Friday, January 15, 2010

OH ACADEMIA

I get a lot of e-mails from the university. Many of them advertise conferences that are going on in the region. Often they are asking people to submit papers for presenting at the conference. This one made me laugh:

Annual Graduate Student Conference April 9-10, 2010

*Call for Papers*

'Uselessness' explores conceptions of utility and value as they have been theorized and deployed within the domains of art, science, and the everyday. What is the useless? .... Encompassing topics from a wide range of disciplines, ‘uselessness’ presents a broad problematic of life, work, meaning, and value. We invite proposals for 15-20 minute presentations that address these issues through any medium

My first thought was to submit a paper or dramatic reading about the uselessness of the 'uselessness' conference.

UPDATE

Forgive me, loyal reader. I've been absent from the blog for some time now. This is because excitement in my life and level of blogging are inversely related. And the last month has been simply wonderful. Classes wrapped up on December 19th and I quickly left town and flew to Spokane. Quite a journey to get there (a tree landed on my train causing me to miss my flight at the airport), but it was worth the effort. Aside: I seem to have the worst luck with the NJ Transit system. I mean, how often do trees fall on moving trains? Not often I would guess. Anyway, the day after I arrived in Spokane my sister Christie married her fiance Ryan. The wedding, reception, and fellow company were all wonderful. We had a great time partying at the Davenport Hotel into the late night (about 10pm).

Christmas was great and soon after I went to Utah to celebrate New Years. I had so much fun seeing old roommates and friends. Skiing was a must, and the snow was excellent.

After a week in Utah I came back to NJ to take finals. Princeton is the only university that I know of that maintains high school style semesters. So I spent a good portion of the break writing papers, doing a take-home final, and studying for two other finals, but it was nice to have all that time to prepare. Anyway, I've just finished my last final and now I'm free of responsibilities for 2 weeks. As you've probably inferred from previous posting, my first order of business is to get out of town. So today I'm heading into NYC for a great weekend with friends and Monday I fly back to Utah for more time in the mountains. Anyway, that's what's going on here.