Leaving academia behind.

No, don't be alarmed: These essays haven't turned me off the academic life!

My new friend LG has a PhD but is now in law school. In and of itself, this information is a little surprising to me, seeing as how I can't imagine being a lawyer after having done research and teaching. But, what really saddened me was when he said that when he finished his doctorate, he gave away all his books on the subject. Wow. Imagine me getting my PhD and then saying, "Screw Siberia and all you other dead people. I wanna enter professional school!" As if. I love history! I mean, it's one thing to not get a job and then end up doing something else, and even liking the something else . . . but to give it completely up after all those years? I don't walk in his shoes, so I wonder what happened.

I must ask next time I see him what went wrong (or right?). Of course, it's none of my business, but it just seems like such a sad story.

In happier news, though, I saw some historians that I hadn't seen in a while yesterday. I do love those upper-years . . . they are too cool. And then I went to Massey, where my new friend EM and I checked out the pumpkins that had been carved by Masseyites the day before. We had to walk past people in fancy dress, a few menacing-looking cops and even a sniffer dog making sure the books in the Upper Library weren't concealing any bombs! Why, you ask? Well, the Swedish royal couple was in town, and Massey wined and dined them last night. I skipped the post-dinner festivities at the college to watch the first episode of "Firefly" with FN and LG. Oh, and when I came home, there was scrumptious chocolate ca... er, chocolate something-without-flour waiting for me. Thanks FN!! It was too good.