TYCA-West

October 10, 2008

Several months ago I received a CFP from Shelley Rodrigo for TYCA-West and wondered what the hell that was. Turns out it is Two Year College Association, which is part of National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). At first it was suppose to be in Prescott, and I agreed loving the area and deciding the family would make a weekend out of it. I begged and groveled to present, and I was pretty much open to whatever. We could do FPLC, RSS, Google, etc…

Later I was informed it was moved to Clarkdale, AZ. Where the hell is Clarkdale? was the question. Shelley was the program chair, and I was asked to discuss Google Apps for the community college classroom. I checked Google Maps and realized I had to drive 120 miles each way up past Prescott towards Flagstaff. Frankly, I love conferencing with Shelley albeit the drive didn’t sound like fun. It became less fun when my schedule occluded carpooling. Given funding and a three year old at home, I was only spending one day there.

Shelley scheduled me for Friday, so I called the babysitter and left home at 7AM. The drive up was nice. I decided I would not call anyone, nor would I listen to any podcasts. Because I had about 4 hours in the car roundtrip, I would explore one of the audio books. I chose Bill Bryson’s The Short History of Nearly Everything, and so far I’ve listened to four chapters. I’ve never known so much about the history of astronomy (since we begin with the creation of Earth). He does discuss Pluto, and I was disheartened since the book came out before they decided that Pluto isn’t a planet any longer.

So it was a nice drive up, and now we’re listening to the keynote, Dale Allender, the director of NCTE-West. So I will go now and blog more later.

Posted in conferences