October 13, 2002
I went to two parties
I went to two parties this weekend. The first, on Friday, was good, and attracted "the usual crowd"---mostly CS grad students, with a smattering of others. It was a little more upscale than most such, but cast in the same mould: there was a lot of shop talk and talk (ok, gossip) about various people in the department, in addition to the usual random sorts of conversations you get at stand-around-and-talk parties. (Also, the guacamole was amazing. Thanks, Frank!)
Tonight, my housemate Matt invited me along to a totally different party. His running partner (the host of the party) is in the English department, and Matt and I were the only CS people there. In addition, there was one neuroscience ugrad and a med student, and everyone else was in English. It was great! The conversation never once touched computers (except for mentioning that we were in computer science). Of course, I realised partway through that it was exactly the same sort of party---it's just that the shop talk was about things like postmodernism and gender, and Derrida and James Joyce; and the gossip was about people I didn't know. One guy did an amazing impression of someone in the English department; I have no idea how accurate it was, but boy howdy was it funny. :) All in all, I'm pleased to have met a bunch of grad students outside my department, and in fact, outside the sciences as a whole. Now at the grad socials I can walk up to a group with a couple of these people and join the conversation without being completely awkward, as walking up to a group of total unknowns always is.
"In sum, babies have the same, adorable, limitless enthusiasm for
exploring the world as puppies. And everyone loves puppies! But while
puppies grow up to be big, dumb, slobbering dogs, babies grow up to be
people. So babies are better." --Jeff Vogel
Posted
by blahedo
at 3:23am
on 13 Oct 2002
