Movin' East, Movin' In, and Movin' On

How much further east can you go from New York City? Well, Long Island is around 100 miles long. This past weekend was spent way out in Greenport, on the North Fork of the island. It's a beautiful small town with beaches on both the north (Long Island Sound) and the south (Shelter Island Sound). The chair of my department has a house in this little town, and he invited all the grad students and faculty members to come out for the weekend for a retreat. It was a great weekend. We spent most of the time on the beach, swimming and playing volleyball. Dinners were multi-course feasts that included roast duck and swordfish. Cocktails were served an hour before dinner, and a great deal of wine was provided for the rest of the evening. On Saturday night, a few of us even went out to the bar after the dinner conversation had died down. (You know you're back in a small town when the bartender recognizes that you're not from there, and a fight breaks out at some point in the evening.) But all in all, it was just a fun time with some good people. I'm very happy to be in this department.

Yes, it's August now, and the neighborhood is starting to fill up with moving vans. New grad students are starting to arrive, and even some undergrads are poking around the area again. It's been very peaceful here, while school's been out, so I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to the neighborhood being full of undergrads again. The good side, though, is that a very good friend of mine is, as I write this, on her way here. I'll be helping move her in tomorrow morning. Looking forward to it.

In other news, someone has moved on. And so shall I. And that's all I've got to say about that.