Kind of a dork

So I spent this past Saturday and Sunday mornings here, and some people, myself included, call this crazy.

Yet it never really occurred to me just how dorky everyone else was, and how entertaining that might make my freakishly early morning be. The honoree for this classics conference was Tony Long, a classics professor here at Cal, who I presume is retiring after many years of teaching young people about dead people. Almost all of the presenters were former students, and at least three were under 65!

The grad student I took Latin from was there for one of the lectures, and there were a couple of reminders about how "non-guests" weren't supposed to eat the food (I'm guessing that by 'non-guests,' they meant me and everyone except the speakers, though technically wouldn't that make US guests, and everyone else conference members?).

The old people were uh, old, (sound familiar?) and it was clear from their various arguments about whether Socrates' "Socraticity" applies to his physical reincarnation or his intellectual reincarnation-- or whether there's a difference-- that they had been studying these things for longer than I have been alive. That was perhaps the most unsettling realization of the whole experience.

Other than that, the Faculty Club (you know, that ski lodge behind Hertz Hall) is really nice. It's pretty, quiet, and totally unspoiled by students.