Moot Thoughts & Musings

After reading around, I've discovered what I knew had to be the case but didn't have time find out beforehand: there was a blogger meet-up and I missed it. Oh well.

I left super, duper early on Wednesday morning. I had spent the night with my parents in Lancaster, because I got a way cheaper ticket from Harrisburg than from Philly. Our flight left at 6 am, and at 4.30 am I was turning my parent's house upside-down in a panic. I couldn't find my glasses! I wear my glasses all the time. I need them. Last thing off at night, first thing on in the morning. How could I lose them!?!?!??!!? My dad and I searched and searched but could not find them. Well, finally, I just had to give up and go. They promised to FedEx them if they found them.

So I spent the next several hours in a visual fog. We got to Detroit in time for breakfast. Ellis likes blueberry bagels, so I got one for him and everything bagel for me, and we sat at the fun fountain, munching, while I also nursed a grande latte from the adjacent Starbucks. I hadn't been to Detroit since its renovation, and it was a fun airport. After breakfast we walked through the fun tunnel with lights and music a few times. Ellis had a lot fun watching that.

We arrived to Kalamazoo airport. And I wondered how I was going to manage seeing that I couldn't see a darn thing! We were expecting my great-aunt to pick me up. Thankfully, she walked in and found us. And she took us home with her and took care of us!! We had such a nice time with my great-aunt and uncle. And since she has young grandchildren locally, they were fully equipped for all my baby needs. They loved on us and took care of us. Travel-worn and having to pull my head together for my paper, it was so wonderful to be there.

Oh yea, and when I got there and opened my suitcase, there were my stinkin' glasses. I'm an egg-head.

On Thursday I was ready to go. My aunt and uncle took care of Ellis, and I think were mutually entertained. They had a great time with him, and doubtless, he with them. It put me at such ease of mind, since I just didn't know how it all would work out.

I attended interesting sessions, some papers better than others. Met up with Advisor and Friends. Had very helpful read-through with Advisor. And then my session at 3.30. My subfield at K'zoo had a session just before in the same room, so everybody just stuck around and there was a good showing at my session. My paper was sandwiched between to other more established scholars, so I had their roomful, too. And lots of questions afterwards, which I hate, because even though I lived with this topic for a couple of years, I'm still no expert. I think I managed them fairly well. The thing that I don't like is that I can't always spot a dumb question. So I fumble trying to think of something to say and come up with something lame, then afterwards people are like "duh" and that makes me feel better, because I least I had an excuse for being lame. The best part was afterwards everybody was pals with me. Including someone whose area I really want to get into for my dissertation (whenever that happens) and I really like what she does. And she has young kids, so we had the baby thing to talk about, too. She was just cool.

I slept in a bit on Friday (or rather Ellis did, thus I did). And my aunt made us a fabulous breakfast of pancakes and eggs, then I went to a morning session, which was a panel, and I got there and realized that it was boring, and I had no idea what they were talking about, so I flipped through my book and realized a session that I really wanted to be at was happening at that time across campus. So I hoofed it over there trying to get what I could, but I really would have enjoyed the first two papers, and I only made it for the third. Oh well.

Ran into a couple of people I was hoping to bump into. Including former fellow grad student friend now tenure track friend--we were Friday evening library buddies.

But lunch was great. It was a meeting of another subfield closely linked to mine, so lots of friends. And I had good chats and "got involved" a bit. I'll be helping with the newsletter. It's nice to have a little something going on to help me stay in touch since I'm not residing at any institution at the moment.

Then, I left. I knew after a month of travels, I would be too tired to stay for the whole conference. So I was outta there. I had just enough conference to make it worth it and enjoyable. Would've loved to stay for fun dinners with fun peoples, for crashing a few wine receptions, and for hearing a few more papers that looked interesting, but I left satisfied. And, hello!, I didn't ever make it to the book tables.

My aunt took us to the airport in the evening and we were off, arriving in Harrisburg very late.