What I have learned so far at the conference: Taxis from Heathrow to the Hilton hotel are expensive. Women wearing loud perfume ride elevators. Strangers at a conference are quite nice and helpful. Hotels will find rooms for people when their rooms are not ready yet. Service charges are included on all bills. People should never, ever carry backpacks or large vinyl purses (we’re talking 3 foot wide purses) into crowded receptions…my friend’s slacks are wearing red wine because of such a purse. And should they carry such purses into a crowded area, they should never, ever turn quickly without being aware of who may be behind them. Hotels need to put at least one chair in a reception hall with large crowds…we could at least take turns.
I swam in the hotel pool early this morning and there was a quite thin woman swimming laps. She was the only one in the pool. I got in and before we could blink twice she swam into me. We negotiated space and began again. After the third collision, she says, “I am bad, I can’t see, I swim without thinking, I am very bad.” We laughed and in the dressing room later I discovered that she teaches at Georgia State. Who would have figured. We plan on meeting in the pool in the morning and negotiating space all over again.
My paper presentation is at 4:30 today and though I have my power point presentation completed, it is on my office computer and not this one. I wonder sometimes where my brain is. So I have spent the last few hours recreating a power point (I cannot tolerate people reading academic papers…read prose, read poetry, but talk through your academic findings). I am as ready as I can be. The bottom line is, and this is after years of conferences, years of presenting papers, years of attending academic meetings–no one cares. They are there to do their “thing,” get a job, get more lines on their CVs, have a vacation, meet up with friends. I wanted to do this because together with the student who helped me with the research on this paper, we did a good job and I believe we have some findings that will be good for the industry to know. Plus it was convenient since I need to be at Oxford at the end of the month. It is a prestigious conference with a low acceptance rate so that will not do badly on my cv as well. Sigh. I am off to conference mingle. Here, though, is a picture of the reception from last evening. The crowd is very young. I feel very old.
Leara Rhodes 