… or else I had forgotten just how much I hate, hate, HATE, this particular conference … or else, I should have never decided to stay in the actual conference hotel. I don’t know. I’m sick. I have a headache. I don’t feel like fucking around with crowds. All these self-important people with name tags, leaking out into the urban environment. Seriously? Take the fucking name tags OFF when you leave the hotel. Are you completely impaired? And when the elevator is full, it’s full. Don’t try to cram your way onto it. We’ve got to go up 17 floors and smelly your stinky ass perfume/hairspray/prescription-strength deodorant ain’t fun. Plus, the door just won’t shut if your coat/handbag/briefcase is hanging out into the lobby. Finally, get your nose out of the conference program and look where you are walking. I’m short, but I’m not invisible you dumb twit.
Like I said, maybe it’s me. I love going to the {XXXXX} Conference in New Orleans because I always have a good time. Southern people tend to be polite. They look where they walk. They say hello. They are nice at panels. Plus, New Orleans has better food, is cheaper, and is closer to my friends. I always have stuff to do that is not conference related. And barring hurricanes — which don’t happen in January anyways — the weather is generally nice.
But this conference! Eagad! Such snooty, stuck up R1 grad school freaks. God, I hope I wasn’t this pompous and annoying as a graduate student (although I probably was). I’ve always kinda’ hated this conference because I run into people from grad school who went onto bigger and better things (well, they think so …) and I feel like an imbecile because I have “wasted my life” teaching at U of Sorta’ Cosmopolitan (so sayith my grad school adviser). Staying in the conference hotel just magnified this problem because now I am surrounded by insane Midwesterners. Blah. And my hotel — which I’ve always wanted to stay in — is under renovation. Go fuckin’ figure. And it’s cold and damp and windy. And did I mention that I had a big headache? Huge headache?
The Coach has gone out to find us some lunch food (corner deli coming up) and I plan on resting until my 4:25 panel (seriously? Why not start the panel at 4:30 like a normal person would?). I’ve downed a couple asprin. Maybe my headache will go away before I have to sound intelligent while talking about my crappy paper. (Okay, the paper’s not that crappy, but it needs a theoretical model — something that I *am* going to talk about in the presentation even though it didn’t make it into the actual paper.) I hope so, because there’s an overzealous grad student discussant just waiting to shred my work. I know he’s overzealous based on the emails about my missing paper. (Get over yourself little boy. Just wait until you have to teach three classes, do research, advise 60 freakin’ crybabies, sit on 13 committees, do job searches, and be all collegial — then see if your paper is in on time.)
Let’s hope that the Coach finds me a nice restaurant for dinner. And a good bookstore. And maybe a romantic walk. Or something to recoup this trip?
Gee, this seems like the conference version of the South Park Episode called Smug Alert. Only you’re in the role of the boys from South Park. *ugh*
It sounds like you need to Blues Brothers to drive through the hotel lobby. At least it would liven up the place and perhaps take out a few of those people that can’t seem to see you because they have their noses stuck in the program.