hard to beat

The UCD welcome wagon is hard to beat. And as so often seems to be the case with true generosity, they don’t seem to realize that it’s generous.

They gave me a very nice office with a computer connection, and worked hard to set up wireless for my laptop. They made sure to introduce me to the caretaker of the keys at the building door so that I will have no problems.

On the desk in my office were a chocolate Santa, a Dublin walking tour guide, coupons for 6 free coffees at the café downstairs, and a healthy pile of Euros to help cover my transportation around town.

There is also a nice range of speakers here this week, and since the weather is so miserable I’m likely to have little better to do than attend academic lectures. Just saw Dermot Moran speak on touch to a lunchtime seminar group. Tonight I may stick around to hear James Lovelock (Mr. Gaia Hypothesis) and tomorrow Rolf-Peter Horstmann will apparently be here.

Oh yeah, they also gave me a nice souvenir UCD pen in a nice box. These sorts of little things give a nice impression of openness to visiting speakers, even if “trivial” according to any standard model of the intellectual life.