  This, perhaps, will shock and amaze some of you, but it can be hard to get budding biologists out of the lab for a night of fun. At this point, most of the kids in my year are done with classes, so we go into lab in the morning (or afternoon), do some stuff, see the people that work in our general proximity, and then leave in the afternoon (or evening, or morning). There are some people whom I see on a regular basis because we're in the habit of doing things together, but there are a lot of people whom I don't yet know well, and no longer see in the course of a normal week at school.
Thankfully, David of the genetics program has consistently arranged an end-of-term happy hour at urlLink Brian O'Neill's . It's sort of a half and half mix of Cricket's and Treff's. It's not one of my favorite places; this being a real city, there are bars with more character and better atmostphere, but I can't be too picky at this point. So we show up at 9:00, get a ticket for a free drink, and get extended happy hour pricing until 11:00. The turnout, while not what I hope, is usually decent, and it serves its purpose. So, the evening's going well, and I've had three Shiners, two gin and tonics, a tequila and tonic, a whiskey and coke, and a shot of Southern Comfort (always reminds me of Paris and London with Rebecca last summer) with lime juice, provided in a glowing shot glass (containing glow stick technology, I think) by the SoCo liquor reps. Happy hour pricing ends, and there is talk of moving the party to a different venue. One group was in favor of urlLink the Ginger Man , which I'm rather fond of.
It seems like the kind of bar where graduate students would hang out (but in a good way), and has lots of beer on tap. The other group was mainly girls, and they wanted to go to urlLink the Red Star to go dancing. Now I don't dance under most normal circumstances. It's really better for myself and others that way. Nobody gets hurt; nobody gets embarassed. However, sometimes, you have to go where the ladies are. So, Friday night, I learned how many drinks and how many cute girls it takes to get me out on the dance floor (well, with their power combined, at least).
Those numbers are eight (well, nine after we got the club and girl A suggested that I needed a drink) and five, respectively. This, folks, is big. So, taking two cars, we went downtown to the club. It wasn't horribly objectionable. Sad thing was, out of our group, I seemed to be the least inhibited person out there. There were two other guys with us. They were all just standing in a circle, dancing. I made an effort to actually dance with the girls. Turns out, they're all pretty shy, which shouldn't surprise me, but this is another example of being disappointed when people reinforce stereotypes. There were some entertaining happenings. After we had parked, girl B left the car to flag down the other car, and since the neighborhood was a bit sketchy, I went with her at the request of the others in the car. She was talking to the other car on the cell phone, and informed them that she didn't know why I was with her, since she was a former kickboxer and could probably kick my ass (which might be true; she's about my size). I also had the following conversation with girl A: Me: "You're surprisingly shy out there on the dance floor.
I thought you were into this sort of thing. " B: "I can't really dance. " Me: "You were a cheerleader in high school. How can you not know how to dance? " B: "How did you know that? Nobody's supposed to know about that! " Me: "You told me. At your birthday party. You were drunk. " B: "Well, keep that quiet. " Me: "OK. But I still have complete faith in your dancing ability. " And she could dance, as long as it was by hereself.
Or even with me, for about thirty seconds, until she got embarassed. Oh well. I impressed myself by trying, anyway. Also, thankfully, these people know that after the bars close, you go to Taco C. Even though there was complaining from people who had planned on getting up early to go into lab, I feel like I accomplished something. 
