How long has it been since I was on here? Long enough for me to almost forget my password.
Anyway, I have a legitimate excuse: I've been busy. Grad school really takes over your life, more so than undergraduate did. For the past month, I've alternated between stuff for one class and stuff for another class and stuff for yet another class (in retrospect, it might have been a wiser move on my part to avoid a fourth class than I'd thought), and what with my responsibilities in trying to make sure the Literary Festival is a success (it's this upcoming week, by the way, you should all definitely come if you're reading this and within a reasonable geographical location what-not), it's a wonder I still have any brown hair left, or hair for that matter.
But it's the kind of stress that's good, believe it or not. There's the anticipation with hoping that I do well in all activities, coupled with my natural and in-no-way-valid fear that I'll screw it all up somehow (unless that fear *is* valid...oh crap), and you mix it all together to get a guy who wore himself out the week before Spring Break running around campus trying to put up posters in various buildings for the Lit Fest (and being sneaky about it in some circumstances). Come to think of it, I needed the rest that Spring Break promised more than anything.
Before I could rest, however, I had to travel: my first-ever conference as a grad student, at UNC-Greensboro. The same weekend that the ACC Championship was taking place...in Greensboro. But we (my sis, brother-in-law, and I) made it up there okay, and while driving around Friday night for what proved to be a fruitless effort to find a Japanese place that allowed to-go orders (they were super busy, of course) and settling for Arby's, we couldn't help but notice an abundance of strip clubs in the greater Greensboro area (one even had a stretch limo pulled out in front...I wonder if it was formerly full of players from one of the teams?). UNCG itself was awesome, a really big and nice campus, and I got to present my paper on my trip to New Orleans (that I turned in for my Digital Humanities course last semester). It was all about associative memory, and I even reached a couple of folks in the room (one of them said they'd never thought of sports as having an association with a place, especially not in the era of free agency, when in my paper I mentioned how Eli Manning was a local New Orleans kid and I'd bought my t-shirt of his jersey while in New Orleans). I also found my way to reading some of Seamus Heaney's poetry when I got back home (one of my fellow presenters did a paper on one of his poems, and I'm more receptive to reading poetry for fun nowadays, so I picked up one of his collections). The conference was about "The Power of Place," and it was a fantastic first-conference experience. My only regret was that we had to leave so early (it was my sister's birthday, and understandably she didn't want to spend the bulk of it in NC, away from her daughter).
Spring Break week, I would've liked to have relaxed more (I did try), but truth is I was and continue to be hyped up about the Lit Fest. I've also got to figure out how I'm going to get to Albany, Georgia, next month for a conference that I've been invited to present at. Oh, and the Jeopardy tryout, also in Georgia (Savannah), also next month.
Shit, I should've relaxed more...
Anyway, come out for the Lit Fest this week, assuming any of you reading this are within geographical distance. If not, just do your best to be literary and festival-y this week. That's not too much to ask, is it?
