As promised, Flannery and I fried fish last night. Catfish nuggets, to be precise. She was one happy cat...after dinner I left for a few hours to go back to my place and get some stuff done, watch the Cubs get swept by the Brewers, check out the Daily Show...I got back and I think the constant fish smell had driven her nuts. I slept there and she kept biting and gnawing on me throughout the night as if I were some huge flopping fish. Maybe she's more right than I think. Stacey also normally gets up earlier than I do, so once 5-something AM (and Stacey doesn't even get up that early now that it's summer) rolled around, Flannery was doing everything in her power to get me out of bed.


One of the interesting and generally enjoyable aspects of the university experience is the presence of and interaction with international students. One of my favorite academic memories is of watching a Korean girl learn to hold her own within upper level English courses, with her writing in particular, and having discussions with her about the differences between educational systems. Where I worked before (still a part of the university) had a few grad students from places like Romania, Turkey, and Venezuela. The conversations and experiences with them were also quite enriching. The interesting thing about the international crowd, though, is that some of them want to stay in the U.S. and as a result, are on the hunt for an American mate. I dated a Russian girl (who I did not meet here where I work) for a few months who would do anything to get some poor dupe to marry her. We broke up at the end of 2002 and she was married already in early 2004 (and some would say Stacey and I are rushing things). After just maybe a month of actually dating she was taking things pretty far and pretty much insisting we get married by the time her student visa would run out. I stayed with her a bit longer just to see if things could be, you know, smoothed a bit and to not be a total jerk, but couldn't deal with that whole plan. I realize people get married for many reasons but I realized not long after that that she wasn't the sort of person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with...and I wasn't the type of person SHE wanted to spend her life with, either. Even on a much less frenetic level, I see around here that there's a decent amount of posturing that goes on because, you know, "this might be the guy (or girl) who keeps me here." It's just fun to watch once you know what to look for.
We also have a decent amount of people who just visit. Right now some Japanese (at least from what I can tell) girls are visiting, probably either late high school or early college age. Without having heard one word spoken, and without a lot of the usual signs (for example, for the most part they're not wearing trendy American girl clothing) I can still tell who the cool kids, the outcasty nerd types and so on are.

In other news, I suppose that if there's any NL team I don't mind seeing sweep the Cubs, it would be the Brewers. That said, these past few days haven't been kind.
Big series with the Cardinals (who have actually won 6 in a row) starts tomorrow night.
Look for the Cubs to have a much better second half...the star players who have been injured should still be back and while it will take them a while to get back to form and gel again, things should be clicking sometime in August...I just hope it isn't too late.