Thursday Thirteen

Today's (late) Thursday Thirteen is all about the conference I am attending and my experiences as I travel(ed) to the conference... Enjoy!

Thirteen Things about ffbgirl 1…. As I am headed to my 3rd midwest political science conference, I am still nervous about presenting my research. I am presenting a paper about the ways in which the political party committees talk about women vs. men in their news releases. It really was an interesting paper, if I do say so myself, but it isn’t really a “political science” paper. It has no models. It doesn’t use NES data. It is a content analysis (blasphemy to some political scientists), but it is a QUANTITATIVE (say it with me people, quant-ih-tate-ive) content analysis. This is not qualitative research, so the political scientists shouldn’t really give me crap about this. 2. I am headed to Chicago, BY MY SELF! I don’t really even like going to the bathroom alone, so a trip to another time zone all by my lonesome is not really at the top of my “favorite-things-to-do list.” I will be there less than 24 hours and will go directly from the airport to the cab, to my hotel, to my room, to my panel presentation, back to the cab, back to the hotel, home. I know I can do this. I know it will be fine. But it is still a little scary to me. 3. It is going to be colder than a witch’s titty when I get there! That just plain sucks. As I drove the 2 hours to the airport today, I sweat my ass off in my husband’s car with no A/C… I wore a long-sleeve t-shirt on the plane and carried my sweatshirt on as I knew it was going to be cooooollllddd when I arrived in Chicago… I didn’t bring a heavy coat because I don’t plan on being outside any longer than it takes to smoke a cigarette or hail a cab. I know that is a dumb plan, but I wanted to be able to carry my luggage on and there just wasn’t room for by big coat. 4. It seems like my panel is going to be REALLY great! The women presenting at it are all even getting together tonight for dinner and drinks. Damn, the first panel I am on in which the people are actually friendly and trying to be collegial and my travel plans prevent me from getting to make new academic friends. I e-mailed the chair and expressed my sadness at not being able to join in the fun, so I hope they don’t think I am just being frigid and not going to be rude or something. 5. This one relates to the above “blurbs,” but I will literally be in Chicago for less than 24 hours. The conference is always at this really fancy expensive hotel, and because I am a fraidy cat I won’t stay at an off-site hotel, I try to only be at the conference the required amount of time to present my own paper and get the heck outta’ dodge. Well, seeing as I present at a panel at 8 a.m. on Friday, I am flying in Thursday night and don’t get in until midnight and then I am checking out and getting back home. I would really like to stay and do the whole go to other peoples’ panels and learn something thing, but I just don’t have the money to stay any longer than I have to. It is just that simple. So I hope this doesn’t make me a bad academic. 6. I realized I need to say more about how GREAT our panel is going to be… The chair was even cool enough to give us a general guide to presenting our papers. She doesn’t want the usual “here is why I studied this, here were my research questions/hypotheses, here was my method, here was my findings, this is what matters about my paper, and what questions do you have.” Instead, she actually took the time to read the panel papers and then come up with some general themes that we can all address. This was both good and bad for me. Like I said, my paper is not the normal poly-sci paper, so I didn’t totally have an answer for all 10 of the questions she wanted us to address (I didn’t even know what some of the questions meant, I hope I will figure that out during the panel)… But I took her guidelines and fit them to my paper (or fit my paper to her guidelines) and I think I have a pretty good talk planned. I did do the newby thing and write it out, but I won’t read it tomorrow. I am going to practice it a couple of times so the written plan will just be there as a guide. I might even turn it into bullet points. 7. En route to the conference, I get to see my parents!!! Woo-hoo! I realized I have not seen them since Christmas, and for me that is a really long time. I have about an hour layover in the airport right by their house, so we get to hang out for a bit. They are going to pick me up outside of my gate and drive me over to my next terminal. This will be grand fun! Mom is going to make me a cocktail and have it waiting in the car. She is also bringing me a tank top I left at her house (to wear under my dress shirt) as well as a travel-size bottle of saline because I didn’t have one small enough to carry on and didn’t have time to buy one. She is also bringing a pair of scissors to cut the security tag out of my new jeans (see No. 8). So, I will get to grab a smoke or two, have a drink, have a snack, complete my packing job, and get to see Mom and Dad!! That will make for one hell of a layover. Plus, weather.com said there will be at least an hour delay in leaving DFW for Chicago, so if that happens, that will increase the amount of time we get to spend together! Yippee! 8. Scissors… I know, sounds strange. So I bought a new pair of Gap jeans a couple of weeks ago. You know how Gap jeans all have that little sewn-in security tag you are supposed to cut out once you get them home? Well… I forgot to cut that out. It turns out that little security thing has metal in it. That metal will set off the metal detector at the airport. Then the person that pats you down is generally confused by it (which I totally understand). So here is how it happened. I actually successfully packed in one roller-suitcase (I ALWAYS travel with a backpack and I usually check my real luggage, but for 24 hours I wanted to be simple)… I had my laptop in a cover thing at the top of the suitcase. I had my bathroom stuff in a baggy (all less than 3 oz.). I also had my insulin stuff in its own baggy. So I get my shoes off, get my sweatshirt in the bin, get my laptop out of its cover and into its own bin, get my baggies into the bin, and send all my crap to be x-rayed. Then I go to walk through the x-ray thing myself… Beeeep. Crap! I left my phone hooked to my pocket. I take that off, put it in a bucket, walk though again. Beeeep. Crap! I realize I left my headphones in my pocket. The guy looks at me and says, sorry you’ll have to be patted down now. The other guy says, well we don’t have a female right now, is that the only thing you’ve got? Thinking it really was the only thing I had left on me I said, yeah, that’s it. So, go back through, put headphones in bucket, walk though again. Beeeep. Holy Shit! So, now I AM getting patted down (not that I really mind because I am glad they are doing their jobs). I explain it is probably my insulin pump. The lady comes over, explains the process (will wand you first, then pat you down, will use the back of my hand for any sensitive areas), tells me to stand on the peanuts, starts wanding me. She gets to my left pocket and... Beep… No biggie here, I assume it is my pump. I pull my pump out of my pocket and show it to the lady. She then wands me again. Beeep at the left pocket. Damnit! Turns out I forgot I had change in my pocket. I take that out and apologize. Wanding continues. Beeep. OK, WTF???? Well, then it comes to me… That security tag in gap jeans. I explain this to the woman, even offer to disrobe partially to show it to her. She feels around for it, figures out it is there, seems satisfied. Except my pump still beeps… This is unusual, but I can’t even explain that one. So she wipes it to bomb test it, it passes, and finally, off I go… So, I called my mom and asked her to bring scissors when she comes to meet me so we can cut that sucker off. She did and I really did have to partially disrobe in front of the airport for her to cut the damn thing out… At least it made me laugh! 9. Eight was really long and should have counted as two… So, this is being written in parts. I got to see my mom and dad at the airport. That freaking rocked! But, you remember how when you were at summer camp they never let you actually call your mom and dad. I never really understood why until now (well I actually figured this out earlier than now, but this is another example of it). Seeing Mom and Dad only made me miss them more. My poor mother cried for a good deal of the time I was there. She really misses me. I really miss her. She is my best friend and it sucks that we live a zillion miles apart. But, Mom and Dad came and saw me for all of 15 minutes, brought me saline, matches, and scissors. Dad even packed my pack of smokes so I could quickly get one in before I had to go back inside. It was really nice of them to drive to the airport just to see me for that short of time. 10. I am hoping to stand by for an earlier flight home tomorrow, so tomorrow could wind up being seven hours in the airport. That very well might suck. 11. When I got to my fancy schmancy expensive hotel late tonight, I got one pleasant surprise… I got this huge nice fancy (even for this hotel) suite!!! It is amazingly huge. I haven’t even walked through all the rooms yet! This room is easily bigger than the entire downstairs of my townhouse! This freakin’ rocks. I am so bummed I will be in here a grand total of six hours. Oh well, I am going to enjoy it while I am here. 12. I ordered room service tonight. I do not usually do room service. I paid $30 for a quesadilla and a small diet coke. The quesadilla was good, but not that good. The diet coke is easily the best part… But, it was LATE when I got here (hence this Thursday 13 technically getting posted on Friday), and I was not about to venture out of the hotel in the freezing ass cold to get food of any kind. And by the time I got here, I realized I had eaten some fries, a chicken sandwich, and some chips, and that was it, all day. I needed something that resembled a real meal—the quesadillas were as close as I could get on the late night menu. So I enjoyed it and chalked it up as an educational expense. I will try to be cheap tomorrow. I also rode in a cab—BY MYSELF. I know that was the plan all along, but I am still proud of myself. I even texted G when I got in the cab and gave him the cab number in case something bad happened to me… I am such a baby. 13. Well, I hate to end on a sad note, but I am going to because I am looking for some answers here in the blogsphere… A young woman who works for G and also cleans our house went to the hospital this afternoon, 8-months pregnant, thinking she might be in labor. I got texts about it before I got on the plane. I sent her a text and said that I would be thinking about her. Before I got on the plane, another manager at G’s restaurant (who went to the hospital with her) called me and told me they had lost the baby’s heartbeat and that was all she knew. Before I heard any more, I had to get on the plane and turn off my phone. By the time I arrived at my first stop, I had gotten texts informing me she had lost the baby. Oh how my heart aches for her. We had already thrown her the baby shower. I had made promises to baby sit. She was really excited (of course). So I text back and fourth with G and the other manager to get as much info as I can. She had a c-section and her spirits are up—considering the situation. The mom-to-be even texted me to say thanks for thinking of her. I sent her a message that I love her (not only does she work for us, she is our friend and I care for this young woman) and that she would remain in my prayers. The girl’s mother and yet another manager at G’s store went to her house and cleared out all the baby stuff. I asked if anyone knew if they were having a burial and if they are I might ask my parents to chip in to defray costs—G said he will talk to the president of the company about helping with those costs (the parents to be are basically poor). But my question is this… What is the protocol here on helping the would-be mom? I just feel helpless and clueless. The only thing I know to do is to offer her my shoulder if she needs it. Is there something I should know to be doing? If anyone has advice on how I can help her or be there for her, please let me know. I just want to do anything I can. Right now I am just sending up my prayers for her… Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. Lara (the only one I actually regularly read, so please let me know if you have one too) 2. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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