Just because it's a Social Science doesn't mean its students are socially apt.

Hello again,

I didn't end up writing last weekend because not a lot that was all too exciting happened the previous week. This past week hasn't been all that "exciting" either, per se, but I'm feeling a bit aggravated, so brace yourself for what may becoming a one-sided venting session. This entry will focus mainly on my two friends Zina and Peter. You may remember them from past entries, but if you don't then let me introduce you briefly. Peter and Zina and I have been some of the closest friends since the beginning of the program. Our friend Chris has also been close, making us somewhat of a quartet. Chris and Peter were friends and Zina and I had just started making friends with each other when somehow our two couplets joined and I think for a while perhaps Zina got closer to Chris and I got closer to Peter-- non-romantically, let me assure you. Well at some point towards the middle or end of last semester, that changed and Zina started moving closer to Peter and I moved more towards Chris-- again, non-romantically. Chris and Peter both did a mathematics undergraduate degree at MacMaster University. Zina also did her Master's and MBA at MacMaster, but she'd never met Chris or Peter before coming to London, whereas Peter and Chris had had a class or two together in their undergraduate years. Peter went on to do a Master's in Math at the University of Toronto and Chris did his graduate studies in math at MacMaster before coming here. This is all neither here nor there as I don't think it will contribute much to my story, but I hope I have convinced you we were all very good friends since the start of the program. Okay so let me get started with my current update.
So anyway I didn't see Peter and Zina until around noon on Tuesday. A bunch of us were casually talking during lunch when Zina said to someone else something like, "Ya we finished Macro..." which felt like it was directed at me (maybe I'm paranoid) but what I may have failed to mention is that ever since Zina and Peter started becoming closer friends about two months ago, they always make these little comments that are slightly passive-aggressive or meant to be subtly aggravating. It's very obvious to me, but they disguise it so as to not come out as obviously annoying. Anyhow, I generally just let it slide, but I was a little bothered by the fact that they'd abandoned me and gone and finished the assignment on their own, adding that they had checked their answers with some of our most Macro-savvy classmates and gotten the same results. It also seems that since Zina and Peter have gotten closer they've gotten ultra competitive, but also almost in a disguised way. Perhaps it's because they're both competitive and attracted each other that way. We have a saying in Spanish that says that "God creates them and the Devil brings them together," suggesting - of course - that people with similar worst qualities seem to be drawn to each other via those worst qualities. So, those qualities become ever more pervasive around us instead of being softened, as they might be if instead people were attracted to others who counterbalanced their negative qualities with positive qualities of their own. Anyhow, it's not always a very comfortable or soothing atmosphere for me in their presence.
Well it gets worse. After classes, there was our department's regular "Tuesdays Tea and Cookies" at the Faculty Lounge. We all went down after class and were the first ones there. Most of us first years were sitting in a big circle talking. After a while more people started arriving from upper years as well as faculty members. A few minutes later I went over to the 2nd-year-students' circle and my main purpose was to ask one of them if we could perhaps move one of our TA sessions to a more convenient day for all of us, but the other thing is that whenever upper-level students are around during departmental meetings, I like to talk to them too - perhaps even more than I like talking to the first years - but it is because I get to see and talk to and hang out with the first years all the time. I hardly get to see the others outside these departmental gatherings. Anyway, I was only talking in their circle for a few minutes, then I went back down to the office to grab my stuff and continue my trek towards coding and completing Macro Problem Set #1. After about 30min. I wanted to go compare my numbers with one of my other friends and classmates in the office, Hiro. So I went to the office and Zina and Peter are there, almost waiting for me so they could start their usual ridiculous attack on me. They were talking so loudly at me and with so much attitude and so simultaneously that I could barely even comprehend what they were saying.
I don't even really know what they said because I was fuming mad. What I caught of it was something along the lines of they were teasing me 'cause I'd gone to talk to the 2nd years, the "TAs" again. And then Zina said something about they don't care if I leave them for the 2nd years even though I'm one of the only girls in the program because they (the 1st year guys) like Zina better than they like me anyways. And I was like "What the fuck are you guys talking about?" And I can't remember the rest of it -- it was kind of a blur what they were saying cause I was so angry. And they kept poking so I literally flipped them off and walked out of the office pretty enraged at them for their continuous attempts to aggravate me. I went back to Matlab. Hiro wasn't in the office anyway. Then, when I got back to Matlab, I realized I'd forgotten my worksheet and my water in the office. Grr! Well of course I couldn't go back and face them right away. So I got to wait a couple of minutes and then finally had to go back and they were on their way out and sandwiched me in hugs and apologized and I guess we kind of made up. It was still a little awkward though... One or two hours after they'd left I finished my Macro Assignment and checked my values with others and was pretty confident I'd done things properly. It was very satisfying and I went home quite contently.

Wednesday. Fortunately not much head-butting. On Wednesday mornings there's a Pilates class at 7am at the university gymnasium. It's free for students and I really wanted to check it out, so I was up at around 5:30am that morning and managed to push myself out of bed and make it to the gym on time. It was so difficult to get out of bed but once I was on my way it was such a treat to be out before the sun came up and before most people were out on the streets. It was so peaceful and quiet and the dimness of the light was calming. Actually, most of the light outside was coming from the whiteness of the snow. The Pilates class was pretty good, too. I was just a little disappointed that it started about ten minutes late and finished ten minutes early because it's only a one-hour class. I could have gone for an extra twenty minutes. That was Wednesday's highlight.

Thursday. Macro Assignment Due. I noticed I needed to tweak one value in my Macro Code before emailing it in. For some reason Zina and Peter also had to type up output for their code before sending it in. They asked me something regarding my values and I replied, but then all scolding-like they told me "No, you're wrong." They told me that certain values weren't even comparable given my output but I was confident that I was right and they were wrong so I calmly replied that I had used other values for comparison. They tried to be all diminutive in their tone but I heeded little attention to them. So anyhow they finally admitted they might be wrong and I ended up spending about 20-30min. helping them correct their answers. I wish they hadn't been in the computer lab with me at that time and had just suffered loss of marks, but alas... I think they were a bit frustrated I'd been right and they'd been wrong, which was particularly difficult to accept since they'd gloated so much about being done so soon and had huffed and puffed fire at me, so sure that they were right...
Well that wasn't the end of everything. After classes we had decided to work on another assignment together. Why? Our new Econometrics class is a bit irking because we're expected to hand in group assignments with an unspecified number of people per group. A lot of people, including Zina and Peter, wanted to be in a group with me, which is fine but there can be significant distribution of labour under such circumstances. I had gone down to the office to find my group with Zina and Peter and Chris but none of them were there so I went to the computer lab with a number of other people from our class and we started working on the assignment there. Eventually Zina, Peter, and Chris showed up. They got to work too, but they were a bit behind us who had started slightly earlier. Perhaps they were a bit peeved that I'd started working with others without them but they didn't say anything. So now there were about nine of us taking over a computer lab and all working away. Everything was going alright until I heard these Chris and Peter behind me arguing about a small detail. In truth Chris was stating a point and Peter was arguing at him. I turned around and Peter was making a big fuss. I didn't really understand what he was asking/wondering/arguing about because it was hard to focus on the words coming out of a loud and repugnant mouth. I finally figured what he was saying and the problem was really just a semantics issue. Something to the effect of a difference between "approximate" and "asymptotic" distributions. I was trying to reiterate to Peter what the professor had said in class when out of nowhere he blew up at me in this horribly hostile, completely disrespectful, uncalled-for and inexcusable dissonance: "No, Selina. You're WRONG. And if you believe what you're saying right now then you're not as good at Econometrics as you think you are."
...
Silence as everyone in our group turned to look at him in bafflement and shock...
...
I was struck in absolute disbelief at the way he had spoken to me, but I regained my composure to turn and find my notebook and show him the lecture points backing up what I was saying. At first he still didn't make sense of it and still thought I was wrong but then switched on a dime to saying that he understood that just fine and it's just as he was saying but that it only held for "approximate" and not for "asymptotic." It was precisely as I'd said and written down for him, but he was convinced that what he had said was what was in the notes and I was saying something otherwise. I'm not sure if he truly believed he'd been right and I'd been wrong because his ego couldn't allow him to believe otherwise, or if he was just trying to save face after his explosion in front of everyone. Neither in the earlier episode with the Macro or in this episode with the Econometrics was I trying to outdo him, but since his unacceptable rudeness towards me I'll say now: Selina 2, Peter 0.

It's still not over. Later that night we went out to a pub to celebrate Chris's birthday with most of the first year students and a few of the second year students. At one point I had to get up to go use the washroom and we were all sitting around a booth so when I came back, almost by default, I ended up sitting next to Peter. A couple hours passed without too much disturbance, but Peter was drinking more and more and I was completely sober. Without avail, Peter's earlier blow-up at me came up and he told the story to some second-year students who had missed witnessing the horror. Peter was now abhorrent in his stupor as he threw a very rearranged version of the story out onto the table. The way he told it was if I'd been saying something wrong and he changed the words that he'd actually said to me to something less brutal... and when he said it between chuckles and laughter and told in good humour, sure it doesn't seem that bad, but of course that's not the way it'd actually happened. Shortly after that I called it a night and I was home by around 10pm (much earlier than most nights under those circumstances). I just couldn't handle being around certain people and their lunacy anymore.
On a positive note, my negative emotions have started subsiding, though they are difficult to push aside entirely sometimes, mostly because those two seem to make it their pastime to try and prick me. But my weekend was almost void of them and surrounded only be wonderful, positive people, so that was calming.
I guess that's it. That brings us to the end of another week.
As always, thank you for reading.