Back in Orbit

Okay, okay. I know I said that I would post a real post on Thursday but in my defense, it was an exhausting week. Let me put it to you this way, since I had Friday off for Cesar Chavez Day, I slept in and it turned out I slept 12 hours Thursday night to Friday morning. I was really ti-ti.

So let's catch up, shall we?

Where to begin... Ah yes, the conference. So, it was a rough start on the road to Fresno. First off, I was participating in a research project as a focus group moderator (have to build that curriculum vitae) and through a series of events, the group was meeting on Thursday afternoon from 2 - 3:15 instead of the following Tuesday as originally planned. So I stayed and did the project. Turned out the tape recorder I was using had bad batteries so we had to redo half the discussion the following week but whatever. Pop had his tax appointment at 4 that day but lo and behold, he forgot a crucial document at home. Rather than try to reschedule the appointment, we ran for home to get the document, calling into the tax guy's office to let him know we would be running late.

As fate would have it, right after we grabbed the document and got back on the freeway to head back into the valley, traffic started slowing down. Turns out there was an accident on the freeway up ahead. A bad one too. From what it looked like, there was a three car accident involving a pickup truck, a mini cooper and a Semi truck. The semi came through the concrete divider and stopped about 10 feet from going down into the road through a freeway overpass bridge. It was so scary. I looked online for more information but I was not able to find anything. I hope everyone was okay.



So then we had the conference itself. We missed all the events on Thursday night, so we checked in and went to bed. We were up early the next day and went to a couple sessions and then the plenary lunch with Lillian Faderman. Lillian Faderman is one of the founding academics in multi-ethnic literature studies. She was a very good speaker and we got to see mi primo shortly before he headed back to get some homework done. Dad and I took the afternoon off and I did homework and took a nap. Then we took our trip to Dinuba for pizza (bleh) and visiting for the family.

Mi Primo Jefferson outlined the visit pretty well here.

The rest of the conference was as to be expected. I already hit the highlights. Some good speakers, a lot who didn't know how to present, some good food and seeing Luis Valdez talk as I mentioned before. Dad and I headed out Sunday afternoon and so the conference went.

Luis Valdez - a pretty good likeness.

The week after that went by in a blur, I worked and went to classes and the gym. JW kicked my butt super good at the gym on Tuesday, She showed me a new machine at the gym that I totally fell in love with but I so overdid it that day. I was in so much pain that when I tried to donate blood on Wednesday, I couldn't. I am sure that does not make sense so let me back up.

I had an appointment at 5 p.m. and when the Red Cross person took my blood pressure, it was too high. She didn't want to defer me for high blood pressure, so she told me to relax, and we went through the rest of the paperwork while we waited for my pressure to go down. She tested me again and it was still high, so she had me fill out the last of the questionnaire. That took some time because we had to pull up a map so I could check to see if I had travelled into a malaria zone for my conference last summer (I hadn't). She checked my blood pressure one last time but it was still too high. See, your blood pressure should be between 50 and 100 and when I came in that day, it was 112. The last time she checked, it was 104 and although I lowered my blood pressure 8 points, it still was not enough. It made sense to me. I was super tired, as I had mentioned several times and I was sore from working out, in quite a bit of pain, truth be told. You know how when you're really tired, your eyes and face feel hot? That is totally how I felt that day.

Thursday was hilarious for me. I came home a little early, went to the public library to get a couple books for an upcoming project (Struck out on one of the books I wanted), came home and passed out on the couch, woke up for a bite to eat, watched TV for a little while with mi hermano and then did my marathon sleeping.

The Friday of Cesar Chavez Day rolled around and I had a chance to catch up on my sleep and everything. That night I had the opportunity to cook dinner. Since I slept in, I ended up not going to Dinuba to have lunch with mi familia and since dad was on the road and mom was coming home from work, I made a noodle bake with a lot of fresh garlic. It was yummy, mi hermano really, really liked it. I also attempted to make a ginger, curry carrot side dish for a vegetable.

It was okay, I think if I had not added the loquat white balsamic vinegar at the last moment, it would have been better but that is what next time is for. I made the recipe up, trying to come up with a sweet ginger carrot dish without adding actual sugar since I wanted to make sure that dad could eat the vegetable too. After I started cooking, I realized, pasta dish and carrots, not a good dish for a diabetic. So, dad did not have the carrots and life goes on.

I actually like to cook and it makes me sad that I just don't have the time to cook like I use it. Cooking for one is really hard and I don't get home in time to cook the family meal any more.

So this is the catch up from the MELUS conference. NACCS is a whole other post, one I hope to get to by this coming weekend. Really wasn't worth the wait, was it. Ah well, catch you later.