A day of new things.

On Friday I woke up early after a great time at HD's American Thanksgiving bash Thursday night with lots of awesome people, including AG and JC, PR, CLM, FN, EW and CW, DR, and JDS and TC. I had to get to school for a research/job talk. This was my first new thing. I am on a grad student search committee. Which means I go to each candidate's research talk, and then the three of us get to interview each candidate later on in the day. I'm not gonna say much about this, since it's confidential. But it was a learning experience, and I trust the next two candidates that come in will teach me things too (even if they aren't intending to).

After the talk, I hung out for a bit in the department before heading off to lunch at Massey with AG. She is very lovely, and it was great to spend time with her in my favourite mid-day surroundings (the sights and sounds of Ondaatje Hall). Awesome. I had to dash off for a meeting, followed by another meeting, and then the interview with the candidate. Ok, busy day. But, for dinner, I did my second new thing of the day: The Feast for the Founding Master. This Massey event was held in the Great Hall at Hart House. It was quite the event. There were tons of older people in evening wear, drinking wine and being served fancy food. I sat with my new(ish) Massey friend, TaV (because her name on my blog can't be "TV"), which was good. But I had to skip out before the brass band started playing and Colm Feore read a Robertson Davies ghost story.

Which leads me to my third new thing . . . "Casino Royale"! AT was right: I had a great time watching this movie. Very entertaining. And what I haven't mentioned yet is that the movie-watching was also a fourth new thing. But I'm feeling shy and won't tell you what I mean. (You can probably guess, though, if you ask yourself who I might have gone with. No, it wasn't FN.)

Today was slightly less busy. I had a very nice lunch with BB, a fellow historian whom I don't see too often, but with whom I always have a lovely time. Later on I got my hair cut. (It looks better now. Even FN thinks so, and she's hard to please!)

It's now after 11pm, and I have many things left to do this weekend. At the top of the list? Start looking for a place to stay in Washington for all of January.