Conference Days One and Two

Four of us - three colleagues and one colleague's husband - carpooled yesterday to the NCPH conference in Pensacola, Florida. Upon arrival, we discovered that we were literally ten seconds too late for registration (after getting to the Opening Reception first and mistaking it for registration)! The conference is being held at both the main conference hotel, the Crowne Plaza, and at the historic Pensacola village. Our opening reception took place in the garden of a beautiful historic home overlooking the lovely Pensacola bay. Unfortunately, since we didn't have our registration materials, we missed out on our complimentary drink! Posh food was provided by local Portobello cafe.

NCPH 2011 Opening Reception

View of the Pensacola Bay from the opening reception

After the reception, we got settled into our hotel room at the wonderful Crowne Plaza hotel, then headed out for dinner and drinks at the Atlas Oyster House. I had shrimp and grits, corn fritters, half a piece of chocolate cheesecake, and several delicious souvenir drinks!

MTSU graduate and Ole Miss PhD student DeWayne Moore,  MTSU MA student Katie Rosta, MTSU MA Candidate and Ohio State Civil War Sesquicentennial planner Amy Rohmiller

This morning we woke up bright and early to find our registration and to attend a colleague's session on blues tourism, cemetery preservation, and contested sites. We ate lunch at Nacho Daddies, a sister restaurant to Portobello. After lunch, I attended a wonderful session at the hotel on the interplay between public historian and constituent communities. One of the presenters is currently writing an article on a project similar to one I've been considering, so I got some great insight and had an exciting thesis breakthrough. After taking the conference shuttle back out to the historic village, I spent an hour and a half representing MTSU in the exhibitors' hall, then met Katie Stringer and walked over to the Happy Pig for barbecue. It was definitely not Memphis-style, but still delicious.

PhD student Zada Law and Dr. Tara White at the MTSU informational table

After eating, we all walked back to the hotel (hello, blisters!) for the Civil War Sesquicentennial Plenary Session headed by MTSU's own Dr. Carroll Van West from the Center for Historic Preservation and the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area. Panelists from a variety of institutions, including the National Parks Service, discussed the contentious issues with Civil War commemoration, including contested causes, negotiating a shared past across cultural boundaries, and battlefield preservation.

Civil War Sesquicentennial Panel

Finally, MTSU students, alumni, faculty and one future student met in the hotel bar for drinks and socializing.  After a full day, I'm ready for some sleep!

MTSU students, alumni and faculty (current and former) at Thursday night's mixer.  Missing is Dr. Martha Norkunas.

On conferences, wedding planning, losing weight and my mind

Tomorrow I leave with my friends and colleagues Rachael and Katie for the National Council on Public History Conference, to be held in Pensacola, Florida. I'm hoping to blog periodically during the conference, as well as network, network! I've signed up to work the MTSU informational table in the vendor room, so I'm looking forward to the opportunity of meeting alumni and public history professionals interested in the program. Check back here every so often to see our adventures!

In more personal news, I've been frantically planning the wedding for a couple of weeks and, in all of my excitement, Weight Watchers has gone by the wayside. I was not on plan last week and I didn't attend my meeting. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here. I love Weight Watchers, I love the idea of losing weight, but it's starting to seem like just another chore in my sea of commitments. Thinking about it in the car yesterday, I realized that the only way this is going to work for me is if I see WW as a way to treat myself - an oasis from the daily grind that wears on me. If I see it as a commitment in my long list of commitments, it's easy to discount it as frivolous when compared with coursework, thesis research and writing, wedding & marriage planning, etc., and cut it out of my regimen.

I'm going to have to find a way to balance all of these competing forces in my life. I've been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love for several weeks now, and I really love the way she approaches life. I wish that I could take a year off from work and school to travel, eat, pray, and make new friends. Knowing myself, I would end up seeing even this experience as a stressful commitment, particularly since Gilbert was able to travel only because she had already made the commitment to write the book about her travels. Finding balance is a difficult task that, paradoxically, stresses me out. I do find, however, that when I'm feeding my spirituality, working out, and eating more healthily, I do feel more at peace with myself. It's something I'm going to have to continue to work on but, fear not, dear friends and followers, I'm not giving up just yet!