conference over
May. 26th, 2005 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trocheeMy trip to the East is done -- that is, all the work is done. I am tired and jetlagged so this is somewhat disconnected.
the trip was uneventful; Seattle airport wants to charge too much for wireless (why isn't it free?), so I decided to wait for Atlanta. I read the entirety of Idoru, one of William Gibson's books, on the plane to Atlanta. It was good, but I felt that Pattern Recognition was a second and better pass at the same topic.
The airport in Atlanta is enormous -- as I already knew -- and after a fair amount of walking I found "Laptop Lane" where I could get on the internet -- but they wanted (no joke) $0.65 per minute, so I snorted and left. i went to get myself icecream as a treat and the lines there were so backed up that the woman who took my order and the one who filled it each thought the other was taking my money. So I just walked off with the shake -- they'd gotten the order wrong, and taken ten minutes, so I didn't feel bad. Since nobody rang it up, nobody'll be responsible for the cash, and we all come out happier except for the TCBY corporation.
I flew in to PVD late [read the entirety of Brunner's The Infinitive of Go on the plane] and found [GS] waiting for me at the airport. Instead of taking me back to his house so I could sleep before the workshop, he invited me out to the on-campus bar to celebrate one of his friends finishing comps, which was a surreal experience, since I spent four years here, starting [thinks...] twelve years back. We came back to [GS]' apartment, and I crashed out on the couch, after calling![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imtboo to tell her I miss her and wish that she was along with me. I had a few moments to worry about the presentation I was giving on the 'morrow, but fell asleep with an almost audible *clunk*.
I slept on the sofa, like a rock.
The alarm on my phone woke me from REM sleep at 8 am [5a to my Pacific time body], and I dressed quickly and [GS] and I walked down to the computer building and sat down for the conference. With some wireless hassle, I got on the web, but was unable to check email due to paranoid port-blocking by the University wireless admins.
The workshop meeting was amazing. I went in feeling nervous, wondering whether this group was convinced that i was part of the team or whether (on the other hand) they thought of me as a competitor who needed to be warned off, or (worse) beaten to the hot research. Instead, I found a group of intellectually engaged, warm, welcoming people. Not to say it was all group hugs and mutual back-scratching -- we got into some fairly vigorous arguments about different solutions -- but it was an active, engaged debate with people who cared about the right answer, and weren't really worried about whether anybody in the room was going to scoop them. I presented a short talk about my own research direction, and they quite clearly told me that they don't feel like it's stepping on the toes of the workshop thatthey we are planning.
And several times, they told me how much they regret that I'm not coming. [It's not my choice - their funders don't want to include me; petty politics seem to be involved.] But I feel included, and it was both interesting and somehow relaxing to meet [KJ], an extremely smart professor in the midwest, who graduated from the same U I did, a year after. He treated me like an ally and friend again immediately, despite our difference in status (he: paid researcher on the workshop, me: volunteer grad student who had to fight to be on the roster and won't even be there for the summer). We joked about forming a new 'Bloc' of alumni in our field; he chuckled when I explained "A-bleaching" and pointed out a deliberate A-bleaching that isn't from linguistics: KFC. I like him.
There were lots of other side connections that felt like that -- another researcher graduated from my lab just before I started there, so I knew all about him; yet another was a grad student of one of my undergrad advisors; I'd met two others of them before at other conferences. So I felt surrounded by reasons to trust. I wonder why I've never felt that so strongly in my own department. Perhaps it's merely because this is an intentionally-assembled group of thecountry's world's best people on this (rather narrow subject within a narrow subfield of a small discipline), but it's really nice to look around the room and feel like everyone participating is someone I would trust to do good work -- and then to realize that I'm being treated the same way. Warms my very cockles. [Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about clams.]
I gave my talk in a relaxed environment; I could joke about the fact that it had my picture on the front outline slide [Advisor was giving the same talk to people in Seattle, at (ironically) almost exactly the same time, and she wanted them to remember who I was], and I understood all the questions and had good answers for them. In the one case I didn't, the graduate-from-my-lab knew it exactly, and jumped in. And I've never met him before; I'd only talked to him on the phone once.
It's the way I want academics to feel: collaborating, excited about the ideas -- even willing to shout about them -- but collaborating, taking advantage of each other's strength in the security that asking for assistance on a project or experiment is not an admission of weakness, but a mutual recognition of benefit in collaboration.
A group of us had dinner together (about 70% of the team at the workshop) and I got to hear dirt dished by some rather big names about some other (possibly even bigger) names. Won't be sharing that here, at least not without a friends filter. [GS] had another friend finish comps today (this one in epidemiology --trombo2, she thinks you should come and talk here in PVD), so we went to a dance-and-drinks in downtown, which is one part of PVD that I never spent much time in. Very strange feeling, wandering around this town after a seven-year absence. [GS] was telling his roommates that I'm much funnier and have a wicked sense of humor when I'm tired and my barriers are down; I'm flattered and somehow intrigued by that comment. I suppose I am not as controlled under those circumstances.
Tomorrow I'm off to visitlapartera and trombo2, after an hour's meeting at U. Looking forward to them both. I am now back off to the sofa, for more rest. Flying tomorrow. Working and visiting family for the weekend; back in Seattle on Monday.
the trip was uneventful; Seattle airport wants to charge too much for wireless (why isn't it free?), so I decided to wait for Atlanta. I read the entirety of Idoru, one of William Gibson's books, on the plane to Atlanta. It was good, but I felt that Pattern Recognition was a second and better pass at the same topic.
The airport in Atlanta is enormous -- as I already knew -- and after a fair amount of walking I found "Laptop Lane" where I could get on the internet -- but they wanted (no joke) $0.65 per minute, so I snorted and left. i went to get myself icecream as a treat and the lines there were so backed up that the woman who took my order and the one who filled it each thought the other was taking my money. So I just walked off with the shake -- they'd gotten the order wrong, and taken ten minutes, so I didn't feel bad. Since nobody rang it up, nobody'll be responsible for the cash, and we all come out happier except for the TCBY corporation.
I flew in to PVD late [read the entirety of Brunner's The Infinitive of Go on the plane] and found [GS] waiting for me at the airport. Instead of taking me back to his house so I could sleep before the workshop, he invited me out to the on-campus bar to celebrate one of his friends finishing comps, which was a surreal experience, since I spent four years here, starting [thinks...] twelve years back. We came back to [GS]' apartment, and I crashed out on the couch, after calling
imtboo to tell her I miss her and wish that she was along with me. I had a few moments to worry about the presentation I was giving on the 'morrow, but fell asleep with an almost audible *clunk*.I slept on the sofa, like a rock.
The alarm on my phone woke me from REM sleep at 8 am [5a to my Pacific time body], and I dressed quickly and [GS] and I walked down to the computer building and sat down for the conference. With some wireless hassle, I got on the web, but was unable to check email due to paranoid port-blocking by the University wireless admins.
The workshop meeting was amazing. I went in feeling nervous, wondering whether this group was convinced that i was part of the team or whether (on the other hand) they thought of me as a competitor who needed to be warned off, or (worse) beaten to the hot research. Instead, I found a group of intellectually engaged, warm, welcoming people. Not to say it was all group hugs and mutual back-scratching -- we got into some fairly vigorous arguments about different solutions -- but it was an active, engaged debate with people who cared about the right answer, and weren't really worried about whether anybody in the room was going to scoop them. I presented a short talk about my own research direction, and they quite clearly told me that they don't feel like it's stepping on the toes of the workshop that
And several times, they told me how much they regret that I'm not coming. [It's not my choice - their funders don't want to include me; petty politics seem to be involved.] But I feel included, and it was both interesting and somehow relaxing to meet [KJ], an extremely smart professor in the midwest, who graduated from the same U I did, a year after. He treated me like an ally and friend again immediately, despite our difference in status (he: paid researcher on the workshop, me: volunteer grad student who had to fight to be on the roster and won't even be there for the summer). We joked about forming a new 'Bloc' of alumni in our field; he chuckled when I explained "A-bleaching" and pointed out a deliberate A-bleaching that isn't from linguistics: KFC. I like him.
There were lots of other side connections that felt like that -- another researcher graduated from my lab just before I started there, so I knew all about him; yet another was a grad student of one of my undergrad advisors; I'd met two others of them before at other conferences. So I felt surrounded by reasons to trust. I wonder why I've never felt that so strongly in my own department. Perhaps it's merely because this is an intentionally-assembled group of the
I gave my talk in a relaxed environment; I could joke about the fact that it had my picture on the front outline slide [Advisor was giving the same talk to people in Seattle, at (ironically) almost exactly the same time, and she wanted them to remember who I was], and I understood all the questions and had good answers for them. In the one case I didn't, the graduate-from-my-lab knew it exactly, and jumped in. And I've never met him before; I'd only talked to him on the phone once.
It's the way I want academics to feel: collaborating, excited about the ideas -- even willing to shout about them -- but collaborating, taking advantage of each other's strength in the security that asking for assistance on a project or experiment is not an admission of weakness, but a mutual recognition of benefit in collaboration.
A group of us had dinner together (about 70% of the team at the workshop) and I got to hear dirt dished by some rather big names about some other (possibly even bigger) names. Won't be sharing that here, at least not without a friends filter. [GS] had another friend finish comps today (this one in epidemiology --
trombo2, she thinks you should come and talk here in PVD), so we went to a dance-and-drinks in downtown, which is one part of PVD that I never spent much time in. Very strange feeling, wandering around this town after a seven-year absence. [GS] was telling his roommates that I'm much funnier and have a wicked sense of humor when I'm tired and my barriers are down; I'm flattered and somehow intrigued by that comment. I suppose I am not as controlled under those circumstances.Tomorrow I'm off to visit
lapartera and trombo2, after an hour's meeting at U. Looking forward to them both. I am now back off to the sofa, for more rest. Flying tomorrow. Working and visiting family for the weekend; back in Seattle on Monday.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-27 06:30 am (UTC)TCBY, on the other hand, is definitely a deliberate A-bleaching.
Congratulations on a good workshop. If only all fields of endeavor could get that level of passion, skill, and camraderie together in one room! It's the way work should be done, really.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-28 03:58 am (UTC)Amen to that.
The KFC links are awesome. It's not quite A-bleaching, but it's fascinating to watch them skirt the edge of copyright. I'm sure that the KFC lawyers are watching with eagle eye.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-27 06:46 am (UTC)That must feel good. I am hoping the TCG conference will feel like that for me. I miss that ongoing dialogue and camaraderie within the field. I have it with the girls but not with other theater people.
I am so happy for you. You deserve this. And much much more...
no subject
Date: 2005-05-27 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-27 07:37 am (UTC)Continued safe travels to you!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-28 03:59 am (UTC)I think that perhaps Advisor's stress level was rubbing off on me. The workshop itself was a joy, and [GS]'s cheerfulness, which sometimes seems grating when I'm at home and he's sending me email asking me to do stuff, seems more genuine when I meet him in person.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-27 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-28 02:34 pm (UTC)Linguists really are extraordinarily gossipy people, I've observerd.