Genius.

When I went to edit the last post, I found this as a draft that I never posted. My bad. Originally dated October 19, 2011--

I have clever and lovely friends.

Last night, my friend and former office mate Irene hosted a dinner for a few of the geograph-tastic women at Rutgers to celebrate my Masters and our friend Purba's PhD. Debby and Ali also joined us, and brought beer.

They brought Negra Modelo because it's Mexican (in honor of my work in Mexico), but honestly, that's my favorite Mexican beer. I enjoyed it immensely while doing my field work in Quintana Roo, and I may have enjoyed it just as much, if not more, now that I'm well on the other side of that fieldwork.

The other beer they brought was Lakefront Brewery's Rendezvous, a delightful Biere de Garde, or beer for keeping. The real reason they got it was because it said GENIUS down the side of the bottle. It's part of Lakefront's Pure Milwaukee Genius Series, which I can't say I know much else about, but it was pretty awesome to pour out some good beer from a bottle labelled "Genius". I felt clever. Actually, I was just really impressed with how clever Ali and Debby are. But anyway, good beer. Debby volunteered to share it with me, and since neither of us are picky about beer being especially cold, we drank it a hair colder than room temperature. It's probably better a bit cooler than that, but it was really good as was. I was deeply pleased with how flavorful it was without being too strong or overwhelming-- as a commoner in the beer world, I couldn't even begin to pick out the flavors on this one. No one thing stuck out. It was just good. Interesting. And very good. A very fine beer with which to celebrate.

And so, I'm a Master of Science. Dr. Purba tried a little, but she doesn't really drink so I mostly enjoyed the beers. I am extremely grateful to all of the good friends and good beers that have gotten me to this point.