Symbolism and Donuts

As many of you know, Wednesday Donuts is a deeply meaningful event, full of significance and symbolism. For those of you too busy scarfing donuts to notice, here are some examples:

Round donuts symbolize eternity. With no end and no beginning, they remind us of deep time, and dinosaurs. Because dinosaurs lived a long time ago.

The coffee symbolizes the depth and darkness we seek to probe with our science. If you add cream, it gets even murkier (like a hedgehog seminar), but it also gets easier to drink.

Rectangular donuts symbolize rectangles. Because rectangles are a delicious shape.

Come learn about the symbolism for yourself Wednesday at 10am.

LAST DONUTS OF 2013!!!

PS-> Donuts this week courtesy of Dr. Reinhold Hutz. Not only is Dr. Hutz a decent and generous guy, and a brilliant scientist, but he’s also a (potentially) shady foreigner (like myself). The ways you can tell? He’s unusually handsome, obviously intelligent, and very smooth talking. All foreigners are like that. He’s also an American. How can you tell? He’s buying donuts.

Thanks, Dr. Hutz!

Donut Thesis Proposal

As a few of you may know, Heidi “H-Bomb” “Willodean” “Donut Girl” Hargarten successfully presented her Thesis Proposal to her committee this week, and was Advanced to Candidacy (as we used to call it at my kindergarten). Since it went so well, she’s agreed to talk about it one more time.

Her title:

Biosociological drivers of the gastroeconomics of pastries: Who pays, who stays?

Abstract: Although Wednesday Donuts is a no-cost opportunity to eat pastry and socialize with colleagues, predicting who will attend is a highly non-linear process. Significant drivers include age, academic rank, self-importance, and temporal proximity to graduate school. Similarly, financial support for donuts seems to be stochastic, with some regular attendees claiming poverty when asked to buy for the week, and other non-attendees willing to regularly support the cause financially. This may have significant impacts on the Department of Biological Sciences and the national economy.

Wednesday, 10am. Lap S185.

Refreshments provided by Masters Candidate Hargarten. Thanks, Heidi!

-MLJ

Origin of Donuts

When I was a young lad, I was always often sometimes bored in school. Luckily, my school was located between two bakeries and across the street from another bakery, so I would sneak out to watch the bakers at their work. One day, while watching, I mistakenly ate an experimental radioactive apple fritter that I found in the bakery lab. When I awoke the next day, I realized that I had acquired a super power! I now had the ability to write a moderately funny email about donuts once a week! Years later, I found a use for my superpower.

Donuts. Wednesday 10am. Lapham S185.

-MLJ

PS->;Donuts this week courtesy of the biology office’s very own Jena Rock. People tell me I write a funny email now and again, but it turns out that Jena’s also got some talent in that direction, too. Almost weekly, I get an email from her telling me to come pick up a package “at my earliest convenience”. That always makes me laugh. It’s way more convenient to make Heidi do it.

Thanks, Jena!