LONG DAY.
Woke up, went to lecture with a heavy feeling in my stomach. This was the last day of the conference. 🙁
First lecture was stuff I already knew (about the evolution of the English auxiliary ‘do,’ not really interesting to non-linguists). Dr. Anthony Kroch was the professor giving the lecture. Next we listened to Dr. Ann Bunger talk about children and how they process verbs and action-related words as opposed to concrete nouns and such. I don’t really feel like writing about it. So meh.
Then we had lunch. My last lunch with my new favorite people. 🙁
Afterwards we had a long talk with several of the professors about graduate school and how to get a PhD, and how to tell if getting a PhD is even right for you. After discussing the whole process, I’ve actually come away feeling less excited about graduate school. I’m going to have to think long and hard where I want to go in life to decide whether or not graduate school is worth my time and if it’s something I really want to do. We’ll see…
That night we had a catered Indian food dinner complete with tikka masala (my favorite food in the world), naan, and a variety of spicy-as-all-hell vegetables and rice. I stuffed myself to the absolute brim in the hopes I wouldn’t have to eat the next morning (bad idea. SUCH a bad idea.) and then insisted that everyone sign my ukulele while we were eating. Rachel had put together a slide show of photos from throughout the conference that was put up while we ate, and I went around the room to get pictures with everyone like a creeper.
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| Dana! |
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| Morgan and Timur! |
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| Louis! |
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| Josh, Abigail (top), and Ivy! |
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| My awesome roommate Yuan Chang! |
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| Left to right – Mirela, Luisa, and Alyssa! |
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| Matt, Jose, and Bethany! |
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| Megan, Tatiana, and Ashley! |
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| Debjani, Karla, and Rachel! |
Everyone planned on meeting up in the 3rd floor lounge to hang out for one more night before we all parted ways across the country. We ended up playing ERS for a couple hours before Jose came down and asked if I wanted to go out to the bars for our last night there, so naturally I put down the cards, got dressed and we headed out on the town. Little did I know I was headed out on another adventure in Philadelphia.
I suppose at this point I should explain why I now love going out with Jose. I forgot to mention it on my other post, but either Tuesday or Wednesday night (or maybe last Saturday?) we went out and stayed longer than everyone else. We switched between sitting at the bar and dancing around on the dance floor for an hour or so, and then we met a middle-aged man from France, living in LA, and in PA for business. He started buying drinks for Jose and I just mosey’d around for another hour or two. When I felt like leaving, I let Jose know we should start going back. The French guy was still there with Jose and I discovered that he’d bought him not one, not two, not three, but nine margaritas. So Jose was totally done for, and the French guy had been matching his drinks so he was pretty out of it too. At this point I was halfway sober (I’d only had like three drinks all night) so I led Jose out of the building while Frenchman followed us to the bus stop. He kept saying, “I feel bad making you guys walk all the way back to campus! I can get you guys a room at the hotel I’m staying at! I feel bad!” And I was like, “No, no thanks, we’re just going to ride a bus instead,” except I was slightly more dramatic and kept putting my hand up like I was a police officer stopping traffic. At one point I think I said, “Swiper no swiping” with the hand motion and got a kick out of it. I think I amuse myself a little too much sometimes. Anyway, we made it to the bus stop and I got him to leave (“Nous allons, au revoir! Merci! Nous ne vous verrons jamais!”). Instead of taking the bus we wanted to walk back to campus (about 2 miles of walking), so we started heading west at a brisk pace. When I’m even the slightest bit inebriated, I love to speak foreign languages and try to avoid English at all costs. So the whole way back I was yelling at Jose in Spanish and everyone was looking at us funny. Halfway through our journey, Jose spotted a gas station with a Subway inside and decided he was hungry and that we needed to stop. I went in and got a hot dog while he went to the Subway counter and started singing to the woman behind the counter. He wouldn’t listen to me trying to get him to stop and the sandwich lady just kept throwing me evil glances. The rest is history. We got back okay and Jose did not feel well the next morning.
BACK TO TODAY.
At this point it was about 10 o’clock. We’d ridden the tram to Center City (about 3 blocks from our destination), walked to the bar, and found that Jose had forgotten his ID back in the dorms. Instead of giving up, he wanted to go back, get his ID, and come back. I had two tokens left so we used them to get back to the dorms on the bus and he found his ID laying outside his dorm. We went back as quick as we could (I had to buy a couple more tokens for the bus) and at about 11:30 we’d finally gotten situated. My flight was supposed to leave at 7 the next morning, so I can’t imagine what I was thinking being out that late at a bar, but I felt like I had to go out with a bang if I wasn’t going to see Philadelphia for probably the rest of my academic career. We got to talk to our favorite bartender, Jeff for a couple hours and danced a bit before finally heading out at about three in the morning. By the time we got back to campus, I was ready to pass out. Unfortunately, I still had to pack. Running drunkenly about my room I gathered up my things and cleaned stuff, all the while drinking as much water as my stomach could hold at any given time. At that point I got a text from Tatiana asking if I was still up and telling me I should come hang out with them in their room.
I finished up my packing and went downstairs and watched them play hearts for a while, lamenting my inevitable departure. At about 4:30 I walked Debjani to her taxi a couple blocks away, headed back, and then said my final goodbyes. Listening to a somber mix of Gaga and folk rock, I made my way to the train station where THIS time I was ready with lots of cash to pay for the ride.
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| Right next to the entrance to the train station I took a picture of the sunrise in Philly. So gorgeous. |
And wouldn’t you know it, I got on and off the train and no one asked me for money. Not that I can complain, of course, but after the scare going from the airport to Penn it’s a little bit ironic. Oh well! I said my goodbyes to Pennsylvania as I walked through the airport and took one last look at the city before heading to my terminal. 
I was still a little drunk at this point so I had a hard time staying awake while I waited for my flight to board, but I made it. I actually woke up just in time to board my plane, which kinda freaked me out. But after my 20 minute nap I had no more apparent need for sleep so I just stayed awake for the whole plane ride. We stopped in St. Louis where I had to take a small cab over to another section of the airport, get my luggage, then check my luggage BACK in again (GRRR MONEY AND FEES. RAWR) and then I boarded an itty-bitty 6 person plane. There were two people flying it in the front seat, and it was just me and an elderly lady who teaches at the high school in Kirksville sitting in the passenger seats. After some ridiculously terrifying turbulence and an explosion of one of the engines (not really) we landed in Kirksville. I’ve never been so excited to see Kevin in my life. He drove me home with all my luggage and I lived happily ever after. The end.