barring classes and research, this is the essence of graduate school:

to sit in a well visited coffee shop with 2-5 Very Smart People, drink coffee at 10pm, and discuss things that are exciting to us. and since it's the beginning of the year, we're still one graduate school instead of eight departments. with a little language translation (interdisciplinary and intercultural AND interlingual) everybody can speak freely to everybody else. there's a french student here in the english program to research changing american perceptions of france using tourist guidebooks from 1970-present. there's a german student majoring in american studies in her home country, here to study american literature for a year in an american english department.  over half the incoming graduate students i've met have some sort of undergraduate research, and if asked most are glad to talk about it. most come from small schools where they worked closely with a professor. i wish is had something to add to those conversations. mine is so tied to the mathematics behind it that i can really only give a two sentence description. so instead i sit back and listen to a turkish student explain how turkish coffee is made. apparently, an espresso shot is weak. nobody makes strong coffee over here. and they drink it black. shawn would approve.

andy