How do I love conferences? Let me count the ways:

Exploring other universities' campuses.*


Finding new and funky ways in which your own university needs to get with the program. Every library needs its stationery vending machine.


Mmmm.... tropical.


Discovering the many ways in which backpacker accomodation (the refuge of the stingy grad student) can fail to live up to (even my meagre) expectations and yet simultaneously far, far surpass them.**


Conference dinner: this year livelier than most. Not often do you get a chance to see your supervisor do the 'macarena' (not pictured -- I'm keeping those photos in reserve)


... or to watch big names in your field being dragged onto the dance floor to learn to belly dance.

And last, but absolutely not least, the seemingly humble conference bag. Crammed full of useless information, and guaranteed to fall apart the first time you try to use it, but somehow still able to induce the comforting feeling of having got something in return for that obscenely high registration fee.

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* Why do all universities smell the same?

** Room with no window; tropical garden with swimming pool. Receptionists so far beyond incompetence that watching people (try to) check in has become a spectator sport; free shuttle bus to anywhere you want to go.