York Mini-Meet - March 2007
Created | Updated Mar 8, 2007
It all began in rather a strange way, though such things are to be expected of hootoo, I suppose. I had submitted my entry on my university, the University of York, to Peer Review and was dealing with comments. Some of these were from a Researcher I had never come across before named Runescribe, and from the comments she made it was evident that she was also at the university. Runescribe suggested that we meet up, to which I agreed with the additional suggestion that I get in touch with sigsfried, another researcher at the university I know. Runescribe contacted her friend Midgetmogget, whom I had previously come across in Thursdayite threads. We arranged to meet on campus for Sunday lunch, making this possibly the first hootoo meet in history at which no alcohol was consumed.
Of course, as each of us had only met one other of the group before, we had to post what we were going to be wearing to enable us to recognise each other. Midgemogget made it easy by wearing cat ears on a headband! The first conversation was not as awkward as expected, and we got our food.
One of the first questions I asked was how Midgetmogget and Runescribe had met. It was a funny story. Midgetmogget had won two free tickets to an advance screening of the new Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood. Excitedly, she tried to find someone to tell, bumping into Runescribe in the campus supermarket. They had met very briefly at a meeting of DougSoc the previous night (yes, Douglas Adams — it's a sci-fi and fantasy society). Runescribe was delighted to hear the news and even happier to take the second ticket.
The story of how I met sigsfried is one of those stories that makes you think 'What a small world'. We actually met in real life before we met online. We were both in the same college of the university and met because he vaguely knew one of my new friends, having gone to the same school. We ended up sitting on the same table for dinner that night. A few days later, someone called sigsfried posted on my PS, saying he'd seen me post about how I was at York — so was he, did I want to meet up? I was a little wary of meeting some complete stranger from the internet, so I asked questions to try to find out more about him. I discovered that not only were we in the same college, but we were in the same block and he lived on the floor below me! At this point it was a case of trying to narrow it down to a name, and we quickly realised we had already met!
The meet itself, though lasting only an hour and a half (us second years have to use the library, you know), was a great success. I'd never met anyone from h2g2 before — except sigsfried, obviously — so it was interesting. The conversation was a strange mix of hootoo talk and the standard questions you ask anybody at university when you first meet them (Where are you from? What subject do you do? What year are you in?) Somehow it worked.
If any other researchers in the York area want to have a mini-meet at some point, let us know!
