I had the chance on Friday to tag along with a few friends in a car headed for the cities for an academic conference. My bud B presented his incredible paper on creative non-fiction and its legitimate place within academia. After he rocked it at the conference, we piled back in the cute little silver space pod known as our Prius and drove to a Malaysian restaraunt by the name of Peninsula. The food was some of the best I’ve ever had, the conversation was fun and happy and content, and the company was the best. On the way back, my future professor and current pal T introduced everyone else in the car to kumquats, which are a tiny, egg-shaped fruit, orange like an orange and more delicious than you could ever imagine. I do believe that I’m in love with that fruit.
The team had a meet in River-Falls, WI, yesterday and after the 3.5 hour drive, we evacuated the overly warm bus into the totally cold outside. The meet itself went pretty well but the coolest part was the ride home. I hadn’t called my family in a while so I rang them and my little brother IP picked up the phone with a “Yes hello Mr. Brother.” He’s only 9 years old so a solid conversation is usually hard to manage due to external distractions. Before he could manage to see something shiny or sparkly I asked him how he was doing, how school was going, etc., to which he responded with a huge burst of joy, “I got my report card back and guess what. I got an S in every class!” I am so proud of my little bro, not only because he had a good quarter of school and is putting in the effort (well, all the effort that 9 year old should be putting in) but that he hasn’t fallen into the mindset of “Being smart and getting good grades is dumb.” IP is also great to talk to because he’s always so excited about things. He helps me to put things in perspective and realize, yeah, things in this world are pretty magical and awesome. I need to stop forgetting that.
