down and my dander is up, I am happy to announce that I will be attending tomorrow night's conference, where I will be presenting an experiential exploration of Caillois' notion of ilinx, i.e. self-induced vertigo as play. The title of my workshop is "'The Voluptuous Panic': Destroying Stability of Perception With my Drink and my Two-Step." Methodologies employed will include suspension of social constrictions, nose-painting, rhythmic locomotion, and--if things get out of hand--spinning. Refreshments are compulsory. I am eager to share my work with colleagues and look forward to your input.
M.

I'm pretty sure this e-mail exchange is a proof that seven to eight years of higher education is, in fact, TOO MUCH EDUCATION. The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that there is a very select number of people that will find this funny. But you know, I'm glad that I know those people. I could have ended up in an extremely competitive department, or a department where everyone just ignores each other except in seminars. Ending up here was very lucky, for myriad reasons, and the friends I have made in the past year and a half are definitely one of them.

*I took a belly dancing class last night. It was a free workshop offered on campus. A friend invited me, but she's pregnant and last week she was put on exercise restriction by her doctor so she ended up not being able to go after all. I figured since I was already registered and it was a free dance class I might as well go even if I had to go alone, and I'm so glad I did. It was so much fun! Now that I know this free workshop program exists, I think I'll be looking for more to try in the future (they're actually teaching dances from Bollywood movies next month, which sounds awesome, but the workshop is already full. Boo!)