I had a wonderful Chinese food dinner for faculty chats last night. It was with the chair of the theater department, I forget his name. His name is inconsequential to this story. In any case, we were sitting around, enjoying mediocre Chinese food from Panda East (I suspect it was not in fact real panda, but rather imitation panda, i.e. chicken with water chesnuts.). We were conversating and I felt kind of like I was eating dinner at a friend's house, trying to make polite conversation, trying to be entertaining without being offensive (something which is becoming more and more difficult each day). At some point, Mr. Theater Chair (T.C. I will call him. There was a cop in my town that everyone called T.C. and he seemed like a pretty good guy.) asked us how we liked UMass. The collective response was that everyone LOVES it here. Except for me, apparently, who sat at the end of the table trying to shovel rice into my mouth with chopstick. (Earlier I had threatened my roommate that if she did not opt for the chopsticks, I would go through her stuff when she wasn't in the room, so I couldn't be a hypocrite.) T.C. asked us why we loved it so, and again I mumbled "I don't". Everyone else started to say the people, the party scene, the excitement of not knowing whether or not you'll be stabbed when you go out on weekends. In any case, I started thinking. Then I stopped because it hurt. But then I started back up again, and I realized it isn't as bad here as I once thought. I also realized I was being a pansy for not saying what I really thought. But whatevs. I might not be able to do film here, but I can deal. As long as I don't take a screwdriver to the temple, I'll be okay.