Conference Craziness and Bourbon St.

There comes a time in the life of every grad student when they must attend a conference. However, if they are really lucky, they will at some point have the unique experience of helping run a conference, which is exactly what I did last week. For practically the entire week (Tues. to Sat.) I was a certificate-printing, badge-making, question-answering, Portuguese-speaking, trouble-shooting machine. It was a conference specifically in my geographical area of interest so there were people from that country and scholars from all over the world with that focus; almost all areas of academia were represented: history, language, sociology, anthropology, political science, literature, geography, etc. It was THE biggest conference the hosting organization had ever undertaken--- roughly 700 people total (with a staff of about 10 people). It was so incredibly stressful, hectic, frustrating and exhausting that the week was practically a blur. I had just enough energy at the end of the day to eat and fall asleep.

The location for the conference was festive New Orleans, LA on the Tulane University campus (which was gorgeous). I had never been there before and was looking forward to getting acquainted with the city. No such luck. I managed to run to the French Quarter Saturday night with some friends after the closing ceremony. I rode the streetcar downtown, which was a lot of fun, then we had some dinner. This was accompanied by a desire to hear some live music at a little hole-in-the-wall bar. Following the advice of our waiter (a local), we proceeded to walk through Bourbon St. to get to the intersection that would lead us to the local hangouts. We got lost. Suddenly, there were no street lights, no people and no signs.

We got a bit freaked out and turned around-- too tired to press on after walking so far. So, we had to walk back through Bourbon St. and then catch a cab back to the hotel. May I say, Bourbon St. is one of the most disgusting, chaotic, ridiculous places I've ever seen (way worse than Vegas--at least Vegas was relatively clean). The streets stunk like piss and puke (which there was a lot of), everyone was completely trashed and staggering around, and people on balconies overhead were chucking beads at my head at every turn (and they hurt). Frankly, I don't know what anyone sees in it. It's like hanging out in a gigantic public bathroom--- bodily fluids, dirt, stench and lots of booze. Yuck. The rest of the French Quarter seemed really pleasant and very pretty; too bad I didn't get to explore more during daylight hours.

All in all, it was a very good learning experience, on several levels. I got a free trip to a place I'd never been and I got to meet and rub elbows with lots of important people (prominent scholars, the Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S. (left), Brazilian composer Jose Miguel Wisnik, etc.). Meeting some of these intellectuals was, for me, like meeting rockstars. I was totally star-struck at times, in my very nerdy way. I have to say, though, I'm really happy to be home. (Pictures to come!)

Peanut gallery: have you ever had a trial-by-fire experience? How did it change you? What did you learn?