Triskaidekadelphia

Yes, the City of Thirteen.

I leave tonight for Philly, to attend the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences. I'm taking a red-eye, which I booked because it was about $100 cheaper, and because it will shave a night's stay off the $150 hotel room.

I'm presenting a paper on phenomenology, pedagogy, and technology. I think the idea of the panel was to present papers offering phenomenological descriptions of teaching with technological devices, but I'm not doing that, at least, not in the expected way. I'm presenting a paper interrogating phenomenological approaches to pedagogy (that is, I'm working up a critique of phenomenology itself) and interrogating myself as a working piece of teaching technology. That, and I'm looking at the paradoxical relation of teacher to students when someone attempts to break down the usual institutionally-sanctioned way that relation is supposed to run.

Well, we shall see how it goes. I get to present the paper on however much sleep I can manage on a plane between Sacramento and Atlanta (since, in addition to a red-eye, I'm also changing planes in Atlanta to get to Philly. Say what you will about air travel in the US; it sucks).

And I've been sick for a few days now, in the usual manner for me: I feel rotten, but other than that, I have no identifiable symptoms. And Lauren won't be with me.

And I don't even like Philly. And I hate the Flyers. Maybe I'll bring my vintage Penguins Jaromir Jagr jersey to wear, just to cheese them off.