I spent the majority of last week at a conference for work. It was NADE (National Association of Developmental Education), and we met in Greensboro, NC.
Funny thing #1: My district (all 5 "sister" campuses) sent a fairly large contingent of people - at least 15. At the opening reception, I sat with 4 or 5 people who were all from one campus. I traveled to Kentucky with one of the ladies last September, and she said, "Well now Emily just thinks that she's going to get to take a big trip every semester. She thinks everyone takes trips all the time. Quite the first year." And I said, "Oh, I hope not!"
The next day, I was using the little fitness center at the hotel, and the lady who was on the treadmill beside me said, "Are you Emily?" (Yeah, how creepy is that? Total stranger at the gym knows my name.) Turns out she works for one of the other campuses, but I had never met her before. So we chatted for a minute, and she said, "You are in your second year." I responded, "No, this is my first year." She almost fell off the treadmill, "What are they doing to you?!" I said, "Yeah, they have just thrown me to the wolves here."
Most people have been pretty shocked at some of the things I have been asked to do in my first year. And I just keep thinking, yeah, I would be just fine if I got to be in my classroom teaching.
Funny thing #2: Because it is my first year, and I look young (like this:
people assume that I am much younger than I am. This assumption is compounded by the fact that I really spent the entire conference with people who are quite a bit older than I am (like this:
). For some reason, this leads to people saying all kinds of strange variations on the "you're too young to remember that" theme. Now some of it, yes, I am too young. I had no idea what they were talking about when they talked about the video game Pong, and really I'm not as impressed as I should be that someone met Bob Hope. But VHS tapes? They haven't even stopped making those yet!
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