No interesting title

It's 9, I need to leave to get into the BL. I've lately picked up the bad habit of staying up "just another 15 min" just about every night. When I got here, I was in bed between 11 and 12, now it's as late as 2. I'm still up between 7:30-8, but it's a hard wake up. I need to get to bed sooner. In fairness, part of why I'm staying up late this week is that I've attended 2 seminars, one book launch, and 2 post-seminar/book launch pub trips. The Long 18th century people are big, friendly, but also cliquish and a little pretentious. The 16th century group is smaller, friendlier, and I'm glad I finally joined them. I heard and excellent paper on the Dutch invasion of 1688 that argued that William's personal connections to James, peers, and clergy in England were at least as important, and in fact directed, his military strategy. For those who don't care, feel free to skip to the next sentence, for those that do: this means he focused on personal correspondence with friends, family, court, king, not the exiles (as has most of the other literature. The hard and fun part about these seminars is the post-pub experience. It's generally a small group of scholars and grad students. Last night, the scholars were buying all of the rounds of beer, and were in fact insulted when I stopped after a second pint (this is b/c the night before I got unintentionally quite drunk on the drinks people bought me and stayed up until 2 am). It was... fun. We talked research, personal stuff (I helped a husband figure out how to stretch out his wife's jeans that he had accidentally shrunk), and a whole lot of nothing and everything all at once. It was a wonderful evening of professional and personal connecting.

They were also aghast that "nothing like this" happens at our university. We talked about how the drinking age and active discouragement of fraternizing with students has set up a rather frosty standard for relationships in the US, and really what a shame it is. And it really is a shame. It's really nice to get to know scholars as people, and the pub atmosphere is much more relaxed and pretentious than post-lecture receptions in which everyone is still trying to impress. We need better spaces in the US. Spaces that encourage socializing and accept socializing and drinking w/o trying to make it an "experience". I love the cocktails at the red, but too loud, dark and desperately trying to be swanky. The P&P has a casual vibe and is as close to an pub as you can find but it's dark, loud, and often has music blasting in a way that discourages conversation. Plus I hate the benches. Woodstocks is a college bar and a little to restaurant oriented (unless you commandeer the patio), and the other bars (Rush, Blue Lagoon) although great for drinking aren't that great for semi-professional socializing. I think Black Mountain brewing may be an exception and maybe i need to revisit them. But it also comes down to: 1) the isolation of the campus, 2) that you need to get on a moving vehicle of some sort to get to a pub/bar. Once you can't all move en masse, you loose inertia and organization becomes a mess.

Now, despite my complaining, I want to give a shout out to the grads who have done a wonderful job of socializing and having good times with one another over several years now. I love my grad groupings and look forward to them - but there is a wonderful thing that happens when you put young and senior scholars together (did I mention that twice now the grad attendees of the seminars have been thanked for coming, participating, keeping material fresh and faculty on their toes?). And it' can't happen at 4pm with hummus and veggies. As great as the cheese plate is, the afternoon seminar followed by everyone rushing back to work is not the same thing.

-also I'm late and haven't put up pics but will this weekend.