beer and subculture
What a wuss, I don’t even handle beer well anymore. (This is a follow-up to the coffee entry.)
Met another old colleague from a past internship. Was pretty tired and low, and a bit nervous (fearing I would dry up before the conversation got interesting for both of us. more prosaically, unconfirmed meeting times and a too small map contributed). I consider this person a role model of sorts, albeit younger (out of school soon, about one year after I finished mine). Got a quick portrayal of the new team; should have thought of more questions to get a bit more depth. Come to think of it, repeating and reformulating should do the job. IIRC there’s two genki spaniards, an italian, the odd french. Got a good brainstorming of job prospects. Had a hard time hearing, names in particular. Will try to confirm them over e-mail. Then, conferences. Wish I managed to share more, though I did so, a bit, by e-mail beforehand. Also I see some ways I should do more active listening - again I see some hooks I could have turned into questions. What was your favourite would be a good fallback. Anyway, we traded brief con reports and anecdotes, and tried to come up with regular or upcoming events. I had been bringing books in English to work. Apparently I had recced some untranslated Pratchett (not that I think the French translations are bad), and been taken up on that, so that’s nice. Except for the sneaking suspicion of not getting most of the puns and references. So I recced Lspace after that. Apparently I'm remembered as the librarian and wikipedia surrogate. It's nice getting reflected back like that, and being reminded I had a bit of impact. Now I got my memory jogged, I'll try to do the same. For example, this was the person who introduced me to Who fandom. It didn't stick, but I tried another TV fandom (Whedon's) and I'm glad. Got a bit of a follow-up on the projects I worked on (not a lot of that survived), and on what other ex-coworkers are doing. Missed a chance to see photos of a seaside trip (a hint I only got in retrospect). Discussed the news, some recent non-fiction we both read (it's nice having a subculture in common).
After that I re-enabled an old IM account I had been hiding from (unrelated old shame, a bit stupid really). Except I can't access it, I think it hit a twelve-months expiration.