4 C’s 2008 Recap (Discourse Chronicle)
Comments(3) [Here is a recap with lessons learned from when Elizabeth and I attended the C’s with four other colleagues:
Day 0
-
People with a controlling personality often hurt other people’s feelings without thinking about it.
-
Driving through stormy weather adds stress to fatigue.
-
Planning solves many problems, but cannot account for everything, such as being delayed by Interstate accidents.
Day 1
-
Adjusting to weather down south is more difficult for some than others.
-
People with a controlling personality make bad team players.
-
I caught up with Dr. Jan Swearingen (a graduate mentor of mine) at a Hayden-McNeil publisher party.
Day 2
-
I met Dr. Cynthia Selfe at a newcomer’s breakfast and we talked about my current research on Second Life, which led to a request for a copy of a paper I am revising about avatar creation, and encouraged submission to the academic journal Computers and Composition.
-
I requested many examination copies from publishers that the “Book Fairy” will leave for me later.
-
I missed many interesting panels due to grading student papers and working on my own seminar papers.
Day 3
-
I listened to presentations about Second Life in the composition classroom and understandably noticed minimal attention being given to theory and application.
-
Elizabeth and I caught up with Dr. Dennis G. Jerz (an undergrad mentor of mine) and we snapped a picture of us in front of Preservation Hall to send to our mutual friend Dr. Joel Pace (another undergrad mentor of mine).
After spending a total of 30 hours in a van on a road trip with five other personalities, I admit the trip is definitely a learning experience, but with all due respect toward my colleagues – I prefer traveling with Elizabeth or alone. BK]
category: Life, Rhetoric and Poetics
I like how you describe the trip as a “learning experience”–very diplomatic, maybe TOO diplomatic.
Also–do make a note for readers who did not go on the trip with us–we were not involved in the accident on Day 0, but we were held up for 45 minutes because of it.
Conferences are tough — they’re so much going on at once, and there’s never enough time to for sleeping, eating, and doing all the other things you really need to do just to stay sane.
I know conferences pull its attendees in too many directions, so I try limiting my participation to panels that are most related with my research interests, book rooms, and catching up with former mentors. If I ever become more organized in my life, then I might be able to do everything with no problems at all.