Monday, August 30, 2004
Work = DONE, Ergo: Shirley = On A Trip!!


Can you tell I like boats? More (of the same ones) outside of Nha Trang, Vietnam.

So get this: I'm leaving town (and the country) tomorrow evening and for the next 4 days I'm going to be in Louisville, KY at the 4th International Conference on Media, Religion & Culture. Phew. Even the name goes way over my head.

Jason will be presenting a paper there and I decided to tag along for fun. Why? Goodness knows. This is his first major presentation at an international forum, I'm there for moral support, I love him, yada yada yada.

Him: And it's a pretty nice hotel too.
Me: Shut up! I'm not going for the hotel you eejit. You should know that.
Him: But you gotta admit, it's a pretty damn nice hotel.
Me: Yeah. I know.

It's Louisville's GRAND hotel. Premiere, luxury, featured in The Great Gatsby and all that. So I'm looking forward to the hotel. Other than that, I'm a little tense.

Seriously, I'm going to a conference, an INTERNATIONAL conference on Media. And Religion. And Culture. The extent of my knowledge of the aforementioned topics probably all stem from The Simpsons in one way or another. This is the kind of gathering where people have long strings of letters after their names, and are doing "research" and publish books for a living.

They are all that and something else: old.

Without a doubt, I am going to be the youngest person there at my ripe 20 years of age. Not that this is a major problem, but I'm really not going to have anything to talk about with these fancy-schmancy published researchers. No, I'm not doing any research, no, I'm not really that interested in your research and no, I have no idea what's going on. Maybe there will be grad students (goodness, I hope there will be younger grad students), but I'm going to start a list of interesting things, ice breakers, and big fancy words that I can work into conversations justincase. I'll wear my glasses. And button-up collared shirts.

And create my own business card!

Shirley M, NFAGT

(Shirley M, No French After Grade Ten)

After a 16 hour bus ride I'm sure I'll figure something out to make the next few days more entertaining. But don't be surprised when you see photos after we come back. And I'm alone in the corner. With a wine glass in my hand. Having it refilled. Again. For the seventh time.

Here we go. *deep breath*