This year's L-Phys conference is being held at the University, and Collin was enlisted to not only give a talk, but help set things up. With his early departures and long days, I've almost forgotten what the man looks like in daylight. So, I was delighted when he asked if I wanted to go to the banquet last night.
It was pretty interesting. For one thing, being an educator, my experience with large assemblages of professionals is that they usually have a ratio of women to men somewhere in the neighborhood of 50:1. And they're loud, boisterous, and disastrous for public speakers (unless, of course, the speaker is also a teacher and knows the "tricks"), because teachers make the most unruly audience of anyone.
Not so for the L-Phys conference. I think I saw maybe 20 women there, out of probably 200 people in attendance. So what that tells me is that woman may be slightly better represented in physics than men are in primary ed, but not a lot. Unless they were spouses along for a free meal, like me. Conversations were subdued, and there was an intriguing mix of grad students (recognizable by their jeans and t-shirts), post-docs (jeans and button-downs), and profs (suits). Whispy white hair crowned the heads of many, and I observed that mustaches were evidently de rigueur.
Dinner was quite good, and there was a tremendous amount of free wine. With only three of us at our table, I'll admit I helped myself to it more freely than I should have. However, I cut myself off at two and a half glasses, because I wanted to get home without passing out on the train. But as we left, one of Collin's colleagues (I think?) gave us another free drink ticket. We looked at each other, decided, "What the hell?" and had one more for the road.
While queuing, I overheard three middle-aged, graying scientists ahead of me, already pretty toasted, ask what time the bar was closing. "12:30, sir," was the reply.
"Yyyyessssss!" they cheered. They didn't actually high-five, but probably would have if they hadn't had drinks in their hands.
According to Collin, that's par-for-the-course behavior for physicists abroad. Those crazy, crazy party animals.
It was pretty interesting. For one thing, being an educator, my experience with large assemblages of professionals is that they usually have a ratio of women to men somewhere in the neighborhood of 50:1. And they're loud, boisterous, and disastrous for public speakers (unless, of course, the speaker is also a teacher and knows the "tricks"), because teachers make the most unruly audience of anyone.
Not so for the L-Phys conference. I think I saw maybe 20 women there, out of probably 200 people in attendance. So what that tells me is that woman may be slightly better represented in physics than men are in primary ed, but not a lot. Unless they were spouses along for a free meal, like me. Conversations were subdued, and there was an intriguing mix of grad students (recognizable by their jeans and t-shirts), post-docs (jeans and button-downs), and profs (suits). Whispy white hair crowned the heads of many, and I observed that mustaches were evidently de rigueur.
Dinner was quite good, and there was a tremendous amount of free wine. With only three of us at our table, I'll admit I helped myself to it more freely than I should have. However, I cut myself off at two and a half glasses, because I wanted to get home without passing out on the train. But as we left, one of Collin's colleagues (I think?) gave us another free drink ticket. We looked at each other, decided, "What the hell?" and had one more for the road.
While queuing, I overheard three middle-aged, graying scientists ahead of me, already pretty toasted, ask what time the bar was closing. "12:30, sir," was the reply.
"Yyyyessssss!" they cheered. They didn't actually high-five, but probably would have if they hadn't had drinks in their hands.
According to Collin, that's par-for-the-course behavior for physicists abroad. Those crazy, crazy party animals.
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