Friday Five

I have all sorts of random bits and pieces of posts, but I don't have anything that seems to warrant a post on its own. So let's hear it for the Friday Five!

1. I passed my qualifying exams. One of the biggest hurdles of my academic career is over. I get to continue studying for my doctorate. My adviser and co-adviser are both very supportive of my intended dissertation topic, so defending my proposal shouldn't be too scary (it's still about 18 months away, though). Getting my proposal funded, however, is a different story, and that's the next big hurdle: convincing the people with the money that my topic is worthy.

2. Is anyone else bothered by the new Dunkin Donuts commercials, the ones in which they make fun of other coffee places for using French/Italian/Fretalian words and then claim that they use plain English? Except that the commercials are selling the Dunkin Donuts latte. Um, isn't "latte" an Italian word?

3. So I'm almost certain that I saw one of my classmates picking his nose and eating the boogers. In class. Repeatedly. I think he's an international student, and maybe that behavior is okay in his culture, but he's a graduate student at a U.S. university. I would think that he would have figured out that picking one's nose in a public place is taboo here.

4. Rowen will be spending this weekend away. I may be going to Malawi for about two months this summer (if I get funding), and I need to find someone to take care of Rowen while I am away. A friend's husband offered to take care of her---if she can get along with their cats. (The friend will hopefully be spending her summer in Kenya, so her husband would be the one taking care of Rowen.) So Rowen is going to stay with them this weekend as a trial run. I'm already sad that she'll be away for two days!

5. If I ever had any doubts that I do not want children, they were laid to rest this morning when I stepped on the bus to discover that it had been taken over by some sort of Mommy-and-Me day out. And my first reaction was, "Oh. Dear. God." I don't hate kids; they can be fun. And I'm thrilled that so many of my blogger buddies are expecting. But the idea of dealing with squirming, squealing kids at 9.30 in the morning in an enclosed space is kind of horrifying to me. Fortunately, these kids were mostly well-behaved (and it was kind of cute how excited they got when they saw some ducks).