CEA Conference

Getting to Indianapolis was a breeze - no delayed flights, and thanks to some careful planning (and the need for only 3 rather than 4 days of clothes) no bags to check and have opened during a security check.

(Okay, so I know these people are 'professionals' and all (I use that term loosely) but the idea of someone digging through my clothes and other personal items behind the scenes just creeps me out. If they gotta open my bag, I'd rather they did it at the security checkpoint where I can see them.)

My first thought as the bus started travelling from the airport into the city was that the place reminded me of a cross between Regina and Swift Current. The feeling faded a bit as I got closer to downtown, but the city never transcended that small-prairie-city feel that I first got from it.

I arrived before my roomate, so went to grab food but by the time I came back, she was there. We wrestled over who would get the bed by the window and I won... okay, not really, but if we had, I coulda taken her. She's a librarian, and as she confessed herself, a stereotypical librarian... though she did admit to me that if I ever want to find a man, I should go to geology conferences, 'cause the guys who attend those are all really manly-type men!

I headed out in the evening to explore, and by the time I'd done the walk along the river and the monument at the center of town, I realized I'd 'done' everything there was to do in Indianapolis! I suppose I could've gone to the zoo, but I've been to plenty of zoos, and the speedway didn't hold any real attraction for me, so the conference quickly became a working vacation. Setting my own schedule and not worrying about making food for other people, or getting up by a particular time (my presentation was in the afternoon) was fabulous! And after the hostel in San Diego, the hotel was luxurious - there were bathrobes, nintendo, snack trays, and all the little shampoo bottles and soaps you could ever desire!

The best part of all was seeing a colleague who I haven't seen for a couple of years and catching up on (and catching her up on) all the 'news' that's happened in the meantime. We had a great time at dinner and then lunch the next day and meeting her made my weekend!

Some sessions were really great, and one of them got me thinking about ways to organize one of my reading lists (a persistent monkey-on-my-back kind of problem) which really psyched me, though there were two that creeped me out: the session on the female figure in Victorian poetry that was all given by men old enough to look like they were Victorians themselves, and the session of Vonnegut where I was the only female in the room (and one panelist introduced himself to every other man in the room, but not to me). Are there no other women who like Vonnegut?

After all, I already like Dick!