Talk about vocabulary goals! Over the course of a dinner date this past Wednesday, 31-year-old Stephen Long managed to find nearly 30 unique ways to fit the word “academia” into the conversation.
“I just really care about academia and I know I want to work in academia someday, provided I can find a job in academia that satisfies my thirst for academia,” he said, exhaustingly.
Long, a graduate student in sociology, generously included his date in the incredibly myopic conversation.
“I thought she might be interested in talking about academia. You never know what kind of hobbies people have!” said Long. “Maybe hers is academia.”
His date, Shelly Hairston, was justifiably unimpressed.
“I actually think I got nauseous over the amount of times he said ‘academia,’” said Hairston. “Is this what dating someone in a part-time Masters program is like? Seriously?”
“Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly have been said more, he’d surprise me with another one,” recalled Hairston. “If he had stopped talking for a second, I could’ve told him I’m a tenured professor at Columbia.”
But Long persevered, through drinks and dinner and through dessert.
“People think the movie Dune has nothing to do with academia,” Long said, before chuckling smugly. “But in a way, it does.”
“The funny thing is, you can find academia in everything.”
