Hello All: I’m finishing up a conference in San Diego. I have about an hour before I leave for the airport, so I thought I’d do a short blog post. The conference was for deans and associate deans. I met a lot of interesting people. I’m still new in my role as associate dean so I still mostly think of myself as a history professor. People here interact with me as associate dean, and some of them seem to be under the false assumption that I have experience and know what I’m talking about. I was in a case study session Thursday where a group of us talked about difficult personnel cases. The cases were real and had been submitted by conference participants for everyone to discuss. Some of them were crazy! It was weird participating in those discussions when I have very little experience actually handling such cases. Nobody knows that though so I spoke with confidence and at least some people agreed with me. I’m not sure that confidence + ignorance is the best combination, but that’s all I had.
Yesterday, I did a training session on how to do media interviews. It was run by a panel of people who were in journalism or communications. One of the women works for iHeart Radio. That was the most interesting session I attended. They had some really good tips about how to do interviews and interact with the press. I volunteered to do a mock interview. It was a little stressful. The group was small, so that made things easier, but I only had about a minute to come up with something to talk about, develop 3 main points and a call to action. Then, they called me up on the podium to present my information, take questions from journalists, and get a critique from the team. I was not amazing and I’m not expecting any calls from public relations firms, but it was a good experience. The iHeart Radio lady told me not to wear orange and tan (which I was wearing) because it washes me out. It was an outfit I really like, so that’s unfortunate.
I didn’t get to see a lot of San Diego because the conference takes up most of the time, but we are staying in a nice hotel right on the water in a pretty area. There is a beautiful walkway by the water that takes you from the hotel to some restaurants and little shops. Tuesday night, my colleagues and I ate at a very expensive seafood restaurant on a terrace overlooking the ocean. There was a seal in the water. There’s also a naval base right here so military ships and aircraft come in all the time. We ate right beside the USS Midway, which I think is an aircraft carrier. It’s massive! I’ll post pictures below.
Last night, we ate at an expensive taco place. The tacos were okay, but the we ordered a mango cake that was delicious! It was shaped like a mango. I have a picture of that below too. Everything here is super expensive. I ordered a bag of pretzels and a lemonade Thursday night and it cost $22. Somebody has money though because the dock if full of huge yachts. It’s incredible! I don’t know who all these people are who can afford to live in California and have multimillion dollars yachts. Every time I walk outside in the beautiful weather in this lovely location, Nickelback’s song Rockstar runs through my head. Lyrics: My life hasn’t turned out quite the way I want it to be!
The hotel has a pool, which has been awesome! I didn’t have a lot of time during the day to swim, but I was able to swim every evening. The weather is cool here but the pool is heated. The water wasn’t quite as warm as I would like it to be, but it was warm enough to still be fun and some good exercise after a long day of conference presentations. The pool overlooks the harbor so I could swim and watch the sun set over the water. It was super fun!
I leave for the airport in about half an hour. I should be in Cedar Rapids around 9pm tonight with an hour drive home. It will be a long day. Bill was nice enough to watch the dogs while I was gone. They are not easy ones to take care of. He’s at work today so I have a pet sitter coming in to take care of them. Millie does not like people, so I’m not sure how that will go. At least I have a good carpet cleaner. Pictures are below!
Traveling with Emily! 