My weird "virtual" anatomy and physiology lab and book came in yesterday.  I was opening it up and I made the comment to Bill that the "virtual" lab should be interesting and he said "I don't want to talk about school."  So I asked why and he said the same thing again.  Being me - I kept pushing him to know what was up and he finally says this:

"You know if Steve or any of the guys I run with ran a marathon in under 3 hours, I'd give him the biggest hug in the world.  BUT i don't want to sit around and talk to him about his training program.  I don't want to talk to him about his program to run a sub 3 marathon before I do. "

And then he babbled on some more about smack talking.  I didn't actually get his point until he said:

"So you talking about school is smack talking.  You don't actually think you will finish before me, do you?"

EXCUSE ME!?  All of this time that I have talked to him about school, I never ever once intended it to be trash talk.  It never even entered my mind that he would perceive our individual pursuit of a higher education as a COMPETITION.  So i must admit that it left me feeling a little upset.  All of the "support" that I was receiving was merely PERCEIVED support.  This tells me two major things:

1. He wasn't even listening to me when I told him about how I can start a new 8 week class every month.  (This is an ongoing arugment that we have and he denies it but I know it's true.)

2. He doesn't think I will actually finish.

I have been saying that I can easily finish in 14 months because I can start a new class every month.  Being the dork that I am, I even made a nice chart in excel that shows me what classes I'm taking over the next 14 months - I am using it as a visual so I don't end up taking 4 classes at the same time.  Plus it's a good way for me to track what classes I've taken and what I have left.  I showed him my chart and he liked it so much that he input his own information and at the rate he's going, he will graduate in 2011.  Yeah - i feel bad for him that it is going to take him so long to graduate.  And yeah I feel a little bad that I'll get finished before him but I also think I deserve it just as much as he does.  I studied my ass off in high school and the short 2 years that I was in college.  I worked really hard too.

So after I told him that I was upset he of course tried to play it off as his trash talking was just part of the trash talking game.  But I know better.  He meant it and now it is a compeition. 

And I will win.