The Changing of the Guard

Despite my lack of posts through this fall, life has not actually been all that boring.  On the contrary, it's been a pretty good year so far!  We've had a bunch of house guests (because of football season), I've only gone out of town a couple of times, and most shockingly, I haven't minded sticking around. :) 

I have to admit that a lot of this has to do with the changing of the guard of my teaching assistant, or TA.  I'm still not sure what it says about me that I relate to my TA's more than my colleagues, but nevertheless, the two that I've had so far have become two of my closest friends.



Over the span of a year, L (TA from 2010-2011) went from a smart, sweet and easy-to-get-along-with TA to a Vegas, Britney, tailgating and Brew Do partner. :)

Me and L in VEGAS!...

...and tailgating :)

I've blogged about her several times from the first time she and D dragged me out downtown, to her "farewell tour" in May.

But this, I believe is the blog debut of this year's TA, who I'm going to call Golden Boy.

Golden Boy is given that name for a few reasons.  He's a massive overachiever who is getting a ridiculous number of degrees (1 bachelor's, 3 masters') in the time that it takes a lot of students just to get one.  When he's not doing homework or in one of his 8 (9?) classes, he is probably coming up with his latest idea to help out in developing countries. He is also just a super nice guy.

He and L are similar in that they're both a lot of fun and I could hang out with either of them forever and not get bored.  They can make me laugh until I cry and they both have amazing hearts.  They are very loyal to their friends and they're both really really smart.  As an extension, they are both really great TAs. :)

However, they are also extremely different.

L is perhaps the single most laid-back person I've ever met, and Golden Boy (GB) is super intense and always seems to be thinking of 1000 different things at once.

L is a great drinking buddy, and the only thing GB pounds is Coca-Cola. OK maybe coffee too...and candy.

It's funny that one of the things that I've wrestled with the most during my time here in the 'burg has actually been the most rewarding: the mental shift into being OK with creating friendships with these TAs.

The trick was that I had to start thinking of them as not just students (or ex-students).  In my professional life, I have been lucky enough to count most of my supervisors and "supervisees" among my friends.  In fact, all of my closest friends in my adult life have been the people I worked with, so why should this be any different? I don't know that it should.

And so Golden Boy is reaping the benefits of this realization much earlier than L did. In fact, we have already had some pretty great adventures. Maybe not of the crazy "What just happened?!?" variety that I had with L and D, but fun in a different way.

Who's the boss?

And once again I've learned that sometimes you can find great friends in the most unexpected places. :)