Sunday, November 4, 2012

AAG and the star city

I gave my presentation at Middles States AAG. It was my first time ever presenting at a professional conference in my field. I gave a shortened version of the presentation I used to defend my thesis. I don't mind public speaking. Before I substitute taught, I'd get serious butterflies, but now I don't even get nervous until 10 minutes before, and on a nervousness scale of 1-10, only about a 3. Middle States was a 2+ hour drive, so I drove down 81 and saw the mountains again. It reminded me of the 2 years when I used to take 81 south all the way to Roanoke for MFA school. Oh Star City.  

The (locally) famous Roanoke Star.
Night view of the city from the Roanoke Star Overlook. I used to take that highway to my part-time job at VWCC.
At Middle States, it was great to be around geography people again. I didn't see any of my former classmates (they'd presented the day before), but I saw 3 of my professors and met a bunch of new people. The food was excellent. Everyone was friendly and full of advice about potential PhD programs. The consensus was that you'll be okay if you have a good relationship with your advisor. I believe it. I was really lucky that I like my master's thesis advisor so much. Then again, I like everyone until they give me a reason not to. For some people that happens quickly, but my personality requires that I try to like most people. Am I going to like the wife of my bf from undergrad? Well, no; I'm not crazy. But you get the general idea.

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