Days of wine and Aristidia purpurea

I admit. Sometimes (okay, most of the time) I act like I’m superior to my classmates, casting disdain in every direction regardless of subject or level of knowledge. I’m not actually that arrogant; you know that, right? I like to dig up comic relief where I can find it, and where better to unearth the funny bits than to magnify your own skills as well as the ignorance of those around you?

I don’t think I’m THE SHIT. For the most part I get embarrassed when someone compliments me on my performance, be it at work, in school, or other areas. Online, I can be a bit less humble because I don’t have to look anyone in the face. It’s weird. I’m weird. Let’s move on.

All that being said…

I simply do not understand many of my classmates at OSU. No, really. I just don’t. They all seem like very nice people. Friendly, always trying to be helpful, providing encouragement and support to one another. It’s like one big temporary family. But the questions that come tumbling out of their mouths…they’re just astounding. I have said this before and I’ll say it again…I have always expected better from students attending an actual university. I can understand having a moderate amount of dumbasses at the community college level because although community colleges are generally good schools and smart people do attend there, often times they’re also the dumping grounds for people who have no drive, motivation, or grey matter but are forced to attend to keep their parents from kicking them to the curb after high school. So I accept the stupid questions and ridiculous comments I hear from community college students. I accept that they might not read the materials thoroughly or really try hard enough to understand what they’re reviewing.

However. At the university level…most often schools that you have to actually be accepted to by a rigorous application and academic review process…I expect to have classmates who read everything the instructor provides them, try very hard to work things out on their own, and go back and thoroughly review all materials, syllabi, memos, etc before asking the general populace for assistance. To be extremely frank, THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED YET. Six terms into my stint at OSU and I’m still seeing people ask stupid questions with obvious answers that were already covered in the course materials and lest they forget, can be easily found by rereading said course materials. I’m starting to feel really bad for my professors. Really really bad. I’m not exaggerating in any way. I promise. The level of inattention to detail is mindblowing. I’ve seen students ask “Will we be tested on x, y, and z?” within half an hour of the professor posting a memo stating “You will not be tested on x, y, and z.” DEAD. SERIOUS.

This makes it really hard for me to take class discussions seriously. How can I take cricitism of my opinion with a straight face from a guy who just two days ago asked if the Ungraded Exercises would, in fact, be graded? I may start telling people to get the fuck off my lawn. Or perhaps administer a quick IQ test before I determine if their opinion is worth taking into consideration.

I may not be a genius, but I am at least smart enough to wipe my own ass.

Wine, Cheese, and Smelly Naturalists

So. Um. I was too drunk to really blog Friday night. (and was too busy studying yesterday to care) Well I wasn’t really drunk, per se. But I was definitely not in a place to be putting words on the internet.

Suffice it to say, the wine tasting was good clean fun. We got there early enough (five minutes after it started) that there was hardly anyone there yet, so we weren’t packed shoulder-to-shoulder like a tin of sardines. The featured winery of the evening was Boeger, a favorite of ours. They brought eight wines to taste, and taste them we did. Holy fuck, did we ever taste ’em. The guy doing the pouring was literally pouring half glasses. Now, if you’ve ever been to a wine tasting, you know that the emphasis is on the tasting part. You know. Like, just enough in your glass to taste and then move on to the next wine. Yeah. So. No, it was like being at a party. By the fifth wine, I was feeling a little relaxed and by the end of the tasting entirely, I was downright cheerful and talktative. This made me a lot of temporary friends, to say the less. Especially when I took a large bite of this gorgeous buttery brie on the snack table and declared loudly “Oh my god, this cheese will make you cum!” It would be one thing if I had a mother who was at least somewhat mortifiable and thus would curb or correct my behavior. Instead, I have the mother who has been known to describe a wine as “orgasmic” in a public venue and then break into When Harry Met Sally moans.

Why my father lets us go to these things is beyond me.

I was frotted a bit at the snack table by a tall, skinny fellow who informed me that he was a naturalist; I’m not sure if he was telling me because I looked like I cared or because he was trying to explain the fact that he smelled like the underside of a butt. Either way, having an unknown boner shoved into my side while being assaulted by whiffy armpits is definitely a party foul in my book. Hope it was good for him. I was busy with the cheese.

Afterwards we made our way into the store itself to seek out that unbelievable brie and a couple bottles of the wines we’d just tasted. Folks, seriously, this brie? It’s not to be trifled with. It was soft, gooey, and was like eating a stick of butter. And when I picked up a wedge from the chilled cheese counter, the insides were already oozing out of the rind. It’s just THAT good. I stopped to flirt with a guy trying to pick out a white wine for…something. Dunno, didn’t ask. He was cute and there I was with a wedge of brie and a bag of caramel Pirate’s Booty (sup) in the wine aisle, grabbing bottles of sauvignon blanc off the shelf and he’s looking all dilemma’ed with tousled hair…*sigh*

We coerced the deli counter to slice us some paper-thin salami, nabbed a loaf of amazing crusty wheat sourdough, and went back to the folks’ house where we literally cranked through that entire wedge of cheese (could NOT stop eating. Butter. BUTTER, I SAY), the whole half pound of salami, most of the loaf of bread, and two bottles of sauv blanc. You can see why I didn’t bother blogging afterwards. You think I’m carrying on about the cheese now (BUTTER)…I would’ve been jerking it off for six paragraphs that night.

Some days it’s good that I’m relatively anti-social these days. See kids, it pays to go back to school in your thirties.

…In Other News

BOUTELOUA GRACILIS. GRINDELIA SQUARROSA. ASTRAGALUS MOLLISSIMUS. SPHAERALCEA COCCINIA. Remind me of these things when I’m looking back several months from now and musing how my Wildland Plant ID class wasn’t so bad…