Academics partying
Since this is the Internet and everything I write here will be disseminated to everyone and everything I guess I’ll keep this pretty tame. Suffice to say, there are certain academics who know how to party and others who really can’t interact in a social manner.
I’m a big believer of taking about other topics when outside of work and school. For instance, I had a really good conversation with a Finnish guy about weird foods from each culture and we competed for the title of “most ethnic food” (some how Sweden won). However it seems some of my colleagues just can’t talk about anything except for HCI, jobs, and gossip about the conference. Let me tell you, sometimes when I hang out with these people, it feels like high school again. I was at a bar with some of these guys and all I could here at all the tables was “where is he going to after his PhD?”, “did those two get in a verbal arguement yesterday?” And all I could think is “wow, this is a really good beer.”
Last night was party night at the conference. Microsoft, Google, Techsmith, IBM, etc all had a party at this gorgeous hotel on the river. Since we are all academics, we’re attracted to free food and booze like flies on rice. There were lines out the door of people lined up at the bar. Seeing this hubbub we decided to skip out to the Oracle party. Yes Oracle. When I think Oracle, I think calendars, databases and business people. Wow was I wrong.
Normally I don’t like being in a crowded bar waiting for drinks, but the bartender was amazing. He was making mojitos 8 at a time, and the process was a show, with bottles, shakers and glasses flying all over the place. AND the drink was pretty good too.
Wednesday was a good day. Exhausting, but good. Today is the final day of the conference and tomorrow we move out of our awesome apartment to a hotel for 2 more days in town. I plan to do a lot of sitting and writing before I leave and I may get one of those floppy renaissance hats (it’s the secret to why all those sculpters and painters were so good…. it’s like inspiration in the form of a hat).
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