Leeds non-session report
Jul. 13th, 2012 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyWe got back from Leeds midmorning today, long enough to go home and unpack some things before Gwen and I headed out to daycare/campus.
For some reason it seemed to go really quick this year, even though we got in to Leeds about lunch time on Sunday, quite a bit earlier than I usually do. (And this was after spending about 2 hours in the Hull train station, since we just missed the 9:00am train to Leeds and so had to wait for the 10:58am one. Go UK weekend train schedules...) Arriving early on Sunday meant I got to the antiquarian/used book sellers fair quite early, and with plenty of time, rather than having to squeeze it in right after breakfast on Monday before the first session. I got a couple of good hauls, but full report will have to wait for the post devoted specifically to book purchases.
Since we missed the 9:00am train we were unable to head up to Durham to meet Caroline as planned, but since we were in Leeds by midafternoon, we were able to join Diana, and later Laura, at the Stables Pub in the evening. I didn't stay out too late, as Gwen started getting fussy and tired having not really napped much, but Joel stayed out a few hours after I went back to our rooms and enjoyed adult conversation with someone other than me quite mightily (not to mention the cask ales...by the end of the week, he'd tried everything they had on tap, which was 5-6 with a rotation in midweek). We had dorm rooms next to each other, one supplied with a pack-and-play for Gwen, and we took turns alternating who slept in the room with her, which means two mornings I got to sleep until after 8:00am! I felt so much more awake this year than I have for previous years, where I've always felt like I was run ragged. And I attended all sessions except two, I skipped the plenary talks Monday morning and the session after lunch on Tuesday, as then we headed downtown and met up with Margaret, which was lots of fun. I was even all set up to attend the dance -- brought dress and shoes and everything -- Wednesday night, which I've so far never gone to. But when I wandered over around 9:30, since I wanted to go early and not stay too late, things hadn't gotten started at all, there were still chairs in the cafeteria. I found out Thursday morning that the DJ didn't even show up until 10:30, and then due to power issues, the music didn't start until 10:45. I don't feel so bad now not staying up for it.
The session I organized was on Monday, and it went well; in addition to Spencer and Ana Maria (the other two speakers), Joel showed up there with Gwen, and then Diana and Laura came since we show mutual support for each other and attend each other's sessions even if they're rather unrelated to what we're doing, and there was another girl in the audience, and then a guy who I talked to briefly afterwards who is in theology. More than I was expecting! And even though the audience was small, we had full discussion after each paper, so I was quite pleased. And it was nice to be done with everything by the end of Monday; after our session Spencer, Ana Maria, Joel, Gwen, and I had dinner together, and it was nice and relaxing.
The MAA mentoring scheme this year received way more requests from mentees than applications from mentors so I was assigned 4 mentees this year instead of the usual 1. I met up with three of them at lunch on Monday (actually, ran in to one of them, Marita, during the morning coffee break, as she was talking with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
celemon, whom she knows; she's also a long-time friend of Baroness Agata of Aarnimetsä, though not a SCAdian herself). That mentoring session didn't go as well as I would've liked, there were too many people, it was loud, we were eating, and we had only about an hour. But, Marita and I had walked over to lunch together and so had a chance to talk some then, and then Kris ended up sitting next to someone who also does architectural related things and talked with him for most of the time, so I had a chance to speak one-on-one some with Jennifer, and I also reiterated that they can always email if they want to talk more. In the afternoon before my session, I met up with the fourth, Julia, and her 3 month daughter Sonja. Gwen came and joined us, and we sat on the floor with our babies and talked about academic life and motherhood. She's currently in Vienna, but might be moving to Bonn in fall; if I end up in Heidelberg, we might have to try to maintain a connection, since she seemed like someone I could easily be friends with.
One of Tuesday morning's sessions had a talk given by two SCAdians, THL Berengaria d'Outremer and Lady Kolbrunna Gisladottir, from Northshield, and during the Q&A period I briefly mentioned that I'd started off in Falcon's Keep and how fun it was to see some people from my old home. Afterwards I went up and held out my hand and said "Hi, I'm Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Queen of Drachenald". :) Another audience member who'd been talking to them ended up getting pointed towards me since she lives in Warwick and sounds quite interested in the SCA; I'll put her in touch with the people in the Coventry area. I ran into Berengaria and Kolfinna in a number of other sessions too, which was fun.
Tuesday night was the medieval dinner, this time catered by Caroline in conjunction with the hotel staff. It was tasty, as always, but I could definitely see the effects of modern catering, oh well. Laura and Diana had been sufficiently impressed by the tasting last year, which I'd talked up to them two years ago, and Spencer had also signed up for it, so we all sat together, along with Emily whom I'd met at the tasting last year, and Patrick, an Irish guy with some pretty hilarious stories about military history and re-creation. Gwen hadn't had her second afternoon nap so I was worried things were going to be rough, but she ended up sleeping for about an hour in the stroller, and woke up just in time to join us for dessert. (She approves of spiced quince jam.)
Wednesday morning I went to the sessioncelemon was speaking in, on fealty and re-enactment, which was really quite fascinating. There again, in order to give proper context to some of my comments during the Q&A, I had to introduce myself to the rest of the audience as being in the same re-enactment group as her and that I was currently Queen. :) That got a laugh.
Thursday we had a bit of a hiccough getting back home, when due to the really slow elevators at Leeds station, we missed our train to Hull be about 30 seconds. Grrr. Next one didn't leave for an hour, meaning we'd miss the bus from the station to the ferry, but thankfully the ferry is only about 3 miles from the station, and the bus was scheduled to leave way earlier than necessary, which meant that we were able to take the later train and then get a taxi to the ferry for about 10GBP and got in almost an hour before check-in closed. So it all worked out. The P&O Ferry line is quite different from Stena; for one, it was full both there and back. For another, the first thing you see when you enter is the lounge where they have live music and, on Sunday night, cabaret. And in order to get to our rooms, it was impossible not to walk through the double row of slot machines and gambling arcades. There was also no free wireless, and the restaurant and buffet were exhorbitantly priced. Overall, Stena was a much nicer trip, but since we were sailing overnight, it didn't really matter, we just went straight to sleep (or, I did; last night, Joel headed out to the lounge for awhile to do some work, and said the cover band actually wasn't that bad).
And the best part is, tomorrow is the weekend already!
--
Margaret asked me if motherhood had changed me. I told her I now have a tendency to speak in a higher-pitched voice and to narrate the day-to-day minutiae of my life aloud. Other than that, no, not really, I don't think it has. I am more snippish and sometimes more short of temper, but that has to do with sleep and not with motherhood: Once I'm no longer waking up before 6:00am on a regular basis, this will improve immensely, I'm sure!
For some reason it seemed to go really quick this year, even though we got in to Leeds about lunch time on Sunday, quite a bit earlier than I usually do. (And this was after spending about 2 hours in the Hull train station, since we just missed the 9:00am train to Leeds and so had to wait for the 10:58am one. Go UK weekend train schedules...) Arriving early on Sunday meant I got to the antiquarian/used book sellers fair quite early, and with plenty of time, rather than having to squeeze it in right after breakfast on Monday before the first session. I got a couple of good hauls, but full report will have to wait for the post devoted specifically to book purchases.
Since we missed the 9:00am train we were unable to head up to Durham to meet Caroline as planned, but since we were in Leeds by midafternoon, we were able to join Diana, and later Laura, at the Stables Pub in the evening. I didn't stay out too late, as Gwen started getting fussy and tired having not really napped much, but Joel stayed out a few hours after I went back to our rooms and enjoyed adult conversation with someone other than me quite mightily (not to mention the cask ales...by the end of the week, he'd tried everything they had on tap, which was 5-6 with a rotation in midweek). We had dorm rooms next to each other, one supplied with a pack-and-play for Gwen, and we took turns alternating who slept in the room with her, which means two mornings I got to sleep until after 8:00am! I felt so much more awake this year than I have for previous years, where I've always felt like I was run ragged. And I attended all sessions except two, I skipped the plenary talks Monday morning and the session after lunch on Tuesday, as then we headed downtown and met up with Margaret, which was lots of fun. I was even all set up to attend the dance -- brought dress and shoes and everything -- Wednesday night, which I've so far never gone to. But when I wandered over around 9:30, since I wanted to go early and not stay too late, things hadn't gotten started at all, there were still chairs in the cafeteria. I found out Thursday morning that the DJ didn't even show up until 10:30, and then due to power issues, the music didn't start until 10:45. I don't feel so bad now not staying up for it.
The session I organized was on Monday, and it went well; in addition to Spencer and Ana Maria (the other two speakers), Joel showed up there with Gwen, and then Diana and Laura came since we show mutual support for each other and attend each other's sessions even if they're rather unrelated to what we're doing, and there was another girl in the audience, and then a guy who I talked to briefly afterwards who is in theology. More than I was expecting! And even though the audience was small, we had full discussion after each paper, so I was quite pleased. And it was nice to be done with everything by the end of Monday; after our session Spencer, Ana Maria, Joel, Gwen, and I had dinner together, and it was nice and relaxing.
The MAA mentoring scheme this year received way more requests from mentees than applications from mentors so I was assigned 4 mentees this year instead of the usual 1. I met up with three of them at lunch on Monday (actually, ran in to one of them, Marita, during the morning coffee break, as she was talking with
celemon, whom she knows; she's also a long-time friend of Baroness Agata of Aarnimetsä, though not a SCAdian herself). That mentoring session didn't go as well as I would've liked, there were too many people, it was loud, we were eating, and we had only about an hour. But, Marita and I had walked over to lunch together and so had a chance to talk some then, and then Kris ended up sitting next to someone who also does architectural related things and talked with him for most of the time, so I had a chance to speak one-on-one some with Jennifer, and I also reiterated that they can always email if they want to talk more. In the afternoon before my session, I met up with the fourth, Julia, and her 3 month daughter Sonja. Gwen came and joined us, and we sat on the floor with our babies and talked about academic life and motherhood. She's currently in Vienna, but might be moving to Bonn in fall; if I end up in Heidelberg, we might have to try to maintain a connection, since she seemed like someone I could easily be friends with.One of Tuesday morning's sessions had a talk given by two SCAdians, THL Berengaria d'Outremer and Lady Kolbrunna Gisladottir, from Northshield, and during the Q&A period I briefly mentioned that I'd started off in Falcon's Keep and how fun it was to see some people from my old home. Afterwards I went up and held out my hand and said "Hi, I'm Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Queen of Drachenald". :) Another audience member who'd been talking to them ended up getting pointed towards me since she lives in Warwick and sounds quite interested in the SCA; I'll put her in touch with the people in the Coventry area. I ran into Berengaria and Kolfinna in a number of other sessions too, which was fun.
Tuesday night was the medieval dinner, this time catered by Caroline in conjunction with the hotel staff. It was tasty, as always, but I could definitely see the effects of modern catering, oh well. Laura and Diana had been sufficiently impressed by the tasting last year, which I'd talked up to them two years ago, and Spencer had also signed up for it, so we all sat together, along with Emily whom I'd met at the tasting last year, and Patrick, an Irish guy with some pretty hilarious stories about military history and re-creation. Gwen hadn't had her second afternoon nap so I was worried things were going to be rough, but she ended up sleeping for about an hour in the stroller, and woke up just in time to join us for dessert. (She approves of spiced quince jam.)
Wednesday morning I went to the session
celemon was speaking in, on fealty and re-enactment, which was really quite fascinating. There again, in order to give proper context to some of my comments during the Q&A, I had to introduce myself to the rest of the audience as being in the same re-enactment group as her and that I was currently Queen. :) That got a laugh.Thursday we had a bit of a hiccough getting back home, when due to the really slow elevators at Leeds station, we missed our train to Hull be about 30 seconds. Grrr. Next one didn't leave for an hour, meaning we'd miss the bus from the station to the ferry, but thankfully the ferry is only about 3 miles from the station, and the bus was scheduled to leave way earlier than necessary, which meant that we were able to take the later train and then get a taxi to the ferry for about 10GBP and got in almost an hour before check-in closed. So it all worked out. The P&O Ferry line is quite different from Stena; for one, it was full both there and back. For another, the first thing you see when you enter is the lounge where they have live music and, on Sunday night, cabaret. And in order to get to our rooms, it was impossible not to walk through the double row of slot machines and gambling arcades. There was also no free wireless, and the restaurant and buffet were exhorbitantly priced. Overall, Stena was a much nicer trip, but since we were sailing overnight, it didn't really matter, we just went straight to sleep (or, I did; last night, Joel headed out to the lounge for awhile to do some work, and said the cover band actually wasn't that bad).
And the best part is, tomorrow is the weekend already!
--
Margaret asked me if motherhood had changed me. I told her I now have a tendency to speak in a higher-pitched voice and to narrate the day-to-day minutiae of my life aloud. Other than that, no, not really, I don't think it has. I am more snippish and sometimes more short of temper, but that has to do with sleep and not with motherhood: Once I'm no longer waking up before 6:00am on a regular basis, this will improve immensely, I'm sure!
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Date: 2012-07-13 08:45 pm (UTC)Ears perk up.... I hope you'll be writing more about this, I hope, oh please, please, please?
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Date: 2012-07-14 08:15 am (UTC)