God, I'm glad I don't have a penis...

I've been on a blogging hiatus of sorts. Christmas break was refreshing, but ended on a sour note. Not only did Oogie, my furry companion, die a mysterious premature death, but we also learned that a friend of ours from Tennessee passed away two days after that. Add that this has been one of the hardest stretches of time for me academically and professionally, and you can see how I've just not felt like posting for all the world to see. But, I am coming back with a vengeance!

I have all sorts of interesting courses on the integration of psychology and theology percolating in my brain. I'm going to try to be a bit more sophisticated in the future weeks and months than I have been in the recent past here on my blog. ( i.e. See the "Stunt Ass" quiz results below.)

But, I do think I'd like to share a turn of events that pissed me off to no end. My friend and colleague A and I are researching together. It's completely theoretical, but our article was accepted for presentation at a conference and we'll soon be submitting it for publication. We invited some of our classmates who are new to graduate school to join us, so that these two young men could learn the ropes of research and being a part of a team, so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize how many issues we'd have around the fact that some (many? most?) men my age (25) just can't quite handle women who are intelligent and more knowledgeable than they are in a certain area. So these two colleagues have been difficult to work with at times.

For weeks, we've been trying to schedule a meeting time. So today, we finally, although begrudingly, agreed to meet during our one hour break between 8 hours of class on Thursdays. None of us likes it, but such is the life of a grad student. The following conversation ensued between one of the male colleagues, J, and I today in the presence of our other male colleague and J's good friend, C:

J: So, if we're meeting during our break, I guess we should pack a lunch then?

Me: Yeah, I guess so. I don't think we'll use the whole break every week, but we should this next week. There's just not enough time to grab some lunch and get back here to get anything done.

J: Well, Nicole could you email me and remind me to bring a lunch?

Me: Huh? What? Don't you have a planner?

J: Well, yeah, but I don't look at it.

Me: No, J, I won't do that. I am too busy to be emailing you reminding you to bring a lunch. (Thinking to myself, "You narcissisitic asshole, what am I, your mother?")

J: Well, then if I forget, I guess I'll just have to miss the first part of the meeting.

Me: I guess so.


So, I have revisited this conversation with many colleagues. It's offensive on many levels. The most offensive to me is that I'm pretty certain J only asked me to remind him rather than our other colleague C because I am a female. This may be hard to tell here, but it fits with other interactions with J.

But regardless of my sex, this is offensive because it implies that J isn't to be responsible for something as reasonable as PACKING HIS OWN FUCKING LUNCH. Come now, we're all adults, at least according to our ages.

I know, I have to go revisit this conversation with J, and it won't be well received. But, via therapy and my training, I'm learning the measure of whether a conversation is a good one to have is not dependent upon receiving the response that I would like. Nope, speaking truth is the goal, a receptive response is just icing on the cake.

Sigh. Have any of you, my dear male academicians, had a colleague ask you send him/her lunch reminders? I didn't think so.