I had a bit of a faux-paus today where I cracked some joke that I wouldn't let up on, and the professor took me aside and told me that I might not be picking up on the social cues that I was ticking off some of the kids in the class.

I felt pretty embarrassed, although it reiterated to me what a great professor I have. It just reminded me that social cues and graces just are never going to be second-nature to me, and that I really have to remember when I should let my guard down and just free-flow or when I should perhaps think about what I'm saying before I say it. She also reminded me that I'm in a different area, and that some things that might be joked about casually where I'm from aren't taken so nonchalantly here.

The other dimension to this is that I've been feeling tension with some of the people in my department, and it has been bothering me. There's this dude. I'll call him "Eric". Eric is this arrogant ass who, on the account of the fact that he's somewhat cute and cocky, has several of the girls in our department hanging on to his every word. He doesn't like me, and I've been feeling tension with the guy since week 1. He's got this wingmen, this girl who never leaves his side and likes to snub me right along with him. And they, and to a lesser extent their developing clique, have just made me feel very uncomfortable. I've been snubbed many times before, but experiencing this as a 24-year in the grad school setting just has me flabbergasted. I wasn't expecting to run into that kind of mentality here, and it's left me a little disjointed. I think this, combined with the gentle lashing I got from the professor, really got me down. So tonight after class I just sorta went out with my lone friend there, got drunk, and sang LFO's "Summer Girls" to forget about life for awhile. (As fate would have it, my job is shifting around hours and I don't have the Tuesday shift I thought I had.) I won't make a habit out of Monday Night Drinking, but it really helped to talk my friend and to talk to my roommate. They both basically just said to me, "Don't let the assholes bother you, just continue being you but take a second to think about whether a joke you might crack might rub people the wrong way."

Justin, my roomate, was basically like, "JR, you're fine. You're doing your work. You're getting assignments done. You've balancing in your 9-hour job, and you've got the resident hall stuff you're doing. You're making friends. Don't let the few assholes get you down."

He's definitely right. It was good to just talk this all out, though- one of the things I learned from life is that not talking about my problems and letting things build- that causes bigger problems in the end. I will take up my advisor/professor's invitation to talk at some point, and just...keep on keeping on, I guess.