Conference fatigue

So, NASSS. Interesting conference. I don't really have anything to compare it to except for the other conference I've attended, NASSH (North American Society for Sport History). You'd think that a sport history and a sport sociology conference would be reasonably similar, but they definitely are not. I'm not really interested in assessing their respective strengths and weaknesses in this space. But NASSH is definitely an easier conference for me to attend, because people there tend to be more interested in my work. Case in point: I received literally zero constructive feedback about my presentation here on Thursday. There was barely anybody there to begin with, and, other than the TG support group (Western people + a really awesome dude named Travis from Indiana University that I met at NASSH), everyone else was clearly there for the other guy in my session (Jonathan Magee). I think I got two questions after my presentation (both were softballs), and nobody sought me out afterward for follow ups (which usually tends to happen).

So yeah, I've found it difficult to talk to people here because there simply aren't many people who are interested in the kind of stuff I'm currently working on (sport and national identity, sport media, sport in the developing world). There have probably been 4 or 5 presentations about national identity (compare this with probably over 20 sessions about gender), barely anything about sport and media. Probably 97% of the presentations (if not higher) have been concerned with the English speaking West. And that's fine, it's not as though I dislike presentations about gender, race, obesity etc. etc. But these conditions make mingling and networking, which I'm not particularly good at to begin with, extraordinarily difficult. There have been a couple of occasions where I've introduced myself to someone, explained what it is that I did, and then had that person mumble something and then walk away rather quickly. This is not to say that people here are unfriendly, just that people would rather mingle with peers whose work they're interested in. And that's fine. But it also makes for some awkward mingling sessions.

It's been pretty cool to be around people who are so passionate about their work. It has rubbed off on me a little, but I still remain pretty down on academia.

Truth be told, I'm suffering from acute conference fatigue. I just don't have the personality to be around people as frequently as a conference dictates. I could use some TG time before I head off to Montreal on Sunday, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.

NASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

So I presented yesterday. It went fine. My goal at these things is to avoid being humiliated, and I wasn't humiliated. I haven't gotten any feedback from anyone at my session, so I'm not sure whether it was well received or not.

Ottawa! (kind of)

I haven't updated this blog in a long time because there hasn't been anything in my life worth writing about - specifically, there haven't been any travels from May until now. My summer was a complete waste on the travel front. I had to study for my comprehensive exams and couldn't get out of the province, much less the country (I passed, by the way).

My wild and impetuous travel days are basically finished, methinks. There are two reasons for this. First of all, I'm getting to an age where I'm supposed to take work seriously. I'm not really in a position to travel while I'm writing my thesis (because, you know, I have to write my thesis), and then presumably I'll have a job of some sort, where I'll be expected to work and not encouraged to strap on the backpack every so often for a grand adventure. Sure, I guess that there's always the chance (hope?) of a debilitating quarter life crisis where I quit my job and board a one-way flight to Algeria. But I doubt it; I'm just not the type of person to dynamite my Plan A without a coherent Plan B.

I realize that lots of people manage to squeeze in trips even while having demanding and time consuming jobs - it's just a matter of capitalizing on the small amounts of time I'll have. And this brings me to the second problem: should I spend the small amount of travel time and money I have to go off on grand adventures, or to go see my family and friends? I live in London, Ontario. My parents live in Toronto during the winter and Greece during the summer. My sister lives in Calgary. I have cousins in Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, and Greece. My closest friends live in Yellowknife, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Sweden. I have other friends that I would love to visit in places like Halifax, Washington, Nashville, Boston, England, Germany, Italy, and Korea. But to do so takes time and money so by doing so I'm basically putting paid to any opportunity of having another grand adventure. It's a terrible, terrible conundrum: I'm basically being asked to chose between my friends/family, and my single most favourite activity. So far the friends and family are winning out. I only had the time for a one week trip this summer, and rather than jet off to San Francisco or Chicago or New Orleans or Philadelphia or one of these cities that I so desperately want to visit, I went to Toronto and Montreal. And I'm perfectly fine with that, because I like both of those places and I like the people I see when I'm there... but at the same time it kills me that I'm not using that time to explore new places. I dunno.

My last hope is school-related travel. Going to conferences for me is a professional obligation, and I even get a little bit of money back from my school as reimbursement. I've been fairly unlucky with conferences so far: two of the three so far have been in places I've already visited before (and the next one I hope to attend will be in Buffalo, New York - which I checked out in 2004). Still though; Ottawa IS preferable to London, and a conference is still infinitely more exciting then my everyday life. The conference is that of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. I'm giving a 20 minute presentation about sports blogging. I don't actually know how to do sociology, so it should be a pretty intimidating experience. Mercifully, I present very early in the proceedings - I'm scheduled for the first day (Thursday) during the second session (the morning) - so I'll be able to relax afterward and enjoy the proceedings.

The conference runs through Saturday night. On Sunday, I head to Montreal for three days of research, beer and merriment. Wheeeeeee!!!!!!

Washington, Day 1

Just got here. Tired as hell. Slept maybe 15 hours in my 4 nights at the conference. Don't feel like writing right now.

Asheville, Day 2

Today I made a big decision: I've resolved to read rather than lecture for my NASSH presentation. The lecture style just wasn't working: there was just too much stuttering, too many pauses, too much nervousness. Reading from a prepared text is much easier, and has the added bonus of not needing any more preparation. So rather than spend the next few days worrying and giving myself an ulcer, I'll get to actually enjoy the conference. Assuming it doesn't suck.

I wish I had made that decision earlier, because I just wasted two nights in Asheville prepping for a presentation I'm no longer giving. I did some decent wandering today though, and some damn good eating. Had breakfast as a local southern joint, and had eggs, sausage, grits, a biscuit and fruit. The place came recommended, but I wasn't really impressed with it. The grits were plain (completely unacceptable) and the biscuit likely wasn't homemade. For shame. Lunch was much, much, much, much better. I went to a BBQ joint in some industrial park called 12 Bones and had an entire rack of ribs, jalapeno and cheese grits, collard greens and cornbread. Hog heaven. Asheville isn't considered a great BBQ city, but I honestly can't imagine pork being cooked any better.

The only problem with eating southern BBQ is that you inevitably feel like shit afterwards. It's 9 hours later and I'm still full, and I feel like I weigh approximately 300 pounds. Which I very well may. I need to seriously cut my caloric intake for a while.

Tomorrow I leave this old house on Ravenscroft and head across the river to the Crowne Plaza, where the conference is taking place (it starts tomorrow night with a wine and cheese). As long as the hotel bar serves local beer, I'll be happy.

Asheville, Day 1

Here I am, safe and sound. It has been an acceptable first day. My first impression of Asheville is pretty favourable. It has a cute, compact, Art Deco downtown; most of the good stuff the city has to offer seems to be located downtown (good for people like me without a car); there are scores of hippies and other miscellaneous weirdos (like the kind with dishevelled hair who talk to themselves on the street) milling about to keep things interesting; there are more than enough coffee shops, little shops and restaurants to keep me busy for 6 days; and the bars serve very, very, very good local beer. That's a pretty good package for a city of 75,000.

I didn't get up to too much today. I arrived in the city at about 4:30 or so, and by the time I was settled in my hostel, it was 5:00. That left me enough time to get my bearings around downtown, sample three pints of local beer and a sample of local mead (!!!), and eat an insanely large portion at a Carribean/Mexican restaurant (pulled pork enchilada with pineapple salsa and various other yummy things) which I still haven't fully digested. Then I had to wander back to my hostel to work on my NASSH presentation.* Sucks. It is very frustrating to be in a new city and have your exploring time limited by work obligations.

(*I'm staying by myself in a fairly large house just south of downtown. It's owned by the hostel I was supposed to be staying in. The dude who runs the hostel - a dude named BJ politically liberal enough to have already turned on Obama - had given away my reservation. I think he was stoned when I spoke to him. But he placed me two doors down in this house, which he's converting into a second hostel building. The place is, ahem, under construction - the living room is ripped up, and there's basically nothing finished in here except for the room I'm staying in and the bathroom. I'm the only guest staying here. B.J. is letting me pay half price, which is pretty sweet.)

Some random occurrences/observations from today:

-A sales clerk in the Detroit airport cold me that I had "cute jeans".

-The Detroit airport rules.

-Delta Airlines now charges $15 to check in luggage, the bastards.

-The Asheville airport is basically on a mountaintop. If a plane ever skids off the runway... well, let's just say I wouldn't want to be in that plane.

-The highway that connects Asheville to the airport is called the Billy Graham Parkway.

-My taxi driver, who I think could be accurately described as a good ol' boy, was cold to me, and perhaps even borderline rude, until he discovered that I was from Canada and not some stinking Yankee carpetbagger. Then he was super nice.

-Not too many Southern accents here so far, and the ones I've encountered aren't very pronounced (my taxi driver aside). I've decided I'm disappointed about this.

-I hate school.

Why I hate French sociologists

I will NOT be making an overseas trip this summer, and it's all because of this guy.

I'm taking a Social Theory class this term, which is actually a Bourdieu class. This is the fifth class I've taken during my PhD; I was only required to take 4 to meet my institutional requirement. Still, my advisory committee thought it was a good idea for me to take the class, in order to give me some exposure to social theory. Taking a class exclusively about Bourdieu doesn't really give me real exposure to "social theory", but whatever. I agreed to take the class.

(I have now taken 1 social theory class and 0 historiography classes in my PhD. I am allegedly doing a degree in history. Makes total sense.)

Anyway, Bourdieu has taken up enough of my time this semester that I haven't been able to study for comps... at all. It became evident that writing comps in June would have been suicidal. So now I'm writing comps in September, which means that I'll be studying for them over the summer. Which means I'm not going overseas anymore.

Initially, I was absolutely devastated. But I've known this for about three weeks now, so I've begun looking on the brightside. Clearly, I'll be using this summer to discover the surrounding area a little. There's no excuse to not go to the Stratford Festival. I could see myself discovering some Lake Huron beach towns. I'll probably head to Hamilton for the first time (Mustard Festival?). I almost guarantee that I'll be tagging along to Oshawa with my roommate at some point. A proper trip to Windsor and Point Pelee is almost definitely on the cards. I'll definitely head to Montreal at some point, I've never actually been to any of the thousand summer festivals there.

And I can go further afield too! I can guarantee that I'll go do a Western Canada trip to see my sister in Calgary and miscellaneous other friends in Alberta and B.C. Perhaps I should go to Calgary for Stampede? And I'll probably throw in a US trip too, since this summer seems like an opportune time to finally go to Chicago and Detroit.

Any who knows where else? At least it won't be an uneventful summer.