Academic writing: sometimes you need to just drive around the guardrails

After I presented my paper at the American Humor Studies Association conference yesterday, a grateful grad student came up to me and said, "I've been wanting to write about my teaching experiences, but I didn't know I was allowed to do that."

This made me both sad and hopeful: sad because of the way many graduate students unquestioningly accept the guardrails that constrain their academic writing, and hopeful because here was someone who had something interesting to say and who wasn't going to allow the traditional constraints to silence her.

I understand why grad students need to be trained to stay in their lane, to avoid the anecdotal and to ground their academic writing in appropriate theoretical contexts, but I was presenting a paper on teaching comedy during Covid-19 and I don't know how to talk about my teaching experiences without using the word "I" and offering specific examples. If those examples were engaging, amusing, or inspiring, I'm not going to apologize for that. I've reached a point in my career where nothing is really at stake, so I may as well say something that matters and that might make a difference in a listener's life.

When that student told me she didn't know she was "allowed" to write about her teaching experiences, I shared a few venues that encourage such writing. For instance, Pedagogy's "From the Classroom" section includes essays about hands-on teaching methods described with academic rigor. Further, the book display at this conference includes a number of collections of essays focusing on pedagogy, including, of course, my own collection from the MLA, Teaching Comedy.

Writing about pedagogy may be considered a second-tier pursuit in some circles, but we can all benefit from hearing about other teachers' classroom experiences. That grad student told me she appreciated hearing the insights I've gleaned from decades of teaching experience, and I told her that I appreciate hearing the insights of young people trying out brand-new ideas in the classroom--but that will happen only if someone writes them down.

Maybe she will. And someday maybe more graduate programs will function in a way that empowers students to write about their teaching without worrying about whether such writing is "allowed."

    

But where are the academic superheroes?

The final conference sessions I attended today took place in a room where the acoustics were not just bad--they were actively hostile to communication. The room harshly amplified every minor paper-shuffle and transformed each spoken word into a blow to the skull from a ball-peen hammer. But there was no graceful way out, no way to push out my chair and walk away without sounding like a battalion of tanks crashing through the space. And so I stayed and listened, despite the fact that I could understand about every third word.

But that was the only dud session I attended at a very interesting interdisciplinary conference. Among other topics, I heard people talking knowledgeably about the Taft-Hartley Act, the Matewan massacre, the urge to locate "heroes" within family genealogies, the rise of vice tourism in New Orleans, and Russian nostalgia for Stalinism.

Of course I gave my paper too, a little quick and dirty foray into garbage theory, examining the way two novels attempt to transform the debris left behind by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks into soothing narrative. Our panel was delayed when one presenter (not I!) had technical difficulties, but I tried to distract the antsy audience by suggesting that we present our papers via interpretive dance. Finally we got our show on the road and inspired some interesting discussion. 

After my session, I took a deep breath and put my brain into neutral, so I probably wouldn't have been equipped to comprehend that final session even if the acoustics had not been so brutal. I endured, and afterward I took refuge on a bench near the waterfront, a spot that is evidently quite popular with creatures of the Pokemon species and their human followers. I sat quietly watching gulls swoop overhead and sailboats skim across the harbor, marvelled at the low-flying planes landing just across the way, and watched the Saturday night crowd milling about: A gray-haired woman dressed in sparkly ball gown and tiara; two English bulldogs peeking out of a trailer pulled behind a bicycle; a young couple both dressed like Spiderman, although the man's costume looked more like baggy Spidey pajamas.

Then I saw a German shepherd wearing a Superman costume and realized it was time to call it a night. When the superheroes start walking the streets, evil supervillains and their henchmen can't be far behind, so it's time for innocent bystanders to get off the streets before we turn into collateral damage.

Of course, I may have figured out the perfect weapon to deter evil villains: take 'em up to that horrible conference room and talk at 'em until they wilt.

On the road and out of the classroom

Things I won't be doing while I'm at a conference in Toronto this week:

Teaching my comedy class today (but a highly qualified senior English major will lead the discussion).

Teaching my two freshman writing classes tomorrow (but they're turning in papers and doing library research in my absence).

Teaching my novel class tomorrow (but they're participating in online discussion about White Noise).

Attending a two-hour committee meeting (hurrah!).

Attending the fall choir concert (boo, hiss!  I love that concert).

Cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping.

Things I will be doing that I don't get to do in a normal week:

Enjoying my grandson's coos of delight as I feed him mashed papaya.

Watching my granddaughter jump up and down on a bed with the intensity of someone who believes her bed-jumping skills will save the world.

Watching the Cleveland Indians play World Series games--on television! 

Driving two hours yesterday, five today, and seven on Sunday, through weather that promises to be wet and cool (but not quite snowy), with a Garmin loaded with maps that stop at the Canadian border. (Good thing I know how to read a road atlas!)

Seeing Toronto! (If I can find it.) 

And oh yeah, attending a conference and giving a paper. (Not something I do every day.)

  

Conference serendipities

Enough about wandering and paying of debts--what about the conference? 

It was great. Relaxing, exhilarating, inspiring, exhausting--everything I like about an academic conference without the  stress and snobbery of MLA, where people have to check your nametag to determine whether you're worth wasting time talking to. 

ASLE is just a bunch of profs and writers who are passionate about literature and the environment, and they have a lot of insight to share. I heard a theory-heavy paper on Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam trilogy, a group of pedagogy papers on using hydraulic fracturing as an exercise in critical thinking, and a well-researched essay on the history of fart jokes read at 8:30 in the morning to a standing-room only crowd (except by the end of the essay, most of us were falling on the floor laughing). 

(And if you're wondering what makes fart jokes an appropriate topic for a conference on literature and the environment, ask yourself this: what other natural process evokes so much cultural shame while inspiring so many great authors to create comedy?)
 
What about my paper? It went well. The room was crowded and the discussion afterward did what academic conferences are supposed to do: raised some questions I will need to pursue further, offered insights that helped me see how to refine my argument. Most conference papers feel like the end of something, a completed item to check off a to-do list, but this one felt more like the beginning of a bigger project that will carry me forward for quite some time.

And then, of course, I had plenty of opportunity to share ideas with interesting people. On the flight to Spokane I chatted with John Lane about W.G. Sebald and canoeing and later bought his book My Paddle to the Sea, which allowed me to vicariously experience a canoe trip that turns alternately enlightening and harrowing. I heard Joni Tevis read from her great new book of essays, The World is On Fire, and later we shared a refreshing piece of key lime pie and talked about teaching, writing, and odd little shops. I went birding with a poet, shared a dorm suite with an expert on children's nature books, and chatted with a prof who recently taught a book I'm teaching for the first time this fall.

These accidental encounters are the best part of an academic conference, but they don't happen at conferences where attendees are consumed by academic snobbery or concerned about impressing the right people. At ASLE, serendipity rules: any encounter could result in a new connection, every conversation in a new insight. I came home refreshed and ready to tackle the next stage in my summer writing project, with a notebook full of ideas to plug into my classrooms this fall. 

Plus a little sunburn and sore eyes--a small price to pay for such a refreshing experience.     

Next stop: Idaho

Today I turn my tired eyes westward toward Idaho, where next week I'll present a paper at the biennial conference of ASLE (the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment). I've never been to Idaho but wow, does it look great online. Mountains! Waterfalls! Lakes! Rivers! Buttes! We have many lovely land formations in Ohio but we suffer from an unfortunate dearth of buttes.

And then there is the conference itself. This will be my third ASLE conference and I've enjoyed every one, from the engaging panels to the networking opportunities to the many people passionate about literature and nature. It was at an ASLE conference that I first encountered Joni Tevis and bought her first book, The Wet Collection, which was the start of a rewarding relationship; next week I'll ask her to sign her new book, The World Is On Fire, which is also terrific.

ASLE lacks the intensity and pretense of a big conference like MLA; no one is interviewing for jobs or trying to impress anyone, so the atmosphere tends to be relaxed. I won't even pack a power suit. Instead, I'll take lots of hiking clothes and hope to get out into the wild a few times. 

But where? 

That was my morning project: finding locations I'd like to visit within an hour's drive of Moscow, Idaho. I'm staying in the dorm on the cheap so I can afford to splurge on a rental car, and I'm accepting suggestions for terrific things to see. I don't know Idaho, but I like what little I can see from this distance.

A few peeves from Passenger Huge

I love to travel--in theory. Love the idea of getting away from my dirty house, demanding students, and pesky piles of papers and heading south toward sunshine, friends, and all the fun of an academic conference.

However, I'm not a fan of airport parking, airport security, airport food prices, or really anything about the airport itself, most especially the ticket agent's difficulty in pronouncing my name so that when the call goes out for "Passenger Huge," I have to step up and say "I think that's me." When it really isn't. Not at all.

And don't even get me started on my poor wardrobe choice. I remembered to wear slip-on shoes for ease at security, but I had no idea that a little lovely beading around the neckline of my blouse would look threatening to an airport x-ray machine. Yes: full pat-down in public just because I had to go with the beaded blouse.

And how hard did I have to work this week to clear the decks for this trip? I won't be back until Sunday evening but I didn't want to carry two bricklike Norton anthologies on the airplane, so I spent the first part of this week dealing with this week's work while also preparing next Monday's classes. Nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, and fingers tap-tapping on the keyboard to cut my conference paper down to a presentable length.

I love academic conferences--in theory. Meeting of minds, exposure to new ideas, networking with interesting people inside and outside my field, plus a little time to see the sights. But in practice, I'm not a fan of working like a maniac to write a brilliant paper only to deliver it in a big room populated by an audience of two people. 

But I have high hopes for this conference. It's a small but devoted group and I'm presenting at a good time--and even if the conference is a flop, I'll still be in Florida. We had snow in Ohio yesterday and more in the forecast for tonight. I doubt that I'll encounter any snow in Florida. Instead, I'll have time for a brief visit with my parents and some relaxation with an old friend in a beautiful location. 

And best of all, I won't have to answer to "Passenger Huge."

Conference flotsam

Leftover flotsam from the weekend conference:

At several conference sessions I was the oldest person in the room by at least a decade. When did they start granting PhDs to 12-year-olds?

I am no longer interested in hearing conference papers in which the thesis statement is something like "I am interested in [obscure topic]." Trust me: I already know you're interested--that's why you're giving the paper! The trick is to make me interested, and telling me that you're interested is not the way to do it. This is simply the grad-school equivalent of everyone's least favorite freshman thesis statement: "I can really relate to this topic because it's really important to me and has a really big impact on me in my life and how I feel about my future and my career." Please, people: if [obscure topic] is important, show me why I should care! 

And while you're at it, how about demonstrating a little awareness of context? I heard way too many papers that focused narrowly on extremely special topics that seemed to exist entirely in isolation from, well, everything else in the whole entire history of the world. 

I'm still dumbfounded by the professor who told me she can't assign novels in literature classes because students don't have time to read them. They're just awfully busy and they won't read anyway, so why try? But I'll bet she's still dumbfounded by the fact that I assign seven novels in my Later American Novel course--and my students read them. "They're English majors," I told her, and she said, "But where do they find the time?"

Milwaukee's airport offers a last-minute opportunity to purchase cheese curds at overinflated airport prices, but it also offers a used bookstore right in the airport. That's not something you see every day. Periodically that generic airport voice announced over the PA system that wireless internet was available throughout the airport, but that voice neglected to mention the cost ($4.95 for one hour). Tiny little Yeager airport in Charleston, West Virginia provides free wireless access all over the terminal, but Milwaukee has to lure travelers in with vague promises and then charge outrageous fees. I reject your $4.95 internet access, Milwaukee! (Which is why there was no blog post yesterday.)

When the pilot's voice comes on to explain that there will be a slight delay to allow the maintenance people to determine whether that little bump we felt did any damage to the plane--"It's probably nothing, but we'd like to get it checked out to make sure the landing gear will deploy when we need it"--there's nothing to do but sit there and wait and hope that the flight gets to Chicago in time, and then when the delay in Milwaukee eliminates any hope for lunch in Chicago and you end up close to sundown in Charleston without having had anything to eat since breakfast in Milwaukee and then there's some kind of mechanical failure in the gates at the exit from the parking garage so that you sit there in your car surrounded by other cars while maintenance people run around trying to get the thing working again without giving you any way out or any indication of how long you might be sitting there and whether you have time to get pizza delivered to the line of cars waiting to exit the parking garage and then when the gates finally open after 40 minutes you actually have to PAY for the time you've spent sitting there involuntarily with no way out--well, it makes for a very long day. 

So I'm glad to be home. I have a whole different set of annoyances to deal with on campus this week, but at least I won't have to worry about whether the landing gear will deploy correctly.

Six degrees of Xavier Cugat

Here's the most interesting fact I've learned at this conference so far: Francis Cugat, the artist who designed the familiar cover art for the first edition of The Great Gatsby, was the brother of bandleader Xavier Cugat, a fact that led my errant mind to stray far from the topic of the panel I was attending as I tried in vain to recover the stage name of Xavier Cugat's fifth and final wife, whose antics on the Merv Griffin Show frequently enlivened the afternoons of my adolescence. (Charo. I had to look it up later. I only wish the paper's presenter had looked up the correct pronunciation of Cugat, which sounds nothing at all like "coo-zhay.")

From F. Scott Fitzgerald to Charo in four easy steps: that's the kind of serendipity an academic conference can produce. Although this particular chain of connections is unlikely to enrich my research and teaching in any discernible way, other panels inspire more usable connections. This morning, for instance, a discussion of ekphrasis in film made me want to do more research on prehistoric cave art and its relationship with graffiti, a topic relevant to the paper I'm writing and a novel I'm planning to teach in a year or two. That inspiration alone made this conference worthwhile.

Just don't ask me to try to put that kind of insight onto a balance sheet. I attended this conference without any indication of whether my travel grant request will be approved, so I've been obsessing a little bit over how I can justify this trip to anyone who might questions the expense. I'm tempted to do a cost-benefit analysis, but it's complicated.

Costs: airfare, lodging, conference fees, food, incidentals. (Forgot to pack toothpaste, which isn't cheap at a conference hotel.)

Benefits: a line on my vita, an opportunity to share ideas with other scholars, potential to boost the reputation of the college, a chance to learn new things.

Complicating elements: Some of those "new things" aren't very useful (like the Fitzgerald-Charo connection). How much sharing of ideas can occur when there are more people on the panel than in the audience? If I say something really stupid, I could actually harm the college's reputation instead of helping it. And how will I ever get caught up on my classwork after spending four days away from campus?

I give up: I can't make the columns balance out, not even if I factor in the fact that Charo studied classical guitar with Andres Segovia. Worthless trivia or useful insight? I wouldn't want to try to judge.

A wish for Wisconsin

I've just finished my conference paper for next weekend (hurrah!) except for the excruciating part where I brutally cut out great big chunks of brilliant writing because it's too darned long for a 20-minute presentation. But now that it's written I can allow myself to start thinking about the trip to Milwaukee, except just this minute I realized that I haven't heard yet whether my travel grant has been approved. 

Rats. 

I leave on Wednesday. I bought the plane tickets and reserved the room weeks and weeks ago. I applied for travel funding well before the deadline, but the committee just met last week to discuss funding. That's cutting it a little close. If the Powers That Be decided to cut off faculty travel funds this year, I certainly hope someone will tell me before I sink a pile of money into four nights at a conference hotel in downtown Milwaukee.

Milwaukee--virgin land for me. I've been asking people for weeks what I ought to do between conference sessions in Milwaukee and they keep telling me Milwaukee's a wonderful town but no one can tell me why. "Breweries," they say, but I'm not really a beer person. "It's like Chicago only smaller" they say, or "It's like Detroit only with less bankruptcy and more cheese." Right. Just what I need!

I'll probably spend most of my time chopping my paper, reading my paper, hearing other papers, and grading students' papers, but just in case I find a little free time on the schedule, I need some suggestions. So help me out: what can I do for fun in Milwaukee? Aside from hope I get travel funding, that is.   

Conference conclusions

Three days after I gave my paper, I still get a thrill when I think of a particular comment from someone who heard it. "I liked your paper," she said. "It was fun."

Fun? There's nothing fun about the typical academic conference paper, a jargon-bloated blast of rhetoric delivered at breakneck pace by someone who can't bear the thought of cutting a single word and so must speak so quickly to squeeze it all in that the ideas speed past too quickly for my ears to grab 'em.

Many presenters try to add a little zing to presentations with technology, but the same scholars who can't cut any words from their papers tend to overstuff their PowerPoint presentations. Adding jokes, video clips, and zooming text to a vapid paper isn't going to make it any less vapid.

Nothing against tech. I'd rather watch a well-constructed PowerPoint presentation than listen to a clumsy reader stumble through a written manuscript, but often we get the worst of both worlds: too much text on the slides; too little depth in the concepts.

I didn't use any bells and whistles for this presentation--no PowerPoint, no swooping Prezi, no clips or handouts or visual aides, just me at the front of the room with a handful of words. I read parts of my paper--the intro and some important points I didn't want to get wrong--but I knew my paper was too long so I skipped whole paragraphs and instead briefly summarized them off the cuff. 

But I did make people laugh. It wasn't a particularly funny topic, but if I see an opportunity to sum up an important point with a concise one-liner, I'll take it. The laughter confirmed that people were listening, and the discussion afterward confirmed that they got the point.

So what is my point? Partly I'm writing this to kill an hour while I await my connecting flight home--I'm afraid that if I stop thinking, I'll fall asleep and miss my boarding call. But partly I want to remind myself that this trip to Savannah was not just another time-wasting junket: I delivered a paper that made people laugh while it made them think, and at this point in my career, that's a good day's work. 

Reaching my limits

Number of conference sessions I can attend back-to-back before I need to take a break from listening: 2 sessions or 7 papers, whichever comes first.

Number of times I can hear the phrase "hegemonic normative masculinity" before I want to run screaming from the room: way fewer than the approximately 27 times the phrase appeared in one paper yesterday. 

Number of truly wretched presentations I've attended so far: 2.

Number of papers that inspired interesting ideas for my own research or teaching: 3. 


Number of times my heart leaps up when I see a boat moving smoothly past the windows of the conference hotel: depends on the size of the boat.

Number of hours I've been in Savannah without seeing the sun: 38.

Price of a single granola bar in the hotel shop: $3. 

Price of a whole box of granola bars at the grocery story I visited yesterday: $3.

You do the math. 

 

Screaming carpets, flying chairs

My first thought when I walked into the conference room was, "How will anyone hear my presentation when the carpet is screaming so loudly?" But once I got up there and started talking, the carpet disappeared. All I saw were the words in front of me and the appreciative faces of the listeners.

At least they looked appreciative. It's hard to tell. There was some good discussion afterward, but no one got up and did The Wave or threw chairs or anything. Maybe they should. Maybe some of us should start a trend of less ambiguous responses to conference papers. A little chair-tossing can be downright therapeutic.

So let's give it a try, shall we? You first.

Conference karma

How long does it take to move from "what a terrific hotel room!" to "what a dump!" I suppose it depends on what I had to go through to get there.

My room is really lovely now that I've got the wireless access figured out and found the coffee and determined that the bathroom exhaust fan isn't coming on no matter how many times I press that button. I don't need six pillows, but who's complaining? Well, I could use a little more warmth, but the concierge probably can't do much about the weather.

The trip was uneventful and, at times, even pleasant. My flights were mostly on time, and I had aisle seats on both. The crying baby in front of me was too adorable to be annoying, and besides, there's no point in getting annoyed by crying babies on airplanes because what are ya gonna do--toss him out the window? 

I had a great chat with a fellow conference-attendee at one airport and an even greater chat with my seat-mate on the flight to Savannah. He was the perfect seat-mate: friendly and interesting while on the ground, nose in a book while in the air--and he gave me some great local insight on places to see in and around Savannah. 

Of course I can't see anything yet because the sky is dark and overcast. Sunshine is in the forecast tomorrow, but today looks just dreadful. Whose brilliant idea was it to schedule eight concurrent conference sessions at 8 a.m. in a hotel where it's impossible to find a simple breakfast for under twelve dollars? I should have brought some granola bars.

My session is at 1:30 this afternoon and I'm as ready as I'll ever be, so I could skip the 8:00 session, but here's the thing: I've given papers at those wretched early-morning sessions and I know how lonely they can be. There's nothing worse that getting up at the crack of dawn, dressing your professional best, and showing up at 8 a.m. ready to knock the socks off the audience, only to discover that the audience decided to stay in bed. So I'll attend an 8:00 panel just to build up some good conference karma.

First, though, I've got to find some breakfast. Will someone please fax me a bagel?  

Collecting an old debt

Savannah, Georgia, owes me a good time (or at least some good weather) and next week I aim to collect.

The last time I visited Savannah was in 2005, when I presented a paper at a conference during a cold, dreary, wet February. I remember driving to the Columbus airport through a snowstorm in my husband's car, a tiny Honda with manual transmission, which was usually pretty good for highway driving but not so great with snow all over the road. It was a tense two-hour drive with a lot of stop-and-go, which means a lot of stomping on the clutch, shifting, and stomping again. I don't know if it was the cold, the clutch, or the stress, but by the time I got to the airport, my left hip felt as if it had been attacked by thugs with truncheons.

Then I squeezed my sore body into a seat on the plane and sat without moving for what seemed like days but was probably a couple of hours. When the plane stopped and I tried to get up, I couldn't.

It was raining in Savannah and cold, and I didn't have any money so I had to walk everywhere, which sent daggers of pain up and down my leg. I took aspirin and did stretching exercises, switched shoes, and sat at every opportunity, but the pain only got worse. I remember finally finding someone who took pity on my pain and gave me some serious painkillers so I could sleep, but then I didn't want to get groggy for my presentation so I postponed taking the pills until my part was over--and then I surrendered.

I don't have much memory of that trip aside from misery, but I'm giving Savannah a second chance. Next week I'll be giving a paper at the College English Association conference, and although my paper is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, I'm arriving Wednesday and staying until nearly noon Sunday.

I don't intend to be in pain because that hip problem is now under control. (Just a little arthritis, and the right kind of exercise keeps it from flaring up.) And I don't intend to drive through a snowstorm on the way to the airport, but this is Ohio so you never know. And I certainly don't intend to drive that old manual Honda because we got rid of it years ago.
 
Savannah in April has got to be better than Savannah in February--and best of all, I'll have a rental car and plenty of time, so I hope to visit some wildlife refuges to look at birds. Of course I'll give my paper and attend some other sessions, but after a long, cold, wet winter, I'm really looking forward to soaking up some spring.

One big happiness sandwich

The first time I gave a paper at an academic conference (this is true!), my nervousness spawned a physical response so extreme (I'll leave the details to your imagination) that I later had to throw my conference clothes in a dumpster. 

I'm pleased to report that the students who gave papers today for the annual Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference did not suffer such a response. Their nervousness showed only intermittently in the pace of their reading and their relief when their session was through, but they presented their papers skillfully and responded to questions with grace and insight.

Of course, this is a highly supportive audience. Our college hosts the OVSC conference about every five or six years and everyone in the English department is happy to assist, which is how I ended up chairing a student session even though I am not by any means a Shakespeare scholar. Before we began I told the students that the audience would be rooting for them to succeed, and in this case it was true. The question-and-answer time was lively and thought-provoking, lacking the competitive speechifying so common to academic conferences. Afterward I welcomed a chance to chat with a former student who's been busy introducing remedial reading students to slam poetry.

I'm always happy when my students do good work, so seeing current students on the stage and former students in the audience is just one big happiness sandwich. And, best of all, no one had to throw any clothes in a dumpster.

On not suffering at a suffering conference

Last year's Making Sense of Suffering conference was so terrific that I was worried that this year's conference could not possibly live up to my expectations.

It could. Let me count the ways:

1. Intense listening.  With so many  presenters for whom English is a second (or third or fourth) language, we can't listen lazily or we'll miss too many interesting ideas.

2. So many interesting ideas! My must-read list is getting longer by the minute. Here's one question tossed off today: "Is there a biological purpose for suffering or is it just an unpleasant side effect of being sentient?" Discuss.

3. Discussions that continue outside of sessions over meals and coffee and long walks through the city.

4. The city! I can't recall the last time I saw anything so lovely a the full moon hovering over the opera house this evening. Everywhere I turn, I see something beautiful or historic or at least interesting.

5. The language! I don't speak a word of Czech but I keep hearing phrases that bring back my high school Russian.

6. Five guys who looked like my Lithuanian uncles standing in the evening cold on the Charles Bridge to entertain tourists by playing New Orleans jazz. In addition to a trumpet, clarinet, standing bass, and banjo, the combo included a man using eggbeaters and thimbles to play a washboard. And they were not bad.

7. Talking about my Lithuanian forebears with a scholar who teaches in Lithuania. I need to go!

8. Sharing ideas about suffering with philosophers, literary scholars, theologians, a linguist, a doctor, and others from America, Portugal, South Africa, England, Turkey, Montenegro, and I don't remember where else. I don't believe I've ever met anyone from Montenegro before. 

9. Gaining insight about the European monetary crisis from intelligent people who are right in the middle of it.

10. The refreshing absence of anguish over Joe Paterno.

Resilient, positively

At a conference with attendees from 12 countries and many disciplines, I'm bound to hear and see some interesting things:

1. The verb resile, which is what resilient people do. I don't recall ever hearing this word before but dictionary.com tells me it means either rebound or recoil, words that carry very different connotations.

2. Making sense as a phrase not universally positive in connotation: apparently, one can make either constructive or destructive sense of suffering.

3. People smoking over supper in pubs (yuck!).

4. Smoked trout on the breakfast buffet (yum!).

5. Engineers at the other end of the table tossing around terms like synergy and next-gen and The Cloud (which seems to be capitalized even when uttered orally).  

6. Clouds so thick and heavy that the city is shrouded in darkness by midafternoon.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for sunshine, which is good because I'll be setting out on an excursion in the afternoon. Despite the weather, I intend to resile--in the best sense of the word.

Terrible twos

Number of hours I spent traveling from Ohio to Prague via West Virginia, Chicago, and Brussels: 22.

Number of minutes I spent trying to figure out how to turn on the lights in my very dark hotel room: 22. Okay, that's just a guess. It could have been 2 or 122 for all I know since there's no clock in the room. If there are any hidden cameras in this room, someone somewhere is getting a pretty big laugh.

Number of e-mails and phone calls I made last week to make sure I would be able to use my college credit card to pay for my lodging in Prague: 2.

Number of seconds it took for that same credit card to be rejected at the hotel: 2.

Number of times I went down to the front desk to first borrow an adapter so I can plug in my laptop and then return the adapter they loaned me because it didn't fit the outlet: 2.

Number of hours I'll need to sleep before any of this starts making sense: 22.

Partly foggy

Here I sit in the Brussels airport awaiting my flight to Prague and wondering whether the tune I'm hearing from the speakers can possibly be what it sounds like: a light jazz version of "Little Brown Jug."

I may be hallucinating. I got approximately zero sleep on the seven-hour transatlantic flight, thanks to sharing close quarters with a large man who (1) snored; (2) squirmed like a restless two-year-old; and (3) spoke no English. Lack of sleep plus in-flight entertainment (Planet of the Apes!) could well lead to auditory hallucinations of the "Little Brown Jug" kind.

I've never been to Brussels before and I can't really tell you what it's like because all I've seen is the airport. Belgium is pretty well socked in with clouds and fog, so from the air it just looked white. We plunged into this dense cloud layer and I kept expecting to emerge beneath the clouds, but these clouds extended right down to the runway. 

Last year about this time I had about two hours to rest between the all-night flight and the first conference session, so that first day passed in a fog of tiredness. This year I'm arriving a day early so I can meet up with friends for supper tonight and then sleep off the travel weariness before the conference begins. As much as I appreciate this impressive fog, I don't intend to take it with me.

Dream trip

I show up on campus on the morning I'm supposed to fly to Prague and all I have to do is teach one class, grab my passport, itinerary, and computer bag, and hightail it down to the airport--but power is out all over campus and the card-readers won't work so I can't get into my building to get my passport. Trip cancelled.

Relax: it's just a nightmare. I had no problem preparing for my trip or getting into my building, and my passport is now safely tucked into my bag so all I have to do is read some drafts and teach my class and I'll be on my way to Prague.

For weeks people have been asking whether I'm excited about my trip, and I've been saying yes even when it's not remotely true. I do the same thing when they ask about my sabbatical, but the fact is that I can't allow myself to get excited about an event that I can't quite believe is actually going to happen.  It's a flaw in my emotional makeup: possible disasters, no matter how unlikely, are always more real to me than probable blessings.

I booked my flight to Prague, wrote my paper, and reserved hotel rooms while suffering from the constant fear that something disastrous would occur to prevent the trip: my travel grant request would be rejected (it wasn't); my parents' health would take a downward turn (it didn't); the Occupy people would swarm the conference venue (they haven't). Not until last Friday did I allow myself to start thinking about the people I'll see in Prague and how I'll spend my free time.


Am I excited? You bet I am. Once again, the disaster I've been preparing for has remained imprisoned within my nightmares, and I couldn't be more delighted.

Just don't ask about my sabbatical. A lot of things can happen between now and January!