On Fridays, I have lunch with my beautiful, smart, wonderful daughter. She's in college but her campus is within walking distance of mine so on Fridays, she walks over from Snowstorm University to the campus where I work. It's funny to see her on my campus, sometimes interacting with my students, to have my home world and campus world overlapping in that way.
She meets me in my office and I will often stop to say something to a colleague or student on my way out. After the brief interaction, she and I will walk on and she will give me her capsule version of the interaction.
"Well, clearly you don't like Colleague X, but you know you have to work with her so you are overcompensating by acting all friendly."
or
"You are trying to be nurturing and supportive of that student because you want to encourage him, but secretly you are wondering why the hell he chose that project."
The amazing part is that her quick characterizations are completely on target every time.
"Wow," I said to her today, "Am I that transparent?"
She shrugged: "Yeah, you are."
She added: "Of course, I know you pretty well."
Then she laughed. "And besides, I'm smarter than most people."
3 comments:
Hee. That's neat. I've gone to work with my mom a few times and we've had similarish conversations. After a number of years, you just learn to read your mom's actions. :)
How funny. The precocious-er becomes the precocious-ee. OK, I really don't know what that means, but it sounded clever when I said it in my head.
Hehe...I have the same relationship with my father...only he's an accountant. It's funny how family ties work that way.
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