Incident of the Week 3: Adventure Time

At the beginning of the Fall semester I brought back an Adventure Time mug with me from Baltimore. It tags around with me, mostly to Mechanics of Stat Mech class and the occasional free lunch. One or twice, it even made to my class while I taught. Well, one of my students took notice and started asking me about the show.

“Who’s your favorite adventure time character?”

“Do you watch it often?”

Drawings of Finn started showing up in her lab notebook too. I wondered if she was trying to pry me for a better grade or just being nice. Generally, she wasn’t such a good student, but I helped her on a takehome quiz one time (she forgot to fill out the back) and she brought me cookies. It was the first time a student had done such a thing for me! Well… in American at least. Japanese students are different.

Nothing much happened afterwards, but then one day I opened the conversation again. “I think the flame princess is my favorite.”

“Oh yeah?” She said. “There’s a later episode that’s going to make you really sad.”

“Ah, I probably haven’t seen it because the website I use doesn’t have Adventure Time anymore.”

A few days later, she e-mailed me about it, linking a couple of websites I could check out. Before I knew it, the e-mail turned into a conversation and we started talking about video games, anime, and cartoons. So now I’m wondering – is this girl interesting in me or just a better grade? So goes life as a TA.

Normally, of course, it would be a moot point. I was happy with Anna. Now that things are over, though… well… let’s just say the student is pretty cute, Asian, and studies math. ^_^

Asking her out for a cup of coffee or a beer is certainly tempting, but for now all things must wait. First… I must defeat the qualifier!