Lunch with Sal & Adam at Qdoba's. Got ahold of my dad and wished him a happy birthday. I still wonder at the differences between him and me. Probably if I were all Mr. middle-aged business-owning-pants I might actually go golfing and rent limos to go up to a restaurant in the Dells for my 55th birthday, but as it stands right now, that sort of celebration seems in a wholly other world from mine. Well, really just the business-schmoozing-golf-outing thing is enough. I can't imagine ever doing that, but that's probably just my youthful idealism and lack of imagination talking. I mean, hell, my dad was raised in an evironment probably even more different from the world he currently buzzes around in than the one I grew up in. Nonetheless I feel extremely pressured away from the world of ordinary jobs and management and corporate hoo-hah, and towards... something. I always thought it was academia that I was gravitating towards, but the prospect of having to sit on committees and teach and write grant proposals and advise students and all that also scares the shit out of me.
I say I don't like celebrating my birthday (just two days away, now) much for all sorts of reasons, from not really liking to celebrate days in general, to not enjoying the process of gift-giving too much, even from the getting end, but I'm coming to realize that I'm just not too ecstatic about admitting that I have to eventually grow up, either.
Anyway.
Made more rice 'n' chicken, this time with canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Call me a heathen, but I think I like them better this way.
Did the japanese homework. Mercifully short this time. Mostly katakana practice.