Anyway, making your living on via a large socialist institution like a university has its benefits. I mean, the pay isn't great and there's all the committee work and it does require that one at least pretend to know how to get along with one's fellow humans, not to mention the hours (people think university professors work nine hours a week -- ha! if I stop working before ten at night I do a little happy dance): BUT: you've got this great available culture:
(1) Plays, given by our theater department, which now that the kid is old enough we've been taking her to. These knock her out. It doesn't hurt that one of my favorite students, and one that she likes a lot, is in the plays ("Is Jack going to be in this one?" she demands when I tell her we're going to a play. Since he's one of the best actors at the university right now, he always is, so she always consents to go.); but watching her being captivated by drama itself is so cool.
(2) The science building, the science professors, science. We've got a nice science building (unlike the English building, grr) and nice science professors. The kid and I like to go look at the fossils and the fish and the rocks; when we run into the science professors, they are always doing cool things, and will tell the kid about them. She just loves this.
(3) Music. Me, I'm musically illiterate, but mr. delagar, it's half his life. He and the kid spend hours listening to prog rock and classical music and the Beatles, and I can't tell you what they're listening to, discussing what's happening -- she recently confided to me that prog rock is her favorite sort of music. I wailed in pretended grief. "Better than Billy Bragg?" I said. "Better than Paul Simon? Better than STEVE EARLE?" She looked very prim. "Please, Mama."
What a fine child I have.
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