AAA conference and Montreal

On day 4 I presented a paper in a panel on Time with three other grad students from UCL. It was at 8am, so we were expecting that few would show up, but actually on the day there was a rolling audience of about 8-10 people. Thanks go to Helen, my cousin for turning up because she didn’t have to and to Deb who also slipped in to see my talk.

I was extremely nervous, but by the time I was there two things occurred to me. Firstly, that I had seen one or two poorly presented papers – although – to be fair, 15 mins is not enough time to give a good account of your project and there are always things that get left out. There is really only enough time to make a couple of points and then its on to the next speaker. So the presenters may just have suffered from that problem too and been as nervous as I was.

Secondly, by the time you get there, it is too late to change anything and it is just a matter of reading what is in your notes and showing the powerpoint. So that’s what I did – and I wasn’t the best, but neither was it the worst. It felt very much like everyone was on our side and it was a nice safe, easy start. There is always next year to get better. Next time, I will expand my horizons and apply to other sustainability/environment panels and that will be a good opportunity to meet more people in my field of enquiry.

After the presentation I took the rest of the day off and went out with my cousin and aunt, to see a little of Montreal. Sunday, though, I was back at the nearly empty conference centre, dragging my suitcase behind me, for the last day and two panels – one on sustainability which was definitely worth hanging around for.

Then I went off and stayed with my cousin and aunt and spent a few more days in Montreal.

I got to see a friend, Mel. who works at McGill University library and brought her coffee and marched on the picket line with her. The staff have been out for 11 weeks (12 now) and it’s getting colder and colder. By the Wednesday when I left for the airport, it was snowing about 3-4 inches of wet, cold, horrible snow.

Circulating round the House of Jazz where we spent one very interesting evening was a rumour about light-up Christmas ribbon, so a trip across town had to be mounted in the snow the next day to get a roll. (@ Canadian Tyre if you really need to know).

A big thank you has to go to the residents of Montreal who put up with my bad French and who taught me some more. I have just enough French to get myself into trouble but not enough to get myself out again.