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AW: Sunday, and conclusions
Jun. 10th, 2004 01:31 amThe pitter-patter of little feet (and the holler-halloo of little larynxes) woke me well before I wanted to be woken on Sunday; I tried to sleep through it, but kept being jerked awake, even after ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
showergrrl left to go to the dim sum excursion. I did manage to be awake and dressed and packed before the 2 p.m. checkout time, but I was pretty much sleepwalkin' all day long. (This meant I missed cleanup in the WRC, but in my own defense I did some cleaning the night before. Verily, it was I who disposed of the frightening plates of pork-n-beans.)
A mini chick parm from Renato's and a rather larger Coke, consumed beneath that same weeping hemlock, roused me a little bit. I spent some time with Annie and her new baby Tivo, then managed to have a semi-coherent chat with Megan P.-M. in the little garden behind Wharton. People started disappearing, which was deeply sad; I said goodbye to those I found, started missing those I'd missed.
I stumbled my way through an excellent and hilarious (especially to sleep-deprived me) Name Game in the third-floor lounge withreldnahkram, tapas, showergrrl, Fred, and Larry. (My favorite exchange:
Everybody who remained disappeared to go to dinner after that, except forshowergrrl, who had sweetly offered to drive me to the airport at 8 p.m., which she did. (Although I had an hour before I had to go, and we were in this big empty dorm, so....) I hope my car conversation wasn't too banal; my eyes were crossing a bit by then, and I think I was more monosyllabic than usual. She left me at the door to Terminal F; I made it through security (though not without the shoe-removal this time) and made it onto the little twin-jet for a speedy nighttime flight. I was so tired I nearly fell asleep on the plane, which is generally impossible for me to do.
Then Kendra was there to collect me, looking smiley, just like someone who is nearing the end of a dissertation and whose sweetie has returned after a weekend away. Hooray.
Conclusions
This was a fine and brilliant Alumni Weekend for me, which is not always the case. Often I get overwhelmed with people (or overtired, or insecure) and spend time sitting under shrubbery. Much of the credit goes to the people who were there and their innate coolness, but there were a few things I did that helped:
I should print this out and refer to it before my next AW. I should also offer to organize more things, socarpenter won't get frazzled trying to do it all. *grin* I think, with groups this size, we need to think of AW as being more like a con: parallel tracks of fun and food and gaming, with careful management of signup sheets and publicly posted schedules. Not everybody will be able to do everything they want, but if people get firm schedules when they arrive everyone will at least be able to sign up for things they really want to do, and (hopefully) feel less left out because they didn't hear about something. (Perhaps we can get the Alumni Office to put a SWIL insert into our packets? Or let a current SWILperson do it?)
Regardless, I'd like to help out more next year. Somebody remind me. :)=
showergrrl left to go to the dim sum excursion. I did manage to be awake and dressed and packed before the 2 p.m. checkout time, but I was pretty much sleepwalkin' all day long. (This meant I missed cleanup in the WRC, but in my own defense I did some cleaning the night before. Verily, it was I who disposed of the frightening plates of pork-n-beans.)A mini chick parm from Renato's and a rather larger Coke, consumed beneath that same weeping hemlock, roused me a little bit. I spent some time with Annie and her new baby Tivo, then managed to have a semi-coherent chat with Megan P.-M. in the little garden behind Wharton. People started disappearing, which was deeply sad; I said goodbye to those I found, started missing those I'd missed.
I stumbled my way through an excellent and hilarious (especially to sleep-deprived me) Name Game in the third-floor lounge with
reldnahkram, tapas, showergrrl, Fred, and Larry. (My favorite exchange:Larry: Not one, not three, but...)
Me: Two?
Larry: Good! Now make it a potato!
Everybody who remained disappeared to go to dinner after that, except for
showergrrl, who had sweetly offered to drive me to the airport at 8 p.m., which she did. (Although I had an hour before I had to go, and we were in this big empty dorm, so....) I hope my car conversation wasn't too banal; my eyes were crossing a bit by then, and I think I was more monosyllabic than usual. She left me at the door to Terminal F; I made it through security (though not without the shoe-removal this time) and made it onto the little twin-jet for a speedy nighttime flight. I was so tired I nearly fell asleep on the plane, which is generally impossible for me to do.Then Kendra was there to collect me, looking smiley, just like someone who is nearing the end of a dissertation and whose sweetie has returned after a weekend away. Hooray.
This was a fine and brilliant Alumni Weekend for me, which is not always the case. Often I get overwhelmed with people (or overtired, or insecure) and spend time sitting under shrubbery. Much of the credit goes to the people who were there and their innate coolness, but there were a few things I did that helped:
- Realizing early on that I wouldn't be able to do everything, and being okay with that. I missed Jimmosk's microwave demo, which I really wanted to see, but one needs to pick one's battles. Sometimes it's more important to chat one-on-one with a friend or take a walk alone or sit in front of a TV, even if something Really Cool is happening elsewhere.
- Stepping up to the plate. Instead of hanging back and waiting for things to happen, I tried to steer things in directions I wanted them to go. This was both overt (running Clay-O-Rama) and covert (setting the energy level of conversations). This kinda fell apart on Sunday, when I was half-asleep, but the general theory was sound.
- Getting enough sleep. Um...well...Friday night I got enough sleep, and Saturday was awesome as a result. *grin* Minimizing sleep in hopes of not missing anything doesn't work for me.
I should print this out and refer to it before my next AW. I should also offer to organize more things, so
carpenter won't get frazzled trying to do it all. *grin* I think, with groups this size, we need to think of AW as being more like a con: parallel tracks of fun and food and gaming, with careful management of signup sheets and publicly posted schedules. Not everybody will be able to do everything they want, but if people get firm schedules when they arrive everyone will at least be able to sign up for things they really want to do, and (hopefully) feel less left out because they didn't hear about something. (Perhaps we can get the Alumni Office to put a SWIL insert into our packets? Or let a current SWILperson do it?)Regardless, I'd like to help out more next year. Somebody remind me. :)=
