The recent Rhetorical Imprints hiatus was the result of road trip to the NCA convention in Boston! Last Tuesday evening, as soon as I finished teaching, STK, TLO, and I packed up the family truckster and headed for the airport. Actually, we drove 4 hours through a snow storm, stayed at a hotel, and rode a shuttle to the airport the following morning. Staying in a hotel was preferable to getting up at 3 or 4 AM to make our 10:30 flight.
The trip itself was long, but without incident. We switched planes once, hopped a shuttle from the airport to the train station, rode a train to our destination city, then hailed a cab for the final jaunt to the Inn. Planes, trains, and automobiles, anyone? Given that TLO is only 5 months old, he did amazingly well. He had a brief, 5 minute cry while we waited to have the plane de-iced (an important process, methinks). Everyone we encountered commented on his superior travelling skills.
Once in Boston, T acted as our guide. She helped us learn the area close to the Inn and showed us how to ride the "T" to the convention area. Several years ago, as convention prices skyrocked, I started to avoid the sanctioned convention hotels. $200 a night is far beyond what I'm willing to pay for a place to flop. Thankfully, T & J hooked us up with a WAY cool inn on this trip. Yes, we were two miles away from the convention proper. For a $1.25 token, however, we were able to make the trip to the convention site in about 10 minutes or so.
The convention itself was fun, but hectic. When around 5000 people converge for an academic gathering, it's bound to get a little hectic. On Thursday, STK, TLO, T, and I spent the better part of the afternoon perusing the Publisher room. Textbooks, textbooks, and more textbooks! This is the 1st time I've really spent a significant amount of time going from publisher to publisher in search of new textbooks. As I have two new courses to teach next year, I really needed to see what was available. The two hours were well spent, I think. I walked away with three exam copies of textbooks and ordered three others. That's one of the major perks of being a professor I suppose; hand a publisher a business card from your school and they'll send you almost anything, free of charge. T, who will defend her dissertation in February and spent most of the convention interviewing with schools, quite literally cursed my ability to procure free reading material. At one point, we made a bet regarding my ability to pry a text away from a vendor (T had paid the vendor for a new text a few minutes before). I approached the vendor, made a few minutes small talk, noticed a book I could use for a class in January 2007, and walked away with a free copy. T offered enthusiastic praise for my abilities. I believe her exact words were, "Fucking asshole."
The rest of the convention blurred by in typical fashion: meet former colleagues, chat for a few minutes, speed off to lunch with other colleagues, catch a panel, present on a panel, race off to dinner with colleagues, try to see some of the local city, crash for a few hours at night. Repeat. Despite the craziness, this was one of the most enjoyable conventions I can remember. Much of that resulted from the presence of TLO and STK, no doubt. Even when they were off touring art museums with J--T & I were doing the convention thing--it was nice to know they were within a few miles.
On Saturday, we stayed away from the convention center and spent a couple hours seeing the historical sites. I finally managed to spend a few minutes with Samuel Adams, rabblerouser extraordinaire. Meeting the person on whom my MA thesis focused was a moving experience. I'll admit I even got a little choked up standing next to his resting place. From the cemetary we followed the Freedom Walk for a couple miles and checked out some of the significant locales of Boston history. While I would have liked to walk the entire trail, we simply didn't have enough time.
After repeating the taxi-train-shuttle-plane-plane-shuttle-auto routine, we arrived home Sunday evening. TLO travelled like a champ, once again. On the ride home STK and I talked about whether or not we miss city life. We decided that we did, but that we enjoy living in our present location even more. The city, with all its hussle, bussle, and never-ending activities possesses a certain allure; we always loved the clubs, the shows, the theater, the shopping, etc. That said, our current way of life is virtually stress free. Someday, when we're in the twilight of our years, I can see us returning to city life. Until then, it's the simple life.
3 comments:
As a college student for the past 7 years, PLEASE pick out the cheapest textbook...students have no money and it is not like they read them, at least that is my experience from grading undergraduate work.
As someone with over 10 years of higher education under his belt, I can assure you that READING the required texts will result in a better education. Thankfully, I'm at a school where many of the students do read the assigned text. Their grades reflect their diligence.
It's nice to see you're back, Derek. Of course, I could say the same for Neal, as I haven't seen him in years.
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