the final stretch

this weekend is the one weekend i've been dreading all lent. recruitment weekend. two whole days of glorious, processed, FREE food. lots of people, lots of fun, lots of getting to know new folks and trying to convince them that this school is where they want to be for the next 2-5 years.

this is the weekend when grad students from across the building come together and catch up on old times, help the department mom get everything in order, and generally have a good time eating all the free food.

there is this secretary who makes the most delicious little smokie-wrapped-in-biscuit-and-cheese pigs in a blanket that are to die for. every single time she's made them, about all of us go hog wild and consume two days' worth of calories during the window of opportunity that is continental breakfast hour. we load up our plates, gobble them up. hoover, really. or dirt devil. i mean we literally make them disappear that fast.

they are so good that i, no longer being recruited, have routinely shown up at the english building as early as 7:30 on a saturday so that i might have the honor of devouring those little guys. oh, man.

there is, of course, a problem in this situation. little smokies are quite processed. so are kraft american cheese singles, or whatever you call the celophane-wrapped squares of yellow plastic. and so are canned biscuits, whose unnatural ingredients outweight the natural. none of these things can be consumed this side of easter morning.

i have, as i mentioned earlier, been dreading these two days. it's the home stretch of the no-processed-food lent, and while i have not really found myself missing stuff (not regularly, anyway), i am building up an intense regret about missing the annual little smokie pigs in blankets. the anticipatory regret is almost worse than guilt would be. still, i am resolutely not going to eat them.

i'm actually planning my friday around the little smokies, but not in the way i normally do. continental breakfast (and the smokies of sweet, sweet doom) takes place at nine [which is about an hour later than normal]. i start work at nine. the little smokies will be gone by 9:30, 9:40 at the latest. [no, i'm not kidding. they go that fast. why do you think i always got there so early? it's all about getting a place in line before they're gone.]

so. i need to be out of range until about 10:00, just to be absolutely safe. i know myself. the sight of a little smokie pig in a warm flaky blanket with slightly burned and therefore infinitely better tasting plastic cheese will destroy my resolve. [and i do have resolve. last thursday there was a meeting i had to attend, where they served pizza and homemade triple fudge brownies. i ate my dinner early and munched on grapes i brought from home. that's resolve, with the glistening pizza being eaten by your neighboring grad student and the scent of freshly baked crust wafting throughout the room... and not eating any. they were even begging people to take pizza home. so, yeah, i've got resolve.]

anyway, since class has been cancelled, i'm going to leave my apartment at about 9:30, which will put me on campus at around 10:00. i start work late, and stay through when i would have had class. all the hours are accounted for, but the little smokies of sweet, sweet doom are avoided.


and a note. on easter, i'm eating out. i want japanese, or chinese. preferably, i'll go to the tokyo down on 50th. alternatively, i may go the the china star on ave t or the great wall on 19th. maybe i'll take my officemate up on a lead and head out to his favorite sushi joint.

and now, for a little [more] quality homework before bed.

love and peace