Traveling

I’ve hit a three-week stretch where I’ll be making two trips. A long drive to Columbus, Ohio and a short flight to Atlanta, Georgia. For the annual meetings of the National Council of Teachers of English and the Literacy Research Association. Respectively. A humble professor traveling the world (or, rather, the country) to partake in academic conferences, per the expectations of the tenure-track.

No, kind reader, I don’t enjoy all this travel. And I’m not really sure why. Some people would happily take a few work trips a year, sponsored by a university, to go learn and connect with others. Some people, sure. But not this person.

No, I find the whole thing to be quite a nuisance.

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I’m no fan of flying. Again, I can’t really say why. It’s not as though I’m petrified. And I’ve flown enough that you’d think I’d be used to it. But I don’t know. I’m always anxious before a flight.

The first time I was in an airplane was something of a surprise. I was taking a walk with my father by the Mississippi River. On a Saturday or Sunday morning, I’m sure. A beautiful sunny day. There were few things I enjoyed more as a child than walking with Dad by the river. I was probably six or seven.

As I remember it, Dad got to talking with somebody near the end of our walk. Dad always got to talking to somebody. He was charismatic. Somehow, he convinced this somebody to take us on a joy ride in a Cessna. He thought I’d be excited. I was terrified.

Up we went in a tiny airplane with a stranger. I think we did a loop-de-loop at one point. I’m likely misremembering the whole thing. Fear colors memory and I was only a kid. I do remember that we buzzed our house in St. Paul. Mom was in the backyard folding clothes, wondering why a plane was circling overhead. I also remember that Dad told me I was frozen solid in the backseat. That sounds right to me. At the time, I aspired to be Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Our little flight in the Cessna brought me back to reality. I was overwhelmed with relief when the plane landed.

I flew in passenger jets a handful of times before moving to Pennsylvania and becoming a professor. My first conference trip was a disaster. I came back to Minneapolis a few months after we left for NCTE. Mom had died a few weeks before and there were all sorts of delays because I flew out of the tiny airport in State College which, at the time, still had propellor planes. I finally made it back to Minneapolis. On the flight home to Pennsylvania, as I was waiting for my connecting flight in Chicago, Solomon had an afebrile seizure. He was two and Samson was a newborn. Thankfully, Katie’s sister’s flight out of State College was cancelled and she was there to watch Samson as Katie took Solomon to the hospital. I had a panic attack in O’Hare. It was unpleasant.

Is it possible these two events color how I relate to flying? Perhaps. It’s also possible that I’m not actually that scared of flying. I just don’t like leaving my family or my routine for the hustle and bustle of networking at academic conferences. Typically, I order room service and watch NBA games when. I don’t think I do conferences right. But I do them all the same.

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The University of Iowa is piloting a new faculty reporting system. Penn State piloted one when I arrived in 2015 as well. All this means is an intense amount of monotonous labor. A humble faculty member such as myself, scrutinized in all things, has to enter every thing they do into this reporting platform. Publications, conference presentations, service activities, grants, teaching responsibilities and more. We are evaluated each year and, more importantly, our tenure and promotion is always at stake. What a conditional existence.

The worst part about these portals is the text boxes. I cannot simply cut and paste entries from the CV that I keep. No, I have to go into the system, click each text box, and then fill out my entries. I had 50 pages of CV to transfer over the summer. It took weeks, even with Katie’s help. Brutal.

Recently, I realized I entered all of my conference presentations incorrectly. I had to go through each entry and edit it through the portal. It took hours. Doing this task reminded me how much travel I’ve done over the last 10 years. Countless trips to Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington D.C., Texas, St. Louis, Nashville, Etc. You’d think I’d be used to being a jet setter by now. I’m not.

So I’ll make these two trips, see some people who I like to see, give a talk or two, and be on my way. A humble and traveling professor, making their way through the world.