Department retreat!
Oct. 23rd, 2010 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amethyst73I am in Asilomar! It's the annual retreat of my department, which is generally held somewhere around here. (It's been held here before, but not for the past couple of years when it's been held at a Best Western in nearby Monterey instead. Contrary to the Asilomar website, there's wireless over most of the center, and so I am able to read email, blog, etc. However, at present it seems very iffy and kind of slow; I expect lots of people nearby have the same time off that I do and are trying to get onto it.
Asilomar is a large facility. You can tell who else is at the conference center by the signs on the dining hall tables, indicating where each group is supposed to sit. Some of the other groups I've noticed at meals in the fairly sizable dining hall include:
- some vaguely local church (1-2 tables)
- some probably larger local church or religious organization that gives names to its table groups like "Prince of Peace" and "Sea-Renity"
- the Santa Cruz Knitters Guild
- two groups for which not enough detail is given, namely "State Parks" and "Cytology". Which state? From what institution?
- my personal favorite, the Org. Prof. Astrologers
The room cleaner seems to have insisted on organizing my pile of mess into one neat, organized pile, with previously worn clothing neatly draped over a chair back and the random stuff I had on the desk carefully lined up along the back of the desk. Dude, you don't need to do that, and if you do that too often it will annoy me.
Favorite talk comment: "Most of these proteins have been very unstudied." (To be fair, this is a non-native English speaker, but it's still really cute!)
Favorite curious animal seen on the premises: A miniature horse named Lucy who, when she's working as a service animal, wears a harness that an elderly lady with balance problems holds on to as she walks from one place to another. Wish I'd had a camera when I met said horse yesterday. :)
Anyway. I'm going to go enjoy the not-raining, not-quite-frigid beach and outdoors. Then I shall come back, call my father, and probably lie down for a bit and take a shower. Then more talks, dinner, a retrospective (it's the 20 year anniversary of the department this year) and then finding out just what the schedule means when it says "Open mic" (followed by music/dancing/etc). Do people who didn't get the opportunity to give real presentations get to talk about their data? Or is it a case of people getting up to recite poetry (bad or otherwise)? Stay tuned, gentle reader....
Asilomar is a large facility. You can tell who else is at the conference center by the signs on the dining hall tables, indicating where each group is supposed to sit. Some of the other groups I've noticed at meals in the fairly sizable dining hall include:
- some vaguely local church (1-2 tables)
- some probably larger local church or religious organization that gives names to its table groups like "Prince of Peace" and "Sea-Renity"
- the Santa Cruz Knitters Guild
- two groups for which not enough detail is given, namely "State Parks" and "Cytology". Which state? From what institution?
- my personal favorite, the Org. Prof. Astrologers
The room cleaner seems to have insisted on organizing my pile of mess into one neat, organized pile, with previously worn clothing neatly draped over a chair back and the random stuff I had on the desk carefully lined up along the back of the desk. Dude, you don't need to do that, and if you do that too often it will annoy me.
Favorite talk comment: "Most of these proteins have been very unstudied." (To be fair, this is a non-native English speaker, but it's still really cute!)
Favorite curious animal seen on the premises: A miniature horse named Lucy who, when she's working as a service animal, wears a harness that an elderly lady with balance problems holds on to as she walks from one place to another. Wish I'd had a camera when I met said horse yesterday. :)
Anyway. I'm going to go enjoy the not-raining, not-quite-frigid beach and outdoors. Then I shall come back, call my father, and probably lie down for a bit and take a shower. Then more talks, dinner, a retrospective (it's the 20 year anniversary of the department this year) and then finding out just what the schedule means when it says "Open mic" (followed by music/dancing/etc). Do people who didn't get the opportunity to give real presentations get to talk about their data? Or is it a case of people getting up to recite poetry (bad or otherwise)? Stay tuned, gentle reader....
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 10:54 pm (UTC)It rained. No beach walking for me. :(
no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-24 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-25 01:19 am (UTC)Home, retreat done. It was fun and there were good talks, but it's nice to be at home again.