Flashes of Panic

There’s a weekly colloquium here, which is required for Masters students (and, while it isn’t explicitly required for Ph.D. students, it is part of their degree criteria.) There are usually cookies and soda in cups.

The speaker should start by 3:00, so everyone should have cruised the food table (outside the door) and be seated by then. However, there’s an undergraduate ECE course in just up the hall which is supposed to end at 2:45, but always runs late. If the food is out when the class lets out, the majority of it will be consumed by undergraduates not attending the colloquium.

I just realized I’ve started mapping out an XML schema in my head to describe the requirements which achieve the most efficient distribution of “refreshments” to the appropriate audience. I must stop now.

Update: It gets better. The cookies were there, and so were (approximately) ten grad students and junior faculty, but apparently the talk was yesterday. We have all agreed that this (the presence of cookies without a talk) presents a difficult and disturbing challenge to our world view. However, we did eat the cookies.

Now Playing: English Girls Approximately from Love Is Hell by Ryan Adams