"'Beyond Ground Zero'" Conference play-by-play
Before all that, I guess I gotta pimp the thing (albeit belatedly!):
the website
article written by Christine MacLean, McMaster Daily News intern
article written by John Umpherson, McMaster Humanities Faculty intern
***
all in all, it was a fantabulous success. it was a really, really intense day from both ends. plenty of participants and attendees approached me and complimented the organization of the events, as well as the enthusiasm and hard work that folks helping run the conference put forward throughout the day. everyone involved in the running of the thing pulled through with flying colours--it's really sad that it's only during these very rare instances that people get to see how dedicated and supportive so many people in our department can be. seriously: i wasn't expecting the kind of support i got from the many people--grads, staff, and faculty members--who came out and helped create a warm and welcoming environment for our guests. okay, enough w/this "kumbaya" moment; it is starting to reek of cheese :oP
i'm sure this play-by-play is more or less for personal therapeutic and memorial purposes, but if anyone wants to read up on how the entire day unfolded, please be my guest and
-arrived on campus around 7:30 and got a brief glimpse of the parking van unloading staff at the kiosk. the shift leader had the back of the van open and i was glad to see the A-frame insert/placard I ordered for the conference. figured that was a fortuitous sign
-met up with my co-organizer, Don, in the lounge adjacent to the banquet hall. we talked briefly about what we would do re: our first plenary speaker, Marc Redfield, who's from California and whose bag was stolen from the train he was on the previous night (the poor guy lost his clothes, toiletries, computer cable, and *passport*). after that, we scoped out the place and ran into the a/v people setting up the thing. a/v was pretty much on the ball with things. but i noticed that only one podium showed up. i ordered three, and the grand puba of all of them (i.e., the one to be used by the plenary speakers in the main hall) was one of the ones MIA. let's just say that karen's anxiety level kicked up a notch--slight wringing of the hands had ensued at this point
-emily, a friend and fellow grad student (note: from here on in, if i don't say anything otherwise, the people whose names i mention are friends and/or fellow grad students!), showed up early to offer her support and to gear up for whatever volunteer-hell i'd put her through. max showed up a little afterwards and diligently got to work on his tech and a/v magic
-8 AM: the department staff landed: Antoinette showed up with the money box and started laughing at me for being so stressed. Ilona and Nanci showed up a little after, followed by Aurelia and a whole whack of our volunteers. at this point, i was simultaneously coordinating the registration table AND trying to hunt down anyone i could talk to re: podiums (podia? podii? podi?) that were MIA. Aurelia grabbed a bunch of volunteers to move stuff from our dept. office to the banquet hall. more panicking re: lecturns (at this point i had given up trying to figure out what the plural form of "podium" would be) ensued. Ilona thought it would be funn-ay to take a picture of me. Hahaha, Ilona--it was a deer caught in headlights moment, for sure. For some reason, all Nanci could do amidst all this was giggle then apologize to me and ask me to give her something to do (she's great!). It was neat seeing the department staff seated at the registration in assembly line fashion: Aurelia > Nanci > Antoinette (a.k.a. "The Money Lady") > Ilona (a.k.a. "The Stamper")
-I had Evan, Will, Scott, and Tim move the one podium we had into the main banquet hall and scope out other classrooms in the area for any we could "borrow" for the day. Antoinette remembered we had one podium in our department seminar room and dispatched some of the guys to get it. She then told Will that she forgot to cancel our booking of the Council room, and that we should call Security and ask them to unlock the room for us so we can take the massive podium from there and use it for the day (Will had to wait around for 45 minutes until security showed up, but he was able to bring the podium to us in time). David, my supervisor, showed up early so that Marc (the keynote whose bag was stolen) could freshen up in one of the banquet hall's private bathrooms and get settled in (David and Marc are good friends and David was kind enough to take care of him the whole day). My friend Andrew was doing nothing but grabbing food from the catering tables and eating, so I put him to work :oP Phanuel started doing his own thing with the signage, but then ended up doing 10 things all at once because he was the only one I trusted to understand what I wanted done (sorry man!).
-I had a chance to mingle for a bit. I met up with Ken Paradis, a former instructor in our dept. I was surprised he remembered me and my sister (who took his Health Studies fourth-year seminar). He remembered that I had really short hair when I was in his class, and that my sister wrote a really good paper on Frankenstein for his seminar. He was blown away to find out that I was already in my 3rd year of the Ph.D. programme. I made a reasonably young guy feel quite old, I think!
-9:10 a.m.: our chair is great, but hilariously strange: Don, our department chair, came up to me around 9:10 and jokingly told me that he made it a point to show up really early for me so I wouldn't panic (he was to deliver the chair's welcome at 9:15--really early, alright. way to go, Donnie G...). After he said this, he asked if there was anyone else he had to thank on our behalf during the welcome. I asked him who was already on his list. The guy pulls out three sheets of stationery paper and shows it to me. His notes are in scraggly point form. He grins at me. "Like my notes?" He sits down on one of the couches in the lounge and takes out a pen from his suit jacket. "So who else do I thank? I've got a lot of people already; have I forgotten anybody?" Thank our many fantastic volunteers, Don. "Oh, right." He stops writing. "You don't happen to know which Taylor conference it is this year, do you? Because I don't. God, I hope it's not something big like the tenth, because I really don't know..." I give him a blank look and he laughs at me. "Don't worry about it, it's okay. It'll be fine." I leave him alone to compose himself. He finds me in the crowd and pulls at my sleeve. "What time do you want me to go up there? It's almost 9:15." I think the man is nervous. I look at the crowd and the line-up at the registration table. I tell him to give me an additional 5 minutes--get up there and talk at 9:20. "Alright." He disappears into the crowd. Once 9:20 rolls around, I stand at the back of the banquet hall and I see him already standing behind the podium. He looks at me helplessly. I nod and urge him to start. He waits and looks at me again. I gesture with my chin for him to *freakin' start.* He stares at me then taps the microphone. "Hi... Can everyone hear me...?" People nod at him and gradually stop talking. And so began the conference. Don's welcome was endearingly calm and soothing (read: the man speaks with a monotone and a really distinct British-Trinidadian accent).
-enter the Wu-Clark: Don G. indicated that David would introduce Marc, our first keynote. David sparkled-Clarkled as usual, and got everyone revved up for Marc's presentation. Marc's paper was fascinating, to say the least, and I really admire him for being so cool throughout the day despite the turmoil he went through the previous night. One minor gaffe in the conference: I forgot to ask catering to set up a pitcher of water and cups for the speakers. Marc coughed and asked for water. David was a tad pissed that my co-organizer and I forgot this. Once that was straightened out, I made sure every room we were using had at least one pitcher of water and a million cups.
-during the break after marc's talk, antoinette introduced me to a woman from The Hamilton Spectator, who interviewed me about the conference. not sure what's happening with that.
-i attended the controversial "conspiracy theory" panel in the morning, and was happy to see the room jam-packed (i gave up my seat to an attendee and ended up perching on the back counter beside a sink and an empty recycling box :oP) there were a few people invested in spreading the word that the WTC towers didn't collapse but was detonated by inside forces. two of the three panelists were leaning that way, too, but they were both judicious in respecting the aims of the conference and their own personal interests in "9/11." one of them, Graeme MacQueen, even thanked me and my coorganizer for accepting his paper and allowing him to speak w/o being policed for his arguments and ideas. Peter, our department's grad chair, could only attend one of the sessions, so he went to the same one. he had one of his sons with him and they sat beside Don G, who I know attended the panel to lend his support and excellent administrative skills to me, should the panel get out of hand in light of its controversial topic. there were plenty of moments when the room was rife w/tension, but it was there b/c the audience was really engaging with the speakers and debating very difficult issues. as i was coming out of the room, i heard a lot of people who were in there with me say amongst themselves that it was a really good panel, and that it was intense and they were really glad they went to it because more often than not, such discourses are not permitted or given a chance in the space of the university classroom...
-lunch. lunch was great, though i didn't get to eat much b/c i was either running around doing something or talking to people who had been tracking me from across the banquet hall for some time. i ended up having a pleasant conversation with several of the presenters (all of whom were very friendly and appreciative of how well they say I took care of them for the past year or so since their papers were accepted). i'll be honest; it's a great feeling when people you barely know express, in all honesty, their appreciation of the work you put in for something as labour-intensive as conference planning
-MICHELLE KAI: during lunch I finally got to sit down for a bit with Mich, who made it a point to drive all the way from Windsor and support me. she stayed for the entire conference and I'm truly grateful to her for showing up. i do, however, really regret not having had enough time to spend with her and catch up (as well as introduce her to my supervisor and to some of my dearest friends in the department!). Thanks for coming, Michelle!!
-The T-Dunc: Travis, ever true to his word, drove all the way from London to attend the conference and lend an impromptu, yet nevertheless much-appreciated hand of assistance for the whole day
-the department staff left around 1 pm, during the open discussion session that Don Moore and I asked Susie O'Brien and Diane Enns to moderate. They did a fine job, and I must say that aside from some brief moments of silence and tension, the discussion session was a success--definitely a rare opportunity for attendees to take a more active part in conference proceedings.
-Mr. James Taylor: the representative from John Douglas Taylor's family was a very pleasant man who attended the entire conference, including the dinner. initially, Don G. was thinking Mr. Taylor would get bored after the opening keynote address, but the man actually participated in the open discussion session. the funny part of it was, everyone--including Antoinette--was worried about him feeling isolated during the day (it went as far as Antoinette assigning a battalion of grad students to trail him and make small talk with him--something our chair found extremely hilarious: an elderly man, retired Canadian diplomat, sitting at a round banquet table surrounded by casually-dressed dept. of english and cultural studies grad students in their mid- to late twenties, enthusiastically *beaming* at him... i think mr. taylor was freaked out more than anything). Thank the lord that Anne Savage, one of the dept. faculty, eagerly rescued him from such misplaced coddling when I asked her to. She's a fantastic woman, that Anne Savage!
-our chair is great, but hilariously strange, part II: my co-organizer and i sat beside our department chair during the discussion session. at first he thought there was a problem, so he stared at me when i sat down beside him. "What?" I frowned at him. "Huh? What?" "Is there a problem?" "What? No. Why are you asking?" He shrugged then and grinned. "I thought there was a problem and you were going to ask me something." "No, Don. Everything's fine." Okay. I guess he was relieved that for the time being, I had stopped bothering him with *really strange* problems that he and I often consulted on over the summer. I thought it was over, but ohmygod, the man is a nosy packer (as Phanuel would say), a gossip, and a whispering commentator. Throughout the whole discussion session, he would lean over and make a passing comment--some laced with sarcasm, others with quirky humour...: "Wow. That guy can play for the NBA" (re: a really tall guy who approached the mic to speak); "Who's that?"; "Says the embodiment of narcissism..." (re: a comment a prof from Guelph made about academia being narcissistic... apparently, good ol'Don is of the camp who thinks this particular prof is among those narcissists); "Who came up with these discussion questions?"; "What did he say?"; "Who the hell *is* this guy?"; "Who's the guy that didn't want to chair the conspiracy theory panel?". And the kicker - the exchange between us w/regards to Roger Simon, our closing plenary speaker, who happened to be sitting right behind me: Don leans over and whispers not so quietly in my ear, "Is Roger Simon here already?" I cringed. "Yup." "Well where is he?" "Ssshhh. Right behind you and me." The nosy packer raises his head and "casually" turns to look. He turns back to me quickly with a disbelieving frown on his face. "The picture you have of him on the program is old! He doesn't look like that anymore!" "Yes, I know, but he gave me that picture, okay?" "Oh." All in all, I had fun sitting with him, strangely enough. He left the conference after the discussion session (he told me he had to leave before or right at the beginning of lunch, but he quickly made a phone call in the morning and stayed for lunch and an extra hour or so. I'm assuming he was liking the conference and stayed as long as he could. I was glad he talked to David for a good 10 minutes or so before he left.
-throughout the day, David, Marc, Don Moore and I were trying to straighten out Marc's travel arrangements for Sunday. Thankfully, Lisa Kirby (the Mac Lawyer) helped us out by notarizing Marc's faxed travel documents in order to facilitate his trip home (he should be home by now)! Don Moore and I attended part of a panel after spending a portion of our time in the dept. office calling Antoinette and the limo service in charge of picking up Marc from the hotel and dropping him off at the airport.
-Roger's keynote address was phenomenal, to say the least; I'm seriously considering applying for a post-doc with him next year. after the dinner reception, before he and his wife Wendy left for the evening, he told me to keep in touch with him and that if I come to Toronto often, I should meet up with him to talk about my work (and his). yay, excited! and omg, he mentioned reading the article I wrote for Henry and Susan's journal... omg!
-closing remarks: our closing remarks were kind of hurried and cut & dry b/c doug and lois, our musicians had already arrived and the a/v equipment people wanted their stuff back at 6 pm on the dot. don moore and i thanked everyone again and i gave instructions to the dinner reception attendees and wished everyone goodnight. then there was a huge round of applause for us, which i wasn't expecting at all... people were smiling, too. very strange.
-the dinner reception went well; Doug and Lois provided wonderful music for us, and Don Moore and I ended up having a nice chat with them over dinner. the food was yummy, especially the stuffed filet of sole. Larry Marsh from Paradise Catering is a superhero, as far as I'm concerned! The man was coordinating so many catering events all over campus the whole day, and he was cool as can be!!
-Will, Phanuel, and Evan stayed for the dinner reception. And for all their hard work, Antoinette and I agreed that they get in for free. These guys were so sweet to our guests and so helpful to us--it was the least we could do after all their hard work. When Will left, Phanuel, Evan and I did some last-minute tidying up around the student centre and in our department office. By the time we got back to the dining hall, everyone had gone home (thank god) except for Don Moore. The four of us hung around and waited for the catering staff to pack up the leftover dessert for us, some of which we left in the department lounge, and some of which evan and phanuel took home. i kinda wished i had asked for the leftover stuffed filet of sole before they took it away (i really loved that thing--it was yumm-ay). and that was that!
-some weird miscellaneous thoughts: david gave me a big hug before he left with Marc. apparently he was "damned proud" of the work we put into this whole thing, and was really impressed with the planning, organization, and execution of the whole thing. and before we parted ways, don moore gave me a goofy hug that made all the things annoying about him less annoying and more endearing. really, he pulled through for me on the day of the conference, and was really on the ball w/the stuff i was asking him to do.
Despite all this, i really am glad it's all over... well, not quite: i gotta clean up post-conference crumbs such as the budget, thank-you gifts/cards, reimbursements, honouraria, payments for services rendered... but it's all good.
the website
article written by Christine MacLean, McMaster Daily News intern
article written by John Umpherson, McMaster Humanities Faculty intern
***
all in all, it was a fantabulous success. it was a really, really intense day from both ends. plenty of participants and attendees approached me and complimented the organization of the events, as well as the enthusiasm and hard work that folks helping run the conference put forward throughout the day. everyone involved in the running of the thing pulled through with flying colours--it's really sad that it's only during these very rare instances that people get to see how dedicated and supportive so many people in our department can be. seriously: i wasn't expecting the kind of support i got from the many people--grads, staff, and faculty members--who came out and helped create a warm and welcoming environment for our guests. okay, enough w/this "kumbaya" moment; it is starting to reek of cheese :oP
i'm sure this play-by-play is more or less for personal therapeutic and memorial purposes, but if anyone wants to read up on how the entire day unfolded, please be my guest and
-arrived on campus around 7:30 and got a brief glimpse of the parking van unloading staff at the kiosk. the shift leader had the back of the van open and i was glad to see the A-frame insert/placard I ordered for the conference. figured that was a fortuitous sign
-met up with my co-organizer, Don, in the lounge adjacent to the banquet hall. we talked briefly about what we would do re: our first plenary speaker, Marc Redfield, who's from California and whose bag was stolen from the train he was on the previous night (the poor guy lost his clothes, toiletries, computer cable, and *passport*). after that, we scoped out the place and ran into the a/v people setting up the thing. a/v was pretty much on the ball with things. but i noticed that only one podium showed up. i ordered three, and the grand puba of all of them (i.e., the one to be used by the plenary speakers in the main hall) was one of the ones MIA. let's just say that karen's anxiety level kicked up a notch--slight wringing of the hands had ensued at this point
-emily, a friend and fellow grad student (note: from here on in, if i don't say anything otherwise, the people whose names i mention are friends and/or fellow grad students!), showed up early to offer her support and to gear up for whatever volunteer-hell i'd put her through. max showed up a little afterwards and diligently got to work on his tech and a/v magic
-8 AM: the department staff landed: Antoinette showed up with the money box and started laughing at me for being so stressed. Ilona and Nanci showed up a little after, followed by Aurelia and a whole whack of our volunteers. at this point, i was simultaneously coordinating the registration table AND trying to hunt down anyone i could talk to re: podiums (podia? podii? podi?) that were MIA. Aurelia grabbed a bunch of volunteers to move stuff from our dept. office to the banquet hall. more panicking re: lecturns (at this point i had given up trying to figure out what the plural form of "podium" would be) ensued. Ilona thought it would be funn-ay to take a picture of me. Hahaha, Ilona--it was a deer caught in headlights moment, for sure. For some reason, all Nanci could do amidst all this was giggle then apologize to me and ask me to give her something to do (she's great!). It was neat seeing the department staff seated at the registration in assembly line fashion: Aurelia > Nanci > Antoinette (a.k.a. "The Money Lady") > Ilona (a.k.a. "The Stamper")
-I had Evan, Will, Scott, and Tim move the one podium we had into the main banquet hall and scope out other classrooms in the area for any we could "borrow" for the day. Antoinette remembered we had one podium in our department seminar room and dispatched some of the guys to get it. She then told Will that she forgot to cancel our booking of the Council room, and that we should call Security and ask them to unlock the room for us so we can take the massive podium from there and use it for the day (Will had to wait around for 45 minutes until security showed up, but he was able to bring the podium to us in time). David, my supervisor, showed up early so that Marc (the keynote whose bag was stolen) could freshen up in one of the banquet hall's private bathrooms and get settled in (David and Marc are good friends and David was kind enough to take care of him the whole day). My friend Andrew was doing nothing but grabbing food from the catering tables and eating, so I put him to work :oP Phanuel started doing his own thing with the signage, but then ended up doing 10 things all at once because he was the only one I trusted to understand what I wanted done (sorry man!).
-I had a chance to mingle for a bit. I met up with Ken Paradis, a former instructor in our dept. I was surprised he remembered me and my sister (who took his Health Studies fourth-year seminar). He remembered that I had really short hair when I was in his class, and that my sister wrote a really good paper on Frankenstein for his seminar. He was blown away to find out that I was already in my 3rd year of the Ph.D. programme. I made a reasonably young guy feel quite old, I think!
-9:10 a.m.: our chair is great, but hilariously strange: Don, our department chair, came up to me around 9:10 and jokingly told me that he made it a point to show up really early for me so I wouldn't panic (he was to deliver the chair's welcome at 9:15--really early, alright. way to go, Donnie G...). After he said this, he asked if there was anyone else he had to thank on our behalf during the welcome. I asked him who was already on his list. The guy pulls out three sheets of stationery paper and shows it to me. His notes are in scraggly point form. He grins at me. "Like my notes?" He sits down on one of the couches in the lounge and takes out a pen from his suit jacket. "So who else do I thank? I've got a lot of people already; have I forgotten anybody?" Thank our many fantastic volunteers, Don. "Oh, right." He stops writing. "You don't happen to know which Taylor conference it is this year, do you? Because I don't. God, I hope it's not something big like the tenth, because I really don't know..." I give him a blank look and he laughs at me. "Don't worry about it, it's okay. It'll be fine." I leave him alone to compose himself. He finds me in the crowd and pulls at my sleeve. "What time do you want me to go up there? It's almost 9:15." I think the man is nervous. I look at the crowd and the line-up at the registration table. I tell him to give me an additional 5 minutes--get up there and talk at 9:20. "Alright." He disappears into the crowd. Once 9:20 rolls around, I stand at the back of the banquet hall and I see him already standing behind the podium. He looks at me helplessly. I nod and urge him to start. He waits and looks at me again. I gesture with my chin for him to *freakin' start.* He stares at me then taps the microphone. "Hi... Can everyone hear me...?" People nod at him and gradually stop talking. And so began the conference. Don's welcome was endearingly calm and soothing (read: the man speaks with a monotone and a really distinct British-Trinidadian accent).
-enter the Wu-Clark: Don G. indicated that David would introduce Marc, our first keynote. David sparkled-Clarkled as usual, and got everyone revved up for Marc's presentation. Marc's paper was fascinating, to say the least, and I really admire him for being so cool throughout the day despite the turmoil he went through the previous night. One minor gaffe in the conference: I forgot to ask catering to set up a pitcher of water and cups for the speakers. Marc coughed and asked for water. David was a tad pissed that my co-organizer and I forgot this. Once that was straightened out, I made sure every room we were using had at least one pitcher of water and a million cups.
-during the break after marc's talk, antoinette introduced me to a woman from The Hamilton Spectator, who interviewed me about the conference. not sure what's happening with that.
-i attended the controversial "conspiracy theory" panel in the morning, and was happy to see the room jam-packed (i gave up my seat to an attendee and ended up perching on the back counter beside a sink and an empty recycling box :oP) there were a few people invested in spreading the word that the WTC towers didn't collapse but was detonated by inside forces. two of the three panelists were leaning that way, too, but they were both judicious in respecting the aims of the conference and their own personal interests in "9/11." one of them, Graeme MacQueen, even thanked me and my coorganizer for accepting his paper and allowing him to speak w/o being policed for his arguments and ideas. Peter, our department's grad chair, could only attend one of the sessions, so he went to the same one. he had one of his sons with him and they sat beside Don G, who I know attended the panel to lend his support and excellent administrative skills to me, should the panel get out of hand in light of its controversial topic. there were plenty of moments when the room was rife w/tension, but it was there b/c the audience was really engaging with the speakers and debating very difficult issues. as i was coming out of the room, i heard a lot of people who were in there with me say amongst themselves that it was a really good panel, and that it was intense and they were really glad they went to it because more often than not, such discourses are not permitted or given a chance in the space of the university classroom...
-lunch. lunch was great, though i didn't get to eat much b/c i was either running around doing something or talking to people who had been tracking me from across the banquet hall for some time. i ended up having a pleasant conversation with several of the presenters (all of whom were very friendly and appreciative of how well they say I took care of them for the past year or so since their papers were accepted). i'll be honest; it's a great feeling when people you barely know express, in all honesty, their appreciation of the work you put in for something as labour-intensive as conference planning
-MICHELLE KAI: during lunch I finally got to sit down for a bit with Mich, who made it a point to drive all the way from Windsor and support me. she stayed for the entire conference and I'm truly grateful to her for showing up. i do, however, really regret not having had enough time to spend with her and catch up (as well as introduce her to my supervisor and to some of my dearest friends in the department!). Thanks for coming, Michelle!!
-The T-Dunc: Travis, ever true to his word, drove all the way from London to attend the conference and lend an impromptu, yet nevertheless much-appreciated hand of assistance for the whole day
-the department staff left around 1 pm, during the open discussion session that Don Moore and I asked Susie O'Brien and Diane Enns to moderate. They did a fine job, and I must say that aside from some brief moments of silence and tension, the discussion session was a success--definitely a rare opportunity for attendees to take a more active part in conference proceedings.
-Mr. James Taylor: the representative from John Douglas Taylor's family was a very pleasant man who attended the entire conference, including the dinner. initially, Don G. was thinking Mr. Taylor would get bored after the opening keynote address, but the man actually participated in the open discussion session. the funny part of it was, everyone--including Antoinette--was worried about him feeling isolated during the day (it went as far as Antoinette assigning a battalion of grad students to trail him and make small talk with him--something our chair found extremely hilarious: an elderly man, retired Canadian diplomat, sitting at a round banquet table surrounded by casually-dressed dept. of english and cultural studies grad students in their mid- to late twenties, enthusiastically *beaming* at him... i think mr. taylor was freaked out more than anything). Thank the lord that Anne Savage, one of the dept. faculty, eagerly rescued him from such misplaced coddling when I asked her to. She's a fantastic woman, that Anne Savage!
-our chair is great, but hilariously strange, part II: my co-organizer and i sat beside our department chair during the discussion session. at first he thought there was a problem, so he stared at me when i sat down beside him. "What?" I frowned at him. "Huh? What?" "Is there a problem?" "What? No. Why are you asking?" He shrugged then and grinned. "I thought there was a problem and you were going to ask me something." "No, Don. Everything's fine." Okay. I guess he was relieved that for the time being, I had stopped bothering him with *really strange* problems that he and I often consulted on over the summer. I thought it was over, but ohmygod, the man is a nosy packer (as Phanuel would say), a gossip, and a whispering commentator. Throughout the whole discussion session, he would lean over and make a passing comment--some laced with sarcasm, others with quirky humour...: "Wow. That guy can play for the NBA" (re: a really tall guy who approached the mic to speak); "Who's that?"; "Says the embodiment of narcissism..." (re: a comment a prof from Guelph made about academia being narcissistic... apparently, good ol'Don is of the camp who thinks this particular prof is among those narcissists); "Who came up with these discussion questions?"; "What did he say?"; "Who the hell *is* this guy?"; "Who's the guy that didn't want to chair the conspiracy theory panel?". And the kicker - the exchange between us w/regards to Roger Simon, our closing plenary speaker, who happened to be sitting right behind me: Don leans over and whispers not so quietly in my ear, "Is Roger Simon here already?" I cringed. "Yup." "Well where is he?" "Ssshhh. Right behind you and me." The nosy packer raises his head and "casually" turns to look. He turns back to me quickly with a disbelieving frown on his face. "The picture you have of him on the program is old! He doesn't look like that anymore!" "Yes, I know, but he gave me that picture, okay?" "Oh." All in all, I had fun sitting with him, strangely enough. He left the conference after the discussion session (he told me he had to leave before or right at the beginning of lunch, but he quickly made a phone call in the morning and stayed for lunch and an extra hour or so. I'm assuming he was liking the conference and stayed as long as he could. I was glad he talked to David for a good 10 minutes or so before he left.
-throughout the day, David, Marc, Don Moore and I were trying to straighten out Marc's travel arrangements for Sunday. Thankfully, Lisa Kirby (the Mac Lawyer) helped us out by notarizing Marc's faxed travel documents in order to facilitate his trip home (he should be home by now)! Don Moore and I attended part of a panel after spending a portion of our time in the dept. office calling Antoinette and the limo service in charge of picking up Marc from the hotel and dropping him off at the airport.
-Roger's keynote address was phenomenal, to say the least; I'm seriously considering applying for a post-doc with him next year. after the dinner reception, before he and his wife Wendy left for the evening, he told me to keep in touch with him and that if I come to Toronto often, I should meet up with him to talk about my work (and his). yay, excited! and omg, he mentioned reading the article I wrote for Henry and Susan's journal... omg!
-closing remarks: our closing remarks were kind of hurried and cut & dry b/c doug and lois, our musicians had already arrived and the a/v equipment people wanted their stuff back at 6 pm on the dot. don moore and i thanked everyone again and i gave instructions to the dinner reception attendees and wished everyone goodnight. then there was a huge round of applause for us, which i wasn't expecting at all... people were smiling, too. very strange.
-the dinner reception went well; Doug and Lois provided wonderful music for us, and Don Moore and I ended up having a nice chat with them over dinner. the food was yummy, especially the stuffed filet of sole. Larry Marsh from Paradise Catering is a superhero, as far as I'm concerned! The man was coordinating so many catering events all over campus the whole day, and he was cool as can be!!
-Will, Phanuel, and Evan stayed for the dinner reception. And for all their hard work, Antoinette and I agreed that they get in for free. These guys were so sweet to our guests and so helpful to us--it was the least we could do after all their hard work. When Will left, Phanuel, Evan and I did some last-minute tidying up around the student centre and in our department office. By the time we got back to the dining hall, everyone had gone home (thank god) except for Don Moore. The four of us hung around and waited for the catering staff to pack up the leftover dessert for us, some of which we left in the department lounge, and some of which evan and phanuel took home. i kinda wished i had asked for the leftover stuffed filet of sole before they took it away (i really loved that thing--it was yumm-ay). and that was that!
-some weird miscellaneous thoughts: david gave me a big hug before he left with Marc. apparently he was "damned proud" of the work we put into this whole thing, and was really impressed with the planning, organization, and execution of the whole thing. and before we parted ways, don moore gave me a goofy hug that made all the things annoying about him less annoying and more endearing. really, he pulled through for me on the day of the conference, and was really on the ball w/the stuff i was asking him to do.
Despite all this, i really am glad it's all over... well, not quite: i gotta clean up post-conference crumbs such as the budget, thank-you gifts/cards, reimbursements, honouraria, payments for services rendered... but it's all good.