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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Off To The Gateway City

I'm going to St. Louis tomorrow!

This will be my third time flying on an airplane (in just over a year -- lucky me!) and I am so excited to visit another state! I always talk about how much I want to travel around the country/world, and I'm finally getting the chance to do that now.

I'm definitely going to visit this big famous thing.

Apparently, this used to be a huge sculpture of the McDonald's golden arches but one fell down or something. But I'm still excited to see the other one.

And I am SO excited to visit the zoo!

I've only been to one zoo before and I love seeing animals. This zoo has lots of monkeys, naked mole rats, zebra, rhinos, giraffes, owls, puffins, snails, and even a tiger and an elephant!

Although I'm excited to travel in general, I'm also excited about the real reason I'm going. I'm actually going to a conference to present a paper I wrote about the 'cruel spring' motif and it's correlation to corruption of motherhood in Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye.

I presented at the same conference last year and it was fun. At the conference, you read your paper to the audience and then they grill you. Some peepz are terrified of the grilling part but I actually like it. They say stuff like, "Why is your paper so terrible?" and "Did you do any research before forming those unfounded arguments?" and you cry and say that your professor gave you an A on the paper and run out of the room in tears. FUN!

So I'll be in St. Louis for the rest of the week and won't be online very often. I hope you all miss me!

14 comments:

Dave2 said...

Ooh! I love St. Louis... and you will too! Don't forget to try the fried pasta!

Ryan said...

If you like zoos, you should really come to San Diego.

Justin said...

That is sooooo cooooool! (That you're presenting a paper at a conference!) I only ever did that once, in granular school. Never as an undergranulate. (And I recently found out that if you google my name, the paper I got published in that particular journal shows up as a citation on somebody's phd thesis, which is ironic -- on sooooo many levels.)

Personally I was not a big fan on STL when I lived in Columbia, Missouri or Urbana, Illinois (my father had a bit of an indecision problem as to which side of the Mississippi he wanted us to live on.) But I'm not a big fan of the midwest in general. I chose New England on purpose. Nonetheless, I just took a gander over at Blogography and Dave2 manages to make the city much cooler than I remember it!! And (though I'm not yet sure where the connection between STL and Star Wars comes in) he and I honestly couldn't *possibly* agree more about the rating of the Star Wars movies, though I don't think Clone Wars is worse than Dick Cheney :P.

I've been up to the top of the Arch, btw. When it first opened. I still have a glossy brochure from when it was being built, with pictures of them hoisting up segments of the arch with a giant crane and putting them into place. Yes, I am older than the arch. And I'm older than the twin towers, too, and I remember them going up. It's got a nice view of the city and of the Mississippi, which is very wide at that point, if memory serves.

I do have one request -- could you possibly have a fellow student videotape you running out of the room in tears so you can post it on your blog? I think it is the least you can do for your readership, HONESTLY. ;-)

Good luck on your presentation and have fun on your trip! Congratulations!!! :D

woahwoahwoahwhat said...

Have fun!! I wish I was there! Wish everyone luck for me! Too many exclamation points!

Tam said...

How cool. Hope you have a blast and the audience is very nice to you. I have a couple of friends in St. Louis and one of them got a zoo membership for Christmas, she goes all the time with her kids and loves it.

Can't wait to hear all about the fun times when you get home.

Chris D. said...

Cool, have a great time. Take lots of photos for a future blog post. The internet will miss you.

Speaking of naked mole rats, you know lots of airports have those "see through clothes" scanners now. Be careful not to give the TSA too much of a thrill. ;)

Have a good trip.

Mel said...

Serial? Only your third time on a plane? And only one visit to a zoo ever? Child, we need to get your scrawny azz traveling!

And that animal you liked at the Central Park Zoo? Alpaca. Sugar, I live on an alpaca farm. And have sheep, too. Come visit someday and you can pet the alpacas all you want.

Michelle M. said...

I have to agree with Ryan.

Have a wonderful time in St. Louis - I can't wait to hear how your presentation went. And of course I shall miss you terribly!

Garret said...

We liked St. Louis. If you have time go to the City Museum. It's FUN. See my blog entry/slideshow about it here:

http://jimandgarret.blogspot.com/2008/09/09-11-08-thursday-one-mans-junk-is.html

a-train said...

Have an awesome time! Don't cry too much!

that's J-O-S-H said...

OMG...if they start to make fun of you, just start quoting Steven the Beautiful! "What, are you going ::mumble, mumble:: bite mah ear off?" "Ugh...sick!" "Why are you grillin' me?!" ...and my personal favorite... "WE DIDN'T EVEN GO INTOOOO CIRCLE K AT AAAAALL!""

dpaste said...

I have missed you terribly (aka I didn't see this until today and assume you are already back. Oops).

Michelle M. said...

Where aaaaare you? Come back to us...

Nikola said...

So, I love how when you take one golden arch from the two McDonalds' golden arches, you wind up with art.