Lemons, Straws and Grad School

My father was in town this weekend, less to visit me and more to go to this Indian Classical music concert on Friday. I feel so loved.

Moving on, I think I scared him a bit. I've always been the quiet, thinking type, but have become even more so over the past few months. Grad school will do that to you. The past few weeks have also been mentally tough, so much so that my brain is constantly all over the place. I ran into a friend whilst looking for a lecture room on Friday evening, and ended up talking to him for about 15 minutes (I think. It may have been a shorter or longer period of time. I don't remember). When I ran off to the lecture, having realized that it had (or was supposed to have had) started 20 minutes earlier, I also realized that I'd been extraordinarily scatterbrained throughout our conversation, so much so that I sent him an email apologizing for it once I got home.

Anyway. So Father-Dear and I were having dinner the night before he was heading back to the West Coast. We were waiting for our food to arrive when he asked me why I had been deep in thought for the entire weekend. I looked up and stared at him blankly, as if to ask, 'uh deep in thought? me? no!' He didn't believe me at first, and asked me what I'd been thinking about for the past five minutes. I didn't respond to the question at first. He asked me again. And finally, mustering up some courage (because I was afraid of looking stupid), and putting down the straw for my nimbu-paani (lemon water/soda) that I'd been fiddling with, I said the following.

You see this lemon slice? Well, when it's in your drink, the lemon peel makes one side heavier than the other, which makes piercing the lemon flesh with your straw difficult.

He looked at me as if were insane. I replied, 'Ya. That's what grad school will do to you.'