Gimme Little Drink...

This post is kind of about a drink. Well, it's gonna start out that way, who knows where it'll get to by the end, BUT that gives me a great excuse to share this treasure with you:

I absolutely love this video - it is so cool to see Jack White with that huge grin on his face, getting totally starstruck by the Stones. I don't think I've even seen him crack a hint of a smile before or since. It's a clip from Shine a Light, which is a great watch in its entirety, but this was really the highlight for me. Enjoy. 

How can it be, that at 31 years of age, I get the opportunity TWICE in one month for a fishbowl? For the uninitiated (and reading this blog that is probably only momma bird, though I may have told her already about at least one of these incidents), a fishbowl is a big bowl full of various liquors. If you actually see this being "mixed" it's even scarier. The Ritz used to put swedish fish in the bottom, quite a nice touch I think. Thanks Stacia). 

I have not even seen a fishbowl in about 10 years at least, but now, two times in row. In different states. 

This is what 20+ academics at marketing symposium in Nebraska do afterhours. Who would have thought it? Sorry for the poor photo quality, having only my Blackberry. I wasn't expecting such a photo op to present itself that night. I have never been to a marketing symposium/conference/consortium/etc and I may write more about it another time, but for today all I have to say is this was surprising.
And I was there! But, my friends, this was the second time.

Sidetrack: The first was in Hood River on the previously mentioned ski trip. Somehow I forgot to tell you all that we went out *a bit* after skiing. There is a fantastic brewery there Double Mountain, but it closed pretty early. We went down to "Jack's" (I put this in quotes because there was no name on the outside and no one seemed sure that was the real name) - Chinese restaurant by day, club (?) by night. They had a variation of the fishbowl never before seen which was two size choices (what?! large and extra large) served in those huge chinese family style soup bowls. And they didn't call them fishbowls, they called them Scorpions. A stranger we met tried to get us to share one with him. We politely declined. Several times.

The symposium was a great experience, but the flight back was epic (bad way). We flew from Lincoln to CHICAGO to SAN FRANCISCO to EUGENE... We had been flying for about 5 hours already when I looked to that lovely little screen that must be meant for hypnosis only because who ever looks at the progress of the plane and thinks "wow, that's further than I thought!" and we were flying RIGHT OVER LINCOLN. Thanks travel agent. And I am serious, this flight had to be booked through a travel agent. It's shocking with the value that these people add that they are in obsolescence, isn't it? Oh, and the 5 hour layover in SF was a nice touch.

I also wanted to mention that spring is in the air back in Eugene.

My massive magnolia in FULL BLOOM. Missed it last year because I was in FL.

Spring means

1) Baseball.

For the first year in forever I get to PLAY softball. I used to love to play when I was in high school, but that was a while ago. Yeah. I'm a little nervous because it's been a long time and I am playing on an established team that is a group of people who passionately and intensely work out together so we'll see how I stack up. I did have the best batting average on my team. In 1995. 

My man and I got some gloves. I couldn't believe he found his (lefty) at Goodwill. I'm pretty sure that mine belonged to a young boy in its past life. 

And just because I am talking about baseball does not mean I want to talk about the Sox and their 0-6 record. Or the Rays and their acquisition of Johnny Damon, Manny or even the returning, AK47-toting Longoria. 

Now all I can think of is It Was A Good Day by Ice Cube. Let's hope Evan never has to use his A.K.

2) Spring means winter quarter is over. The evaluations are in and I did not win any popularity contests. I don't want to go off on too much of a rant here, but can we just do away with student evaluations? In the words of a sage advisor, you can't let twenty year-olds affect your self-esteem. Evals really are just not helpful. Case in point (these are real word-for-word "feedback" I get from students):

Good: 

"I really enjoyed taking Cat's class. Her teaching style was really great for me. She is definitely very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject."

Or not so good: 

"Her expectations were completely unachievable. Although Cat's in-class teaching was somewhat satisfactory, her out of class techniques and methods were completely unfair and unable to be met" 

(This student also called me "completely irrational" which I can almost take as that she learned something about consumer behavior since I show the Dan Ariely talk Predictably Irrational. Great video, great book btw. If you have an extra 20, check it out. If not just finish up here. In fact, if she had just said predictably rather than completely as her adverb here I would have been able to laugh about it sooner.) I would like to mention to the readers that the average final grade of the class was an 84, highest I've ever given and highest allowed by the business school grade scale guidelines. 

How about this?

Cat was awesome and fun, really enjoyed the class!

Counterpoint:

She didn't seem very friendly either.

These two comments are FROM THE SAME STUDENT:

"Just an overall dissatisfaction with the professor" and "Good class and relevant material"

So are these two (different student):

"lectures can get boring" and "interesting material"

At least this quarter no one mentioned their wish that I brought donuts more often like a previous student had used his evaluation to let me know.

I have never brought donuts. 

Maybe I should?