On the Road

I drove for the very first time yesterday and no one was killed or even injured; it’s a miracle! What I did predict, however, was my constant inability to control my speed. I consistently drove over the speed limit, which could be the result of one of two things (or both): cars zooming past me way over the speed limit (this is, after all, Philadelphia), and my semi-conscious belief that I was in a video game. Whatever it was, I’m glad it didn’t get me into trouble.

My next six lessons are already scheduled, as is my road test. More on this after my second lesson (Thursday, October 18) — dun dun DUNNNN…

While I’m babbling about part of my weekend, let me tell you about the rest: Thursday the 11th marked the beginning of NWAV (New Ways of Analyzing Variation), an annual sociolinguistic conference hosted by a different university every time; this year’s host institution was Penn and the conference lasted until early Sunday afternoon. I can’t tell you how excited I was! Wait, yes I can: I was EXCITED. Registration cost quite a bit, but students could attend for the thrifty price of $nothing in exchange for four hours of their time spent volunteering at the registration table. While I’m no longer a student, I was given the opportunity via my job. Like I said: EXCITED.

I sat through very interesting talks; the event was definitely worth four hours of complete boredom. That being said, I wish some people would take the following things into consideration:

1) reading your entire paper from the podium does NOT constitute a presentation.
2) reading your entire paper without making any eye contact with your audience is worse than just reading your entire paper from the podium.
3) a PowerPoint presentation is ideal to outline your research; don’t attempt to cram every single detail into every slide. It’s YOUR research, and you should know it well enough to be able to talk about it without having everything written out. And it’s annoying to read.
4) reading aloud every single detail you crammed into every slide is just as bad as reading your entire paper, if not worse. We know how to read; please give us some credit.
5) colored shirts are darker when wet.

Nevertheless, the event was amazing.

You know what else is amazing? Trader Joe’s. And I really have to pee, but I promise I’ll rave about TJ’s in a later post.