Starving Graduate Students:
Offer graduate students free food and you will get a crowd. In fact, the welcome back dinner with the deans had a better turn out than the grad student happy hour where there is free alcohol. That is something I find rather surprising. Of course, there weren't many archaeologists at the dinner, they were probably out drinking somewhere. And they did well because the food, if you can call it that, was not good. So tonight there will definitely be some late night snacking in this household.

I did get some good info at the events, so the afternoon and evening was not a complete waste. There will be some interesting former heads of state giving talks on campus this fall. Of course this means more distractions from the dissertation, but, hey, you need to take these opportunities when you have them.