Buckeye: the mascot of OSU (the Ohio State Unviersity)
1. When I decided to go to MSU (Michigan State University) for Ph. D degree last year, my friends in Ohio became pretty sentimental saying, “Congratulations, even though it is Michigan….”
2. On my first day of school in MSU, I wore a sweater of “Ohio State” to see my professor, who took a look at me, “OK. The first thing for you to do about your research: get a new sweater!”
3. One department staff overheard my discussion with the secretary about my salary payment delay. He stared my OSU sweater and pretended to get amazingly surprised, “Oh, since when we didn’t pay people from Ohio? That is new to me…” “Yeah… I didn’t know that either. You guys should have warned me before I came.” I complained.
4.Around half a year ago, my professor joked with me, “Mingwu, since you are such a big fan of Ohio State, one thing has to be done to fulfill your Ph. D degree requirement: to watch a football game of MSU in stadium, otherwise I can’t let you have your degree…”
5.Whenever something unpleasant happened to the basketball or football teams of OSU, someone in my house always can’t help knocking my door and letting me know. People like Claire M would say, “Hey Barton, do you know Ohio State lost to Wisconsin?” while people like Martin would say, “Barton, do you know the players of Ohio State got banned”..
6. On the morning of St Patrick’s Day, Claire M yelled at me and asked me to put on the green T-shirt she would like to loan me, warning “Barton, you have to take off your scarlet (OSU color) T-shirt today. You can wear it any day but today. You have to put on this green (MSU color) one….”
7. I visited my friends in Ohio a couple of months ago. When I came back to Michigan, people asked me about my friends in Ohio. “Oh, they are doing fine. I told them people in Michigan are nice, but they don’t believe me…” I kidded.
8.1 I took the laser surgery on my face in University of Michigan’s hospital in a T-shirt with Ohio State football team’s helmet. Exactly during the surgery, the doctor asked me all of a sudden, “Are you a buckeye?”
“Yeah… I used to be” I had no idea what was going on.
“OK, put the machine at the maximal power!” That doctor told his technician to kid me.
8.2 Finally the surgery was done. I asked the doctor imtimidatedly, “Doctor, you didn’t make a UM (short for University of Michigan) on my face, did you?”
9. During the house meeting a couple of months ago, Martin teased me like, “Hey Barton, do you know why I don’t understand you like to be a buckeye?” “No, I don’t.” “Because I can never imagine someone would like to be a nut….” (Buckeye is Ohio State’s mascot but also a kind of nut; nuts also refers to crazy or stupid people)
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Totally unrelated topic:
I am such a tiger… based on the wrinkles on my forehead…
Fun in My Life 