UFVA

I wanted to write up my reactions to the conference while I'm still here and it's fresh, and sort of live. I am REALLY enjoying it. No, I'm not going to leave here with a job. The bureaucracy of university hiring means that was never going to happen. And honestly, it's not likely that someone I meet here is going to remember me when they're sifting through their stack of 80 applicants for 1 job over the winter. But it's still always good to make contacts. And it's been very good to sort of practice talking about it. What I've been doing, what my background is, what I'd like to be doing.


I've met a lot of people. And anyone reading this knows me, I hate meeting new people. Except all of the people I've met have been interesting and friendly and I've had some great conversations. I ran into Nina, who I worked for at GW, who was giving a presentation about the international program that she ran. And I was there teaching for that so when she gave the talk she introduced me as a colleague. And then tonight I was chatting with a couple of guys who were at that and we had a really fun conversation about working with international students. Nina also introduced me to Marek who did her program in 1999 and we ran into Emily who did her program when I was teaching there. So I could hang with them and also meet the people they know. I spent a while last night talking with a woman who was on a panel this morning about the academic job search. It was a very well attended session, but only about half the people were like me. The other half were people who sit on search committees. So that was really good. Also slightly daunting.

Three people from BU are here. Sam, who I just TA'd for this past spring, introduced me to a woman who teaches at Fitchburg who had been his TA 10 years ago. She's offered to let me see her CV to help me get a sense of how you talk about professional work in an academic setting. And then there's just random people. It's a small town and it's summer so pretty much everyone around is us, so when I went to a little sandwich shop to get dinner there were a couple of guys sitting at the table outside who said, "Hi, why don't you join us." They were picking my brain about what editing application they should be teaching their kids. It felt so good to be treated like a peer because of course that couldn't really happen when I was still taking classes myself. Here when I tell people that I was adjunct for a few years at GW but didn't have an MFA so that was a dead end. So I went to BU and I'm just finishing the MFA now. They all nod and know exactly where I'm at.

And then there's all the workshops and panel discussions. In every block there's always one, sometimes 3 or 4 that I want to attend. I've been mixing it up between things I think I should know, and things I still feel like I need to learn more of. All the lighting and cinematography and technical workshops I've attended reassure me that yes, I do really know this and am qualified to teach it. And in the directing ones I'm learning interesting new stuff and ways to approach the subject, both for myself as a director, and if I have to teach directing to undergrads. A lot of schools wouldn't have directing as a separate course so I might be expected to cover some of directing in more general production courses.

It was expensive to come do this, but it was absolutely worth it. When I was working the medical conferences I would walk around all the meeting spaces and vendor spaces and whatnot and there was an energy among the attendees that I wasn't a part of. Now I am an attendee and I'm surrounded by people who love the things I love. I still find it slightly awkward at the cocktail parties; I mean, this is me. But I think I'll leave here refreshed and excited about the future.