Mr. Toone, who is another new member, said the same thing as you. He also had the opportunity to talk with his colleagues for the first time that day.
I suppose one way to look at this is you could adopt what they do in Britain for their elections of the Speaker, in both the House and the upper house. They have a hustings, as they call it, essentially an all-candidates debate, or at least one all-candidates debate, at which you get to hear the various candidates explain their positions. That gives you a chance to see them in action. It also gives you a chance to interact with other people.
That might serve to some degree as a substitute for the kind of interacting we had during that voting session.
On the other hand, you can get too much of a good thing. In 1986 they finally elected the Speaker after, I think, nine hours of voting; it might have been 13 hours of voting. It was 3 a.m. at any rate. I think everybody knew everybody else perhaps more intimately than they would have preferred by the end of that process.