Tybee Day 5/6 - The Crab Shack and Bonaventure Cemetery

We've been back to our regular and busy schedule so here's a post to catch you up on the last two days. 

Yesterday Dr. Bob didn't show up until 11 am and we didn't meet for class. I took that opportunity to catch up on sleep. After Dr. Bob arrived, we all piled into the vans to explore some of the small shops around Tybee Island. There were some very interesting stores with local art and products. 

Once everyone was hungry, we headed over to The Crab Shack, also located on Tybee. It was a very interesting place filled with gators, cats, and excellent food. I've never been a big sea food eater, so I was glad Dr. Bob ordered a sampler plate. I nibbled on some shrimp and crab legs, which I enjoyed a lot. After the food, we went into the gift shack were I found an awesome shirt that I purchased. There was also a section devoted to birds, one of which would dance if you sang "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" to it. Of course we all gathered around to watch as Dr. Bob serenaded the bird and it did indeed bob it's head to the music. 

The rest of the night was spent cooking, giving and receiving conferences, working on my paper, and celebrating Connor Swanson's birthday. 

Today we went back into Savannah. First, we stopped at the Bonaventure Cemetery. It's the sight where Johnny Mercer and Conrad Aiken are buried. We spent about 30 minutes walking around and exploring the Cemetery. Then we went back to the historical downtown to one of Paula Deen's restaurants, where we ate lunch. It was a lot of very good food. The rest of the time Margaret, Maddie, and I walked around the River District and checked out shops. 

I can't believe we leave in two days. Tomorrow looks to be the warmest day yet, so I'm hoping to get to the beach to hang out and maybe brave the water. Hopefully the weather holds out!

Stay classy,

Brittney 

Attending the MWCA Conference

NOTE: This is a previously written post just published a little later. 

It's that wonderful time of year again: the weather is starting to get colder, college students are being driven insane by midterms, and the first writing center conferences are taking place! Just this past week, our own writing center had the privilege of attending the Midwest Writing Centers Association, or MWCA, conference in Skokie, Illinois. The actual event took place from October 17 to the 19, and the topic was all about "writing the L." The "L," which stands for elevated, is the rapid transit system providing transportation to Chicago and some of the surrounding suburbs. Here's my abridged run down of my experiences at the conference.

Being a freshman, I really didn't have any idea what to expect. All I knew was that I had to attend some presentations and give one myself. I was pretty nervous, but once the conference started into full swing, I felt more at home. The first presentation I attended was a three part session focusing on ESL learners and the struggles that both they and writing centers face. The first presentation, which was called "ESL Writers: Listen to Us!" was about a focus group that did research on the struggles, expectations, and emotions of ESL learners. One of the most interesting things I learned from that presentation was that most ESL learners wish to be graded on the same scale that native speakers are. I would have thought the opposite to be true. The second presentation dealt with the rapid expansion of foreign exchange students and the best efforts of a writing center to keep up. It was interesting to hear about how they were adapting to deal with the situation. The last presentation was about a grammar log experiment that identified the grammar issues ESL students struggle with the most.

I also attended an interesting round table session about high school writing centers, hosted by a teacher and students from the University of Illinois Laboratory High School. It was really neat to here how some high schools are already implementing writing centers into their curriculum. Their center has been open for two years, and they are only open for about 40 minutes on Fridays. While they obviously have a different set of parameters to work with, being a high school, the way they go about conferencing is similar to the CWC. Just like us, they have a strict "no writing on the paper" policy, and they sounded more idea based than simply grammar focused. This session was probably one of my favorites.

Attending a conference also means presenting one ourselves! 10 consultants, including myself, and Doctor Bob held a round table session focusing on the hiring process here at the CWC. We spent the first 20 minutes or so explaining the three main ways you can get hired: the first year competition, the phone interviews, and the "everyone who's not a freshman" method. I focused mostly on the competition, being a first year. Specifically, I talked about the writing exercise and mock conference we participated in. I was actually sitting next to the person I conferenced, none other than Anton Jones! After we finished with our section, we opened the floor up for other writing centers to comment on their hiring processes. Instead, we got asked a lot of question about anything and everything CWC. While it didn't go exactly as planned, I feel like it was still a successful presentation, especially for my first one!

Initially, I wasn't sure what to expect from this conference, but I am super glad that I went! I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot about other writing centers. Before this, I had this naive belief that all writing centers worked like ours. Obviously, that's not the case! I also feel that I have a better sense of my job here in the writing center. This was definitely a good decision on my part. Can't wait for the next conference!

Stay classy,

Brittney

Looking Forward: Tampa

Two years ago, I went to a writing center conference in Miami. It involved late night swimming in the ocean, collecting seashells, and finding out the beach chair I had been using for two hours was supposedly for rent, at $10 an hour. Oops. And of course, it involved actually learning about different writing centers across the U.S. Writing Centers came in all shapes and sizes; they were large, small, appointment-based or accommodating to drop-ins, but most of all they were full of interesting people. This year’s conference, the National Council of Peer Tutors in Writing Conference (NCPTW) will be held in Tampa Bay, Florida from October 31^st to November 2^nd. The theme is “Year of the Writer” which encourages us to think about our role as tutees, and we have five research groups presenting on subjects related to that theme, such as the balance of work and play and the dynamics of friendships as coworkers. I won’t be heading to Florida this year, but I hope everyone has a great time- remember to bring back stellar ideas for our writing center, to meet new people, and to bring back souvenirs for those of us hanging out back in Cedar Rapids.

-Deidre

We're going to Chicago!

The Midwest Writing Centers Association, or as we call it the MWCA, is "a regional nonprofit organization that encourages communication and collaboration among writing centers in the Midwestern region of the United States."-MWCA website

Every fall the association holds a regional conference where the writing centers of the Midwest can come together for a chance to mingle, make connections, and learn something useful. This year the theme of the conference is "Writing the L". For those of you not familiar with Chicago, that is rapid transit system of Chicago making it a clever title for this year's conference.

Between now and October 17th when some of our writing center's finest will brace for their journey to the "windy city" I will keep you updated on some of the ways they will be representing Coe upon their arrival. Our Writing Center will have presentations from who has the power in the Writing Center operation to how we balance our comfy space with work and play. These presentations are going to be stellar. Coming soon: interviews with those heading up to project front.

-Margaret Gruhler

On Recieving the Staff Summer Newsletter

Writing Centaurs! I hope you’ve been checking your mail because the staff summer newsletter has gone out and it is full of exciting news and information. If you haven’t received it or dislike reading anything on paper, here are some highlights:

·         Ryan Rey, the illustrious author, divulges that he is from Plainfield and associates it with Harry Potter.

·         Important deadlines!

o   New Staff Orientation begins on August 19^th. If you are a new staff member, you should be there, and if you are a returning staff member who would like to help, contact Ariana Uding to let her know!

o   The MWCA conference is happening in Chicago in October!

o   The NCPTW conference is happening in Tampa, Florida in November!

o   There is a Writing Center open house on Thursday, August 22^nd from 4 to 6:30

o   The first staff meeting of the year (yes, aren’t you excited?) is on Sunday, August 25^th at 7:30

o   And the Full Staff Retreat, beginning on Sunday, September 1^st, is occurring on campus this year at the Clark Alumni House.

·         The Chicago Conference will have six presentations. If you want to participate in the conference, contact Ariana Uding no later than Friday, August 2^nd

·         The Tampa conference is happening November 1-3. If you want to participate in the conference, contact Ariana Uding no later than Friday August 2^nd!

·         There is a selection of stuff regarding Dr. Bob’s life that is pretty fun to read!

·         And also, lots of awesome bios about all the awesome people who are doing awesome things over the summer before returning to Coe for an awesome fall semester! Good job, Ryan, for tracking most everyone down!

Again, all of this is in the summer newsletter, so hopefully you have received it by now. And thanks to everyone who responded to my email pleas for correct addresses.

As Ever, Yours,

Julia

On the Art of Conversation

I pride myself on having many interesting friends. One such friend of mine, a linguistics major whom I’ve known since high school, recently returned from a four month long foray in Europe. Whilst there, she farmed in France, played harp and flute in market fairs, and looked at strange, modern art in a museum which professed itself to be a center for archaeology.

We went, yesterday, to enjoy a cup of tea and to catch up. After all, we hadn’t seen each other for several months, and my dear friend always had plenty of stories which I could be entertained by for hours. In addition to this, my friend and I have something very important in common: neither of us quite know what we are going to be doing with our lives. This is a state which, I have discovered, many people, young and old, find themselves in but which they do not like to talk about.

In any case, while we sat and drank a pot of Glenburn Autumn Oolong tea, I realized something was going in my brain; while my friend told me her stories, I was actually listening. I wasn’t thinking about what to cook for dinner, or what points I wanted to bring up when it was again my turn to speak. No, indeed, I was completely absorbed in her story. I wanted to hear all about the olives she received at a market in Italy. I wanted to know which manuscripts she’d looked at in that library in France. I wanted to be as engaged as possible in the conversation.

Let me say, I don’t think I’m a bad listener. Mostly, I just lack an attention span when it comes to conversation, a problem which has plagued me my whole life. But, I suppose, the thing which was different about this conversation was my earnest desire to participate in it, and to be a good participant, it’s crucial that you be able to listen. Otherwise it’s just a monologue, and though Shakespeare thought all the world is a stage, I tend to disagree.

When I conference people on their writing, I try to cultivate this Art of Conversation. I try to listen so that I may participate as best I can with the other person. Even if their story isn’t as exciting as farming in France, it means something to them, and I owe it as a consultant to be the best conversationalist that I can be. Conversation is an art which must be cultivated over time and, I have found, the best conversationalists are also the ones who are the best listeners.

So the next time life just gets a little to hectic, sit down with a mug of tea and remember to listen.

As Always,

Julia

Oceanic

 This was written at a writing center conference this past fall in San Diego.

When one truly consider the origins of humanity—indeed, the origins of life itself—it is almost inevitable that one must return to the ocean.

            Walking along the Pacific beach in October, I was struck by an awe-inspiring thought. By dipping my toes into the freezing ocean water and feeling the rough grains of sand scrape on the soles o my feet, I was communing with the primal origins of mankind. All life on this planet began in the ocean; tiny, single celled organisms drifting through a vast, empty world. The advent of land dwelling complex creatures is, in cosmic terms, a relatively new occurrence. Our origins lie in the ocean, the original birthplace in many ways.

            Around me, parents play with their children, lovers stroll with their hands locked together, surfers run out to try the water, and all the while the great, slow roll and thunderous crash of waves hitting the shore can be heard. Not only was I struck by the primordial connection I had to my biological ancestors, but also by the ancient power contained in those pounding waters. As the 2^nd law of thermodynamics states, energy is never lost or gained; it merely changes forms. The energy powering the ocean before me has always been and will always be. We worry so often of our own mortality we rarely stop to consider, with reverence, the incredible nature of our world and, indeed, our universe. If all things are energy, then all things are eternal.

            Wave after wave rolls onto the shore, in and out, in and out eternally. It dawns on me that this would be the case regardless of the presence of the human species. Even if we all passed away, the world would keep spinning quietly through space. We try to deny this, to make ourselves more important than the other creatures that share this planet, but the fact is that we are no more important than the fish in the ocean or the birds in the sky. Although this revelation should make the world seem uncontrollable, it instead lends itself to a strange kind of ordered calm. Things happen, and like the waves on the ocean, sometimes you just have to ride them out.

            The icy cold of the water shocks my skin, sending icy bolts up my spine and shivers down my arms. I watch other laying on the waves with ease, but for my part I can’t bring myself to sink fully into the ocean. The salty, fishy scent, so native to the beach, fills my nose, and as I watch, a seagull marches past and eyes a bag of errant chips enviously. To my left, the moon begins to rise, a pale glimmer in the bright light of the sun. I think perhaps that I can see it pulling the ocean like a puppet master pulls the strings of a marionette. The tides move in cycles with the moon, just as everything seems to. The earth with its seasons, the planet around the sun, and day and night moving back and forth. Similarly, we too move in cycles. So often I hear people talking about “moving forward”. I prefer, however, to think of it as moving up, like a spiraling staircase. We are always going somewhere new, but constantly we retrace our steps.

            The ocean itself extends far beyond my vision, its deep greenish-blue marching off into eternity. I’ve been told by my father that you can watch ships sort of sink as the go over the horizon, literally around the curvature of the earth. As I look, I can see the tall sails of boats far out across the water. It is in moments like this when I actually realize how very small I am. I stumble through my life, concerning myself with the small problems of how to get to the grocery store and what things will best strengthen my résumé. My existence centers around me, a sentiment I think most people can share.

            But here, sitting on the collision of earth, sea and sky, I can say that I’m not thinking of anything mundane. Instead, I occupy myself with a single thought. When life first began in that ancient, long ago ocean, it started with one cell in a vast, quiet world. Similarly, I am one person in a vast, quiet universe. But still, it’s a start.

BALTIMORE INFORMATION

Hey kids! I'm reposting Dr. Bob's email here for point of reference. Information on Baltimore!!

"What follows is travel schedule, housing information, and some basic guidelines on our participation in the conference. For those of you flying to Baltimore, I will send you a separate e-mail tomorrow morning; I'll also send some suggestions/guidelines for the final steps in preparation of the posters.

Travel schedule for folks driving to Chicago on Tuesday, Nov. 2. We load the two 15-passenger vans and the two automobiles (my Honda Odyssey and Jacquie’s vehicle) at 12:00 noon. Meet at the Writing Center, and we’ll load in the loading dock driveway. Our goal is to be on the road by 12:10. Be sure all Baltimore support materials for poster presentations are packed and ready to go by 11:00 a.m. Each team will be responsible for getting their poster materials to the conference. We will not stop to eat after we depart, so be sure you have either eaten before hand or bring food with you.

Luggage and clothes: everyone can bring one small travel bag and one book bag or school bag. If you need a pillow or sleeping blanket or Teddy Bear to help you sleep at night, be sure those items are packed in your travel bag. There may be instances when you will have to walk some distance with your bags, so travel light. There’s also a chance we can be walking in rainy or inclement weather so plan accordingly. And we could enter some fairly chilly weather so bring clothes that are appropriate for early November. With regard to your choice of clothing at the conference, we do want to give a good impression so nice, casual professional clothing. If possible avoid clothing with insignia or advertising (exception: items with Coe College; it would be okay to wear Coe Writing Center shirts/sweaters at some points at the conference).

Travel Schedule on Train
When we arrive in the Chicago area we will park our vans & autos (at a place not yet determined) and then take the train (or some other public transportation) to Union Station. We are all traveling by train on one group ticket (Reservation # 10BFF7). Our travel schedule is as follows:
Depart on Train #30 out of Chicago at 6:40 p.m.
Arrive in Washington D.C. on November 3 at 1:10 p.m.
Department on Train #198 from Washington, D.C. at 8:45 p.m.
Arrive in Baltimore at 9:26 p.m.

Between our departure at noon on Tuesday and our evening meal in Washington on Wednesday, you will be responsible for your own meals. You will each receive $10 to help cover your food costs; food will be available on the train, but you might also want to plan on traveling with some food to prevent starvation.

We have dinner reservations in Washington, D.C. at 6:00 p.m. at the White Tiger restaurant, an Indian cuisine restaurant about two blocks walking distance from the train station. At the dinner we will be joined by some Writing Center alums and perhaps my son and his wife. I think there should be lockers at the station where we can check our bags so we don’t have to carry them while walking around D.C. It’s not likely the train will arrive exactly at 1:10, but I trust we will arrive early enough that folks will have several hours for seeing the sites. You will be on your own schedule while in Washington, D.C.: we will make no effort to travel as one large group so you will be free to visit what you want to visit. I would recommend that you travel in small groups and you might want to do some planning ahead of time. It will be your responsibility to at the White Tiger at 6:00 p.m. That meal will be paid for by Coe.

When we arrive in Baltimore, we will go to the Mount Vernon Hotel, located in the historic Mount Vernon District at 24 West Franklin Street. Their web address is www.mountvernonbaltimore.com. For a web tour, you can visit www.easyviewmedia.com//Mount-Vernon-Hotel/index.html. This is a 2 ½ star hotel so it should be okay but not luxurious. It does come with complimentary hot breakfast, and it’s about half of the cost of staying at the conference hotel. We have 10 rooms reserved: one room for Singleton and Marrs, one room for the other three men on the trip, and 8 rooms for 32 women (I’ll let you ladies decide how you want to divide yourselves up).

The conference is at the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel, just a few blocks from the Inner Harbor. Here’s the web site with full information, including the schedule of presentations for the conference: http://www.mawcaonline.org/iwca/index.html. The conference begins Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. On Thursday you will be on your own for the noon meal; the Friday schedule includes a luncheon at the conference. Conference events are over by 6:30 on Thursday and 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Both evenings you will be free to do whatever you wish in the evening; on both evenings we will arrange for a group meal in the area for folks who want to eat a meal paid for by Coe.

Our poster session is scheduled for Friday afternoon, 2:10-3:10. There are no other sessions scheduled at that time so we should meet a lot of people.

With regard to participating in the conference, here are the basic ground rules:
• Everyone is expected to participate fully in the conference and attend a broad sampling of sessions. In addition to keynote addresses and our poster session, you need to attend a minimum of six sessions–which will ensure that you have time for escaping the conference and doing some sightseeing in the daylight hours.
• Everyone is required to keep a detailed journal during the conference and submit a report on your conference experiences. That report should be submitted no later than midnight on Sunday, 7 November to a forum on the Writing Center Moodle site (same site where we keep the database). For those of you in Topics, this trip and report can take care of your “publication” assignment.
• During the conference, please divide into small groups; except for meeting for evening meals or preparing for our poster session, there should be no big mass of Coe consultants traveling around together. This includes spreading yourselves out during the Friday luncheon. A major reason for going to this conference is to meet as many people as possible from as many different Writing Centers as possible. It’s okay to talk about Coe if people ask, but my advice is to ask people about their Writing Centers and about their programs. Ask questions during presentations. When presentations are concluded, go up and talk to presenters. Pick up handouts. Be active participants, looking for ideas and practices that might be applicable to our Writing Center. Prior to the beginning of each day, we will distribute groups to different sessions so we ensure a broad sampling of presentations.

Our train (#195) departs Baltimore at 1:40 p.m. on Saturday, so we will be leaving the conference at approximately 12:00 noon on Saturday. Our return trip will go through Washington, D.C., but we only have about 90 minutes before our train departs for Chicago. We are scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 8:45 a.m. on Sunday morning, November 7. Depending on the time of our arrival (and how people feel), we will have a final group meal in Chicago–and then drive back to C.R.–or drive part of the way and have a noon meal (paid for by Coe) somewhere between Chicago and C.R. Assuming the train is not too late and we don’t have any other unforeseen problems, we should be back in C.R. before 5:00 p.m. If everything went perfectly, we might be back as early as 3:00–but I wouldn’t count on it.

Tomorrow morning I will send out a travel information e-mail for the folks flying to Baltimore and send another e-mail with updated information concerning final preparations for the four presentations." - Dr. Bob

They Call Me "Swine Flew"

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We had a great time on our annual WC retreat a few weeks ago. Returning to Wisconsin (where our retreat was held my freshman year) and the American Players Theatre was a great throw-back for me, but the real treat was the opportunity to once again drive a 15 passenger van. I drove one of these beast my first year at Coe on a going to a Writing Center conference in Houston, and that was quite a trial. At 5’1” I am barely able to see over the steering wheel, and also have to take a running start to get into the driver’s seat. This particular road trip had been very Little Miss Sunshine with each of us stoically playing our parts. I of course got to be Olive, the little girl. But that isn’t so important.

We were driving through the boonies of Oklahoma in the middle of the night. Rob Synovec and Catie Stienman had both gotten too tired to drive, so it was my turn to take the night shift. Driving through the plaines of Oklahoma in the middle of the night is a dull experience, and so Malyssa Oblander was put in charge of keeping me awake. She failed miserably at this job, and about 2:30am Rob switched with her and took up the post of navigator and driver’s entertainment. Around 3 am we decided it was time to stop for the night, and pulled off of the main highway headed toward a town that had signs for hotels. Driving down the unlit road leading from off-ramp to town, a figure suddenly appeared in the road. It was large and bulbous and rather lifeless, but I did not have time to think or react much less slam on my brakes. Instead I proceeded to straddle this creature with the tires of the 15 passenger van. After passing over it, I came to a stop and looked at Rob. I thought I was hallucinating, of course as it was 3 in the morning and I had been going crazy in that van for the past twelve hours. The look on Rob’s face confirmed my sanity when we both realized that I had just run over a dead pig. It wasn’t just any pig, but a very large, very pink, potentially pregnant dead pig. We are talking Blue-ribbon sized pig.

We found the motel a few miles down the road and Rob got out to get us some rooms. Another van pulled up, and out came about 15 haggard looking railroad workers. One of them may actually have been a reincarnation of John Henry. He was in the top five biggest people I have ever seen. I would have liked him to be on my football team. Or really any team for that matter. Once Rob got inside, John Henry leans over to him and asks if he is the one with the van full of women. Rob says yes, and John Henry responds, “You are one lucky man.”

We went back down the same road the next morning, and there was no pig to be seen. Rob and I both saw it though. We promise. Needless to say, I love 15 passenger vans.

-Katie B.

Not Penultimate (but something-ultimate) Minutes

We are presented with nine different conferencing scenarios (scenaria?) and split into groups by table. The goal: to present on the conferencing quandry. Here’s a quick breakdown of the events:

1) Do we follow our own advice? How often do you use the WC? How often do you do what you advise others to do? Food for thought.

2) Plagiarism: what to do if the writer doesn’t think it’s wrong? “If you plagiarize, the terrorists win,” offers Jackie. Other ideas: lay out the consequences (failure, expulsion) for them.

3) Some beat-boxing (is that what the cool kids call it) illustrating cliches. Mike grinds. Kevin and Andrew Klingler make hand gestures. Leta does not got back. Um.

4) My group. What if a student’s paper has errors, but he corrects them when reading aloud?

5) Jorduhn Loord wears some tight tights. Grant is hung out. People enjoy this. Ellen does a great accent, and writes about birds. What to do when a writer doesn’t think her (bad) paper is bad? I’m not sure that a consensus was reached.

6) Ezra is a great friend, but a really bad writer (this is a fictional tale): how do you conference a paper about “book” when the student hasn’t read said book?

7) (the numbering is way off – my notes got a little hazy) – You hate poetry. Someone wants poetry conferenced? The solution is...conference it anyway. Be polite and useful, ask questions.

8) A faculty member’s “corrections” for a student’s paper don’t make sense and are grammatically incorrect. No solution reached. Any ideas?

9) We only had eight tables.

A reminder: if you signed up to send a postcard or call an accepted high school student, be sure to get on that, right quick.

Next week will be the Kids Against Hunger pack-athon. Be sure to bring in your $5, and sign up for a 20-minute shift. I believe people are still needed for the 6:40-7:00 time slot.

I’m still running way high on “Coe cash,” for the semester. Does anyone have any suggestions for things to buy in the Pub? So far I’ve been stocking up on toothbrushes and toothpaste, chapstick, hot cocoa, and cinnamon gum. Those are no-brainers. Some experiments:

--“A Taste of Thai” instant pad thai: surprisingly not that expensive or cholesterol-laden, and tastes pretty good, though not, of course, like actual pad thai)
--Kashi “Strawberry Fields” cereal: insanely expensive – almost seven dollars! – and, for me, a little high on the grain flakes and low on the freeze-dried berries. There are also little weird grain pellets that will assault your molars, even if you let the cereal sog-up a little before chewing
--Triscuits: again, overpriced, but you can’t really mess up Triscuits
--“Mary’s Gone Crackers” Organic, wheat-free, gluten-free crispy crackers: grossly expensive (I’m sensing a theme), but what can you do. These are apparently really healthy, and contain no ingredients that will make you break out in hives. I wanted to like these crackers. I really did. And, to be honest, they’re okay. But they’ve got this weird, plastic-y hard texture, like a poker chip, and they’re so very, very brittle and crunchy.
--That popcorn stuff: I haven’t tried the caramel yet, but the “aged real cheddar” and classic kettle corn varieties are entirely satisfactory. And fairly priced.

Can I say something about the Pub “coffee”? No, I don’t want to start. Honestly, as I told Becca in the ninth-floor lobby this afternoon while microwaving noodles, it makes me want to cry. I want so, so badly to like it. This coming from me, a person who enjoys even the dingiest, grittiest of diner coffee. It’s not real coffee. The “espresso” is an abomination upon the lord. I can’t continue with this discussion.

Anyone have any Pub faves?

Gia su,
Jenna

t-rexs, rabbits and coca-cola bottles

Can you believe it's already March? I think I'm in denial. A happy thing to start off the meeting: Holly tried baklava for the first time and was delighted. People enjoying food delights me.

Cara Cavanagh came in to talk about the Fellowship Competition. Admissions is coordinating it this year rather than the Writing Center. It will be held March 27, and we are instructed to clear our schedules for that evening, what for entertaining the young 'uns. It would also be very nice if you could host a prospie overnight.

Next, we split into groups and discussed proposal ideas for next year's fall MWCA conference, which will be held in Rapid City, SD. I don't want to think about this - I'm too jealous.

Facts about the Badlands:
-They are awesome
-Prairie dogs live there
-There are lots of large, roadside attractions, like giant T-Rexs, rabbits and coca-cola bottles
-You can drive there in one day. Bob has done it.

It is advertised as an "un-conference," and the MWCA is apparently looking for "unusual ways of getting people organized." If you have any additional proposal ideas, email or talk to Bob.

What else...? There was a puppy at the meeting. She is a dachsund-spaniel mix named Penny. She belongs to either Danielle or Clarissa. She was stinky, but very sweet. We should have puppies at meetings more often.

--edit: Danielle has this to say:
The puppy was mine however Clarissa was nice enough to volunteer to accompany me on the trip to pick her up. If anyone wants to come over and play with my dogs you are more than welcome to any day of the week. Penny is cute and fluffy and Olive may seem big and scary however she's probably only capable of licking you to death. So let me know if you ever need a dog break and I will make arrangements!

Doggie Goodness: Olive & Penny

If you haven't yet filled out the self-assessment exercise or the networks of relationships form, grab one from Bob.

That's that.

- Jenna

*Note: I did not take any of these photos