What Happens in Kenosha...

10:30pm
That is our motto on this trip and it is a good thing.
I have never been part of such a large group at a conference before. I usually go by myself and while I may know one or two people there, I don’t know them well enough to say let’s make a beerrun and stay up all night braiding each other’s hair. There are eight of here in Kenosha, but don’t worry I am not braiding anyone’s hair tonight.
We are being housed in the new dormitory on the Carthage College campus. We requested single rooms and what that means here is a suite with two small private rooms (A & B) and a shared bathroom and sink area. This works for me, but one of my colleagues is scandalized that my “roommate” is a boy. They screwed up my name and now for the rest of the conference I will be known as “Eric” and hence I have a boy roommate. Andrea, my dear, easily scandalized colleague, said “but now you will need a robe.” Yes, I replied because if I have a female roomie I would certainly be running around naked. She was relieved to hear that I had brought pajamas (or the t-shirt and shorts that passes for pajamas for me) since she had not.
There was an open bar at dinner and we were all getting a little silly. We laughed pretty hard about which faculty members we would put in a dunk tank, and which ones we would put in there in December. Then after the bartenders packed up and seemed anxious for us to leave the dining room we decided to hit a convenience store (there is a full fridge in the dorm lounge). So we loaded the van full of people and set off in search of snacks. It took forever. This is a beautiful campus, right on Lake Michigan, but on the main street out of town there are only bars and motels. Apu needs to get up here and open a Kwik E Mart right away. We finally got up the nerve to turn off of the main road and we found a BP gas station about a mile west (east is the lake) and we made perfect fools of ourselves raiding the shelves for enough sweet and salty to last a month, even though we are only here for two nights. A few of us stayed up and watched a little TV in the lounge while eating candy bars, but, since we are not in college anymore we were pretty beat, we have called it a night at just 11:30pm (really 10:30 since we are in the central time zone, but that just sounds pathetic).
The conference is pretty good, but they are starting at 7am tomorrow and working us right through dinner at 7pm. My connection is sucking here at the dorm so I will post this tomorrow at the Library.

6:46am
Roomie and I worked out a shower schedule last night but I woke up early and I am done and dressed and ready to go out. We discovered that it is breakfast at 7am, so no one is working very hard to get there. I am dying to head out to the lake, which I just discovered I can see from my room. Most of the buildings on campus seem to have gorgeous views of the lake. I would never get anything done, so I guess it is a good thing I don’t work here. That and I am not Lutheran.