When you ask a crowd of highly intelligent people *cough* to converge on a small city, I would say you're going to get two actions.
1. It will be quiet - we are professional geeks after all, or
2. There will be mayhem - bored intelligent minds? In one place? ka-BOOM!!!
I would like to think that I contributed much to option number two.
Night 1 of the conference was the welcome mixer where everyone stood around drinking the free booze and eating the very little fingerfood resulting in some very drunk scientists. ACB did it's duty and picked up a whole heap of people (mostly from CNS) and we all went over to Salamanca place to drink down one of the bars. I was still suffering the fallout from Friday night and had to go home quite early. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well. I did however manage to sleep more than some people and had to console some people with very sore heads.
Night 2 was the Cocktail Party to be followed by the Student Mixer. I wasn't planning on attending this but ended up doing so after my status was met with disbelief and then begging - particularly from Punz and Joel's Angels. I did not go THAT hard because I wanted to keep down the supposedly awesome Seafood Chowder that PeteKoz was telling me about. It is generally thought in the dept. that I can be quite good at convincing people to bend to my will. I demonstrated this when I managed to convince our entire group that instead of walking across the road to get dinner, we should walk halfway across the city to where the awesome chowder was located. Unfortunately when it came for PeteKoz to take us to the restaurant, he confessed he didn't know which one it was. Dammit. Eventually we were satiated and stumbled onto the next pub for the Student mixer where David discovered that two beers, one G&T, and a Laphroaig somehow managed to cost less than $15. He was pretty amazed. I eventually pleaded exhaustion and friend-aid to go home early: Punz was giving a talk and I had to give her my opinion on what to wear to it. Needless to say this early finish meant that I didn't get to see true debauchery. That's okay because I managed to be present at....
Night 3 for the Conference Dinner. Dr I. had been trying to convince me for ages to attend the Dinner because it's where the fun is apparently at - he even pulled out a story of his wife playing air guitar on the leg of a plenary lecturer. I was tempted...but the price just wasn't right and when the combined forces of Pooky, David, Mikey, PeteKoz and Joel's Angels did finally manage to convince me...well the dinner was sold out. I went off with some non- dinner registrants and we had a pleasant meal of Thai food in Hobart's restaurant street. We ended up finishing around 9pm but no one felt like kicking on. I wasn't averse to going back to our room but the sad fact was Pooky had the only key and her phone wasn't working.
This is where Operation David came into it's own. I made a few phone calls and requested whether it would be possible to gain entry to the dinner given that I did not have a valid ticket. Innocent-looking Punz and dodgy as all get out David managed to *acquire* a ticket and bang, I was in the dinner! The problem then was then that I couldn't find Pooky - apparently she couldn't find anyone either. But since they'd gone to such effort to admit me, I couldn't just leave....so I got into the spirit of things. I discovered that watching senior scientists dance is akin to watching your parents dance, cute in a strange way but scarring in another. I found while formal dancing with a Brazilian postdoc that I want to lead. He very kindly tried to force me into how girls are supposed to dance by showing me how to move my feet and hips to do the samba. Secretly, I think he despaired at my lack of rhythm but was too chivalrous to say otherwise. I also discovered that tall skinny guys give good piggyback rides but their shoulderblades will invariably end up in your boobs.
A large crowd of us naturally kicked on but it was pretty much more of the same until Linnie and I decided to walk *Elly* home. (Elly is in asterisks because despite working with her, I was never told this was her English name.) We drunkenly walked her all the way to her apartment which was located in what was probably the as close to a dodgey street as you can get in Hobart. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was pretty sure Pooky would be asleep but hey, hope springs eternal. Unfortunately, my spring ran dry and despite quite a bit of knocking followed by asking reception to phone the room, I had to call Linnie and ask if I could crash on her couch. An appropriate end to a chaotic night!
Night 4 was a bit more sedate. The conference was officially over and I resisted the lure of booze once and for all, sinking only two champagnes at the farewell drinks and then only havinglemon lime bitters at what is considered the best Indian restaurant in Hobart. A large crowd of us wanted to go out with a bang and we decided to let Abrez choose the food to which he totally rose to the occasion! As you can imagine, there wasn't much going out on night 4. Everyone was just wrecked.
So tell me now, do you think I did better at work or socialising at this conference?
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