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As I Lose Steam: A Scintillation Wrap-Up Post (Part 2)
I attended Scintillation! Many events happened while I was there. I am recapping some of them.
Early Birds Have A Lot of Time On Their Hands (6/10)
Part 1: Montreal Hates Breakfast
I believe this is the day that learned the "Bonjour Hi" protocol. Previously I had been using the "look panicked and helpless until the clerk says it is okay to order in English, then apologize profusely for being American while the clerk assures me this is not a problem" protocol, which was working fine, but seemed like it was not ideal. There were disputes about what "Bonjour Hi" meant, but not about how it worked. Which is fascinating from a linguistic/anthropological perspective, and mostly irrelevant from a practical "operating in Montreal" perspective. So, obviously, I am going to explain the views that were shared and how they differed and so on. One proposal was that "Bonjour hi" means "I recognize that I should try to speak French, but can we go for English instead", another was "Bonjour Hi" means "you are welcome to pick the language of this interaction" (which makes it an odd thing to use, given that I do not want to offer them a choice, and would like them to pretty please only use English). One proposal was that it originated as the latter, and then became a sort of demonstration of your basic competence in both languages. If you pronounce Bonjour as I do, no Quebecois is going to be interested in proceeding in French. NOTE: it is still very important to apologize for being American fairly early on, because attitudes towards Americans who are utterly unskilled in French vs. Canadians who are utterly unskilled in French are going to differ dramatically (pity vs. resentment). At any rate, "Bonjour Hi" quickly accelerated many of my interactions because I didn't have to look panicked and helpless for a while before someone would speak English to me. There was to be a picnic in the park before the con began, and there was time before that for Riley and Anthony and I to get a bite of baked goods and go to a shoe store that Gretchen had recommended. We went to the Metro station, arrived at the part of town with the shoe store and a cafe, discovering that the cafe sold no food items what-so-ever. A few doors down from the cafe was a small restaurant that opened at 10:00 am. This was also when the shoe store opened. I recalled a comment that Marissa had made about how restaurants in Montreal "opened late" and I suddenly realized, with horror, what she meant. Fortunately, Riley had also identified a bakery a block or so away, that was open (and had been since 7:30 am!). So we went there, and I bought some croissants. I did not buy the adorable marzipan items pictured below, because I do not like marzipan*, no matter how adorable.
Marvel at my restraint because I didn't buy a duck with a parasol that I had no intention of eating! I later asked Gretchen why so many places that serve breakfast type baked goods were closed during "get yourself a breakfast pastry" hours and she was puzzled by the question, suggesting that people were not generally trying to get bakery items at 7-9 A.M. Montreal: Please, Breakfast is one of the most glorious meals of the day. Do not be hostile to it! Do not consign me to a hotel buffet! [Reader, stay tuned for the surprising wonders of the hotel buffet!]
We ate our pastry at some benches. They were tasty. We headed to the shoe store. It was a very good shoe store. The only part of the name I remember is, I am fairly sure, the French word for store (Marche?). I am tempted to tell you all about my extremely particular preferences when it comes to shoes and sandals, but then we will have about four more posts before we get to the picnic, and I would like to eventually talk about this wonderful convention. The shoe store did not have any sandals for me. They had some that were almost what Anthony wanted, but we did wind up having to go to a second location. Sandals were purchased! We made our way to the park for the picnic, and were tempted to go see a dog that was sitting outside a store, but the dog was unattended and so we could not ask whether it was friendly to pet and kept our distance.
Part 2: The Picnic!
This is ALMOST the Convention. I mean, it should count, as we were convening and after all, what more is there to having a convention, than for us to convene? But registration had not yet been registered, and panels had not yet been impaneled—well, strictly speaking, I guess they had been impaneled, it is just that the panels had not yet convened, since their appointed times had not yet come to pass—but at any rate, many people were gathered at the rain location for the picnic. The croissants were running late. As you may recall, however, we had cleverly had some croissants ourselves, prior to sandal shopping, so we could hold out while waiting for these croissants. To my surprise, as we entered the open-air but covered area where the picnic was taking place (due to fotrunately-not-realized-threat-of-rain, a table did have several baked goods on it. We were met with immediate apologies. The table's occupants included someone who was gluten intolerant—odd phrasing, because, in my opinion, the gluten is actually hostile to that person, not vice versa—and so they had brought their own pastries, and didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. There was much mingling. This was the grand "oh wait, are you...? and yeah I'm...! how's your cat? my dog is great!" exchange. You got to put faces to names and names to discord handles and heights to imagined heights and weirdly you already knew what many of the voices sounded like because we had done so many audio things over the past year, but it was still such an alignment of partial knowledge. So many people were becoming three and a half dimensional. And there were people who hadn't been on the discord! So we sat and chatted and got to know more about each other, including re-learning things we knew but only via a different pathway of association. I knew the person who made walnut syrup lived in that state, but not that Jeff lived in that state, because I hadn't been filing any information in the "Jeff" folder, it was all filed under "walnut syrup". Some people were almost seamlessly the same on discord and in person. Other people had been quiet and so meeting them in person revealed so much of who they were and now the things they said had much more context. The picnic was great, it was like coloring in all the pages of a coloring book. The croissants arrived and they were delicious. I asked some people what things were crucial to do in Montreal, apart from the Jean Talon [Reader, I am not going to look up the spelling.] which I was going to be doing after the picnic. I learned that there was both a Biodome and a Biosphere and there are museums, and I will spoil things for you: I made my way to none of them!
Part 3: Jean Talon market
Let me tell you now, I will not actually get to the convention in this post. It will end with this excursion to the market, and then, I promise, the next post will, come hell or high water, start with the actual beginning of the convention. We walked to the Metro, and en route I noticed that someone was wearing an MIT mystery hunt shirt, and connected that it was someone I had chatted with about MITMH (pronounced "Mitmuh" [Reader, it is not], which I had participated in this past year, and about how the team I am on (⛎ Unicode Equivalence) had done some really cool things in the lead up to help get the team to know each other and make it a really fun solving experience, like solving lots of other smaller puzzle hunts with subsets of our team all swapped around from hunt to hunt so you get to know the other players and who likes what kinds of puzzles. As we were walking out of the metro I am pretty sure I had an exchange that went something like this:
glass ice cream). Jeff of the Walnut Syrup seemed to be very familiar with the spice shop so I asked for advice on spice to get there that I might not be able to find elsewhere especially easily. He recommended a few things and I picked: Base Gede Balinese Curry. You may be asking yourself "Did he just write down whatever was on the front of the can right now, and not know for sure if that is all the name, or if it is the name in two different languages or what?" Well, rest assured, that is exactly what I did.
Other people got tasty looking baklava and tarts and such, and fruit and bread and cheese, but I did not, because I was nervous, I now realize, in retrospect, as I was on a panel a few hours from then! (There will, as I promised, eventually be some con wrap-up in this con wrap-up).
Oh, I will be headed back to Montreal in January so the other thing I was doing was getting the lay of the land, which is a fancy phrase for being less stressed that I wasn't getting all the things on my "to-do" list "to-done".
We decided to head back from the market and I went to my hotel room and took the "wired with nervous energy" version of a nap, which is laying on the bed for about ten minutes and then going down to the registration desk to see if I can meet more people!
Early Birds Have A Lot of Time On Their Hands (6/10)
Part 1: Montreal Hates Breakfast
I believe this is the day that learned the "Bonjour Hi" protocol. Previously I had been using the "look panicked and helpless until the clerk says it is okay to order in English, then apologize profusely for being American while the clerk assures me this is not a problem" protocol, which was working fine, but seemed like it was not ideal. There were disputes about what "Bonjour Hi" meant, but not about how it worked. Which is fascinating from a linguistic/anthropological perspective, and mostly irrelevant from a practical "operating in Montreal" perspective. So, obviously, I am going to explain the views that were shared and how they differed and so on. One proposal was that "Bonjour hi" means "I recognize that I should try to speak French, but can we go for English instead", another was "Bonjour Hi" means "you are welcome to pick the language of this interaction" (which makes it an odd thing to use, given that I do not want to offer them a choice, and would like them to pretty please only use English). One proposal was that it originated as the latter, and then became a sort of demonstration of your basic competence in both languages. If you pronounce Bonjour as I do, no Quebecois is going to be interested in proceeding in French. NOTE: it is still very important to apologize for being American fairly early on, because attitudes towards Americans who are utterly unskilled in French vs. Canadians who are utterly unskilled in French are going to differ dramatically (pity vs. resentment). At any rate, "Bonjour Hi" quickly accelerated many of my interactions because I didn't have to look panicked and helpless for a while before someone would speak English to me. There was to be a picnic in the park before the con began, and there was time before that for Riley and Anthony and I to get a bite of baked goods and go to a shoe store that Gretchen had recommended. We went to the Metro station, arrived at the part of town with the shoe store and a cafe, discovering that the cafe sold no food items what-so-ever. A few doors down from the cafe was a small restaurant that opened at 10:00 am. This was also when the shoe store opened. I recalled a comment that Marissa had made about how restaurants in Montreal "opened late" and I suddenly realized, with horror, what she meant. Fortunately, Riley had also identified a bakery a block or so away, that was open (and had been since 7:30 am!). So we went there, and I bought some croissants. I did not buy the adorable marzipan items pictured below, because I do not like marzipan*, no matter how adorable.
We ate our pastry at some benches. They were tasty. We headed to the shoe store. It was a very good shoe store. The only part of the name I remember is, I am fairly sure, the French word for store (Marche?). I am tempted to tell you all about my extremely particular preferences when it comes to shoes and sandals, but then we will have about four more posts before we get to the picnic, and I would like to eventually talk about this wonderful convention. The shoe store did not have any sandals for me. They had some that were almost what Anthony wanted, but we did wind up having to go to a second location. Sandals were purchased! We made our way to the park for the picnic, and were tempted to go see a dog that was sitting outside a store, but the dog was unattended and so we could not ask whether it was friendly to pet and kept our distance.
Part 2: The Picnic!
This is ALMOST the Convention. I mean, it should count, as we were convening and after all, what more is there to having a convention, than for us to convene? But registration had not yet been registered, and panels had not yet been impaneled—well, strictly speaking, I guess they had been impaneled, it is just that the panels had not yet convened, since their appointed times had not yet come to pass—but at any rate, many people were gathered at the rain location for the picnic. The croissants were running late. As you may recall, however, we had cleverly had some croissants ourselves, prior to sandal shopping, so we could hold out while waiting for these croissants. To my surprise, as we entered the open-air but covered area where the picnic was taking place (due to fotrunately-not-realized-threat-of-rain, a table did have several baked goods on it. We were met with immediate apologies. The table's occupants included someone who was gluten intolerant—odd phrasing, because, in my opinion, the gluten is actually hostile to that person, not vice versa—and so they had brought their own pastries, and didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. There was much mingling. This was the grand "oh wait, are you...? and yeah I'm...! how's your cat? my dog is great!" exchange. You got to put faces to names and names to discord handles and heights to imagined heights and weirdly you already knew what many of the voices sounded like because we had done so many audio things over the past year, but it was still such an alignment of partial knowledge. So many people were becoming three and a half dimensional. And there were people who hadn't been on the discord! So we sat and chatted and got to know more about each other, including re-learning things we knew but only via a different pathway of association. I knew the person who made walnut syrup lived in that state, but not that Jeff lived in that state, because I hadn't been filing any information in the "Jeff" folder, it was all filed under "walnut syrup". Some people were almost seamlessly the same on discord and in person. Other people had been quiet and so meeting them in person revealed so much of who they were and now the things they said had much more context. The picnic was great, it was like coloring in all the pages of a coloring book. The croissants arrived and they were delicious. I asked some people what things were crucial to do in Montreal, apart from the Jean Talon [Reader, I am not going to look up the spelling.] which I was going to be doing after the picnic. I learned that there was both a Biodome and a Biosphere and there are museums, and I will spoil things for you: I made my way to none of them!
Part 3: Jean Talon market
Let me tell you now, I will not actually get to the convention in this post. It will end with this excursion to the market, and then, I promise, the next post will, come hell or high water, start with the actual beginning of the convention. We walked to the Metro, and en route I noticed that someone was wearing an MIT mystery hunt shirt, and connected that it was someone I had chatted with about MITMH (pronounced "Mitmuh" [Reader, it is not], which I had participated in this past year, and about how the team I am on (⛎ Unicode Equivalence) had done some really cool things in the lead up to help get the team to know each other and make it a really fun solving experience, like solving lots of other smaller puzzle hunts with subsets of our team all swapped around from hunt to hunt so you get to know the other players and who likes what kinds of puzzles. As we were walking out of the metro I am pretty sure I had an exchange that went something like this:
Them: What do you do?
Me: I'm a philosophy professor.
Them: I was just saying how I am intimidated by people in the humanities and philosophy because I studied science.
Me: I can confidently say that I have literally never encountered that attitude before ever.
Other people got tasty looking baklava and tarts and such, and fruit and bread and cheese, but I did not, because I was nervous, I now realize, in retrospect, as I was on a panel a few hours from then! (There will, as I promised, eventually be some con wrap-up in this con wrap-up).
Oh, I will be headed back to Montreal in January so the other thing I was doing was getting the lay of the land, which is a fancy phrase for being less stressed that I wasn't getting all the things on my "to-do" list "to-done".
We decided to head back from the market and I went to my hotel room and took the "wired with nervous energy" version of a nap, which is laying on the bed for about ten minutes and then going down to the registration desk to see if I can meet more people!
I bet you thought I would get to the con itself this time! Well so did I! But I got much closer! And the picnic sort of counted. Seriously though, next time I would have to actively try not to get to the con!
Next Time: Registration! Raffle Table! My First Panel (attending)! A Reading! My First Panel (talking)! Whoops I Forgot to Eat Dinner! For real, it's the Con!
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Me: I can confidently say that I have literally never encountered that attitude before ever.
As someone with a science degree I have encountered that attitude quite a bit actually! I had a religion minor as well, so both in school and later on, I heard a lot about how intimidating many members of each group found the other group at least until you got to know them. perhaps i just have one of those faces that people tell me when they find things worrying. also definitely one of those faces that people ask for directions.
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