FTW

Last week the new batch of grad students all went over to our professor's house to have dinner with a distinguished guest lecturer, John Relethford. He's the author of one of the anthro department's required readings, a good book but one meant for undergrads. The material covers a lot of the stuff I learned in my GenEd "Human Variation in the Modern World" back at the U of A, so there wasn't too much that I hadn't already learned. Those of you who keep track will recall that it was that GenEd that inspired me to become an anthropologist in the first place so while reading the book didn't teach me a lot of new things, it was pleasant to reread all of the things that got me hooked in the first place. The professor told us the dinner was an opportunity to ask him questions about the book since we had to discuss it in class and write reviews. On our way there, a friend and I were wondering how long we would stay. I mean, the end result of the book is fascinating but what are we going to ask him? "So, tell us, when you had finally plotted the ABO bloodtype markers in all those Irish villages what kind of expectations did you have?" It turns out we ended up staying until 9:45 or so because the guy is totally awesome. The talk at the dinner table shifted from a somewhat forced discussion on anthropological stuff to a meandering conversation on our favorite sci-fi shows. He's a fan of Stargate SG1 (Atlantis not so much), Battlestar Galactica (even the original series), and Star Trek to name but a few. He's also a bit of a comic book nerd, commenting on the changes in Spider-Man's character over the decades or how dark X-Men is getting. By now, it's pretty much him, me and one other student talking all kinds of nerdy stuff while the others are all listening, chiming in with some smart-ass remark about Dungeons and Dragons and yet being largely left out of the conversation. John Relethford is a totally down to earth kind of guy, a complete nerd and a distinguished professor. It's good to see that once you've reached that spot in your career you're still allowed to enjoy the simple things, a welcome change from the brilliant but out of touch professors I've known.