SECAC 2017 // Before the presentation

Columbus is so much more glamorous than I could ever be, you guys. What is it with this place? So much art, beautiful streets with eclectic little stores, amazing food. Just amazing. Are you hungry? Get thee to Columbus.

Also they have umpteen breweries around which is making A. very happy, but even he admits that the food trumps the beer in this magical little city.

The line for this place was crazy long.

I mean, have I left the conference strip? No. Do I have any real sense of the true Columbus, OH? Absolutely not. But these few city blocks have been really, really good to me.

Oh yeah, and the art conference! SECAC is a pretty low-key, feel-good, celebratory event so far. Really cool panel topics and presenters, with very welcoming and friendly attendees, so my imposter syndrome is dissipating somewhat. It may rage back in full form when I enter the room where M. and I are presenting later this morning, but for now, I'm finding it a pretty cool experience to be the English/Creative Writing-fly-on-the-wall watching all these painters and sculptors and art-historians do their thing.

It's also such a relief to be away from Stuffolk for a few days. (Not that I didn't take my grading with me!)

On Monday I turned in my sabbatical application/proposal and I'm so so so hoping that my last minute changes were good ones and that I've included what I needed to include and that I get this damn thing. I really, really want to just concentrate on my writing for a semester and take a BIG break from teaching. It's so necessary to recharge in a career like this. Performing like a jackass every day, trying your hardest to sell what you love to a bunch of people who really couldn't give a damn,  drains the energy and good spirits right out of you. I'd take a year if I could, but we can't afford it.

Last minute prep for our presentation, natch.

It's funny, too, that our presentation today is about teaching creativity and more specifically about how a class that M. and I teach in the spring has affected our daily creative practice -- and while I love the course and I love teaching alongside M. and the material we teach in that class is so interesting and engaging, I find myself just feeling tired when I anticipate gearing up for another semester. I think I'm pretty burnt out. A reset, in some way, whether I am awarded the sabbatical or not, is definitely needed.

I'm going to get my ass on a treadmill now. One has to counteract all the breakfast burritos, stuffed cabbage, Tibetan dumplings, and homemade ice cream one expects to eat later in the day, ammaright? Nothing says weight gain quite like a truckload of delicious farmer's market calories followed by sitting for hours in a conference hall.

(I may post tomorrow, just to document how the presentation went. It'll help when I have to write that pesky report for the suits.)