5.21.2008

 

Paper: check

So I gave my paper at the colloquium yesterday. It went well, I think. I'm getting my Presentation Voice more solidified each time I do one of these things, helping me feel much more comfortable and competent. All of the questions/comments I got were very supportive (this is a small group of scholars who know each other well), and I came away with a few new ideas about listening perspectives and how I might explain some of the funnier parts of the piece I've been analyzing. I got to visit with a few friends I haven't seen in a while, including the friend who got me the teaching gig the year before Kent was born, who just took a job in KY last year. It was a nice day, and there was one paper about Elliott Carter, given by a couple of other grad students, that I found kind of impressive. They used graphs, but not in an offensive way (as some theorists do, when they get too far removed from the music in favor of making exciting pictures and tables). It was like music theory day camp. And my godsend, Mary, had a great time with Kent while I was enjoying everyone else's papers and presenting mine. Kent slept in the car on the way there and on the way home, and Mary and I chatted about subjects from knitting to careers to churchy stuff to academia; her husband is chair of the history department here, so she knows academic types very well and kept commenting on the differences she was observing between historians and music theorists, especially their wardrobes.

Jack and I celebrated my triumphant presentation by going to Jason's Deli for dinner (I know, not India's!). Kent enjoyed some hummus, cantaloupe, and tiny bits of their awesome whole grain flatbread crackers, and he threw everything else we tried to give him onto the floor. Pretty standard. He had a fun time looking around at the other babies and little kids, since this restaurant is Family Central most of the time. They have such a healthful and diverse kids' menu that it's the perfect place to bring tiny persons. Imagine my shock when I looked behind us to see one little girl bringing in a Happy Meal. Chicken nuggets, french fries, and a soda, when she could have been eating mac and cheese, deli sandwiches, a kid-sized salad, pb&j, or any of the other great things on the menu there. Oh, well. Maybe she's in that picky stage and all she'll eat is Happy Meals. It just seemed so very wrong, especially given Jason's Deli's near-militant attitude toward trans fats. I expected guys in hazmat suits to tear out of the back room and quarantine her Happy Meal, like the renegade sock in Monsters, Inc. Chuckle.

Anyway, it feels good to have that done. Now I've given not one but TWO conference papers, doubling my output — score!

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Comments:

Bwahahaha! Comparing the happy meal to the sock in Monster's Inc. is very funny. I can see that happening.
 
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