More laughs, better beer.

I love the Staff Awards Day. 

It's like Pretzel Day on The Office.  I look forward to it all year.

There are drinks, heaps of food, and copious amounts of junk food.  This year there was an ice cream station with all sorts of toppings.  I was in heaven.  After feeling jipped for an hour (I only got one scoop from the stingy female scooper) I made my way back into line and got a healthy bowl full from the less-stingy male scooper.  I'm now feeling uncomfortably full in my high-waisted trousers, but am enjoying pleasantly drowsy effect of eating so much heavy food.

What's that you say, Blake?  We're on a no-sweets-on-weekdays diet?  Oh yeah.  I forgot.  Well, no, I lied just then.  I didn't forget.  I just set it aside for Staff Awards Day.  It's absolutely essential.

I didn't win an award this year like I did last year, but I greatly enjoyed myself at the ceremony nonetheless.  Actually, I enjoyed myself much more this year because I didn't have the awkward honor of standing up on the stage with the Dean while he read a citation of my achievements.  (As an aside, last year went a little something like this: the color and temperature radiating from my face increased as the seconds wore on.  By the time they took the picture of me shaking the Dean's hand, I was a red, sweaty mess.  I'm so glad that the photo got lost before they could send it to me.  I do not need a permanent pictorial reminder of that moment.)

Some of my favorite people (including a couple of my office colleagues) won much-deserved awards.  I love the culture at Georgetown.  People whoop, scream, cheer and hold up signs for their office-mates.  There are jokes, photos, and laughter.  Like I said, I look forward to it every year.

Each year the staff selects a member of the full-time faculty, who, in the words of the Dean, "Is the most tolerable or pleasant to work with. "  (Insert ballroom of laughing, whooping, staff members).  This year the JD Associate Dean, Julie, won.  And rightly so.  She's great.  And, if you needed proof, she emphasized in her acceptance speech that her slogan is "more laughs, better beer."

Good words to live by.*

(*Insert the word "root" before beer if you are, like I am, a teetotaler.)