New hat

I got a new hat yesterday. It was a gift from my father. He had intended it to arrive before the gala, but the gala happened faster than he'd expected.

It's a really cool hat.

I'm planning to wear it to the Zamenhof Symposium on Tuesday and I'll get my Esperanto friends to get some pictures of me wearing it in NYC. Then I'll post some pictures. But you'll have to wait until then.

The summer after I arrived, there was a visiting faculty member from England -- an evolutionary biologist. I think we were talking about a faculty member that everyone described as being a real pain-in-the-ass -- a real a-hole. But I mentioned that she was always really nice to me. He said, "Well, that's no surprise." Being a new non-tenure system faculty member, I said something self-deprecating about myself and he said, "No, you're the person that nobody *ever* wants to piss off." I was surprised, thinking myself rather low on the totem pole, but he said, "Look. You're the one that can make things happen for people. You're the one that people call on in a pinch, when they're stuck. You're the one that nobody can afford to piss off."

I remember being scandalized at the idea that I would withhold my cooperation from someone...