The conference in Tepoztlan was fun. For an introvert like me who doesn’t always enjoy the constant socializing at some conferences, saying the conference was fun is giving it a LOT of credit.
I guess the fact that it really wasn’t a conference in my “field” also helped. I didn’t feel the pressure to meet anybody big in my field or to chat them up. (Not that I do that in conferences in my field anyway.) I didn’t feel like I had to impress anyone. I was more or less an active observer at the same time I was a participant.
And I did end up getting a lot of help on my own work. The paper I presented, which I didn’t think people would be all that interested in, culled enough interest among the participants for me to get a good batch of quality comments. The conference being a history conference, most of the participants were historians, and getting comments and suggestions from historians, I found, is refreshing. They tell you things about your paper you overlooked or things that simply didn’t enter your mind. I also got a very generous offer of introduction to a very big scholar in my field (broadly defined).
But more than that, I liked the people I met and hung out with. Living with them and seeing them everyday for a week, I feel like I really got to know some people the way you don’t usually get to know people at conferences. It’s an interesting and pleasant experience.
The highlight, however, was definitely the hot Cuban guy. Not exactly my type, but objectively speaking, hot. Since his English wasn’t very good and since my Spanish is even worse, or rather, since I can’t speak Spanish, our communication remained minimum. But I think I know him quite well. I think I know his type. Although he’d probably reject to my saying so. (I was called out for holding the stereotype of the Latin lover over him. I tried to wiggle out of that by denying any familiarity with such stereotype. I’m not American, you know.) The sensitive, romantic, artist type. Heh heh heh. Sings well, dances well, gets along with everyone well.
I laughed when he seemed to use a bad pick-up line. Maybe it was because of the language issue, but it sounded too trite I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Do you want to come over to the party at M later?”
“Umm, I don’t know. It’s a bit late for me.”
“But why is it late? We have all the time in the world.”
*** Burst into laughter here. Who does this guy think he is? Christopher Marlowe? I could hear the first line of Marlowe’s From the Passionate Shepherd to His Love: Oh come with me and be my love–Carpe Diem, right? Which reminds me that my first love actually wrote out the entire poem for me when he first started dating. Hmm, so maybe the unreceptiveness (is this a word?) is my problem.
I totally thought he was kidding when he said he’d written two books and was working on his third. That he was a writer. Oh yeah, I thought to my self, I have a whole list of books my self. Books that I want to write. But I discovered that he is actually a pretty established writer in Cuba. His second book won one of the 2006 Casa prizes! And I thought he was a bum, if an attractive bum. He seemed so laid back, I couldn’t imagine him having the discipline to write. But apparently he gets up at 3 in the morning and writes while looking out the streets on his beloved Havana. This is one romantic who actually works! Kudos to him. I guess I was thinking too much of the sensitive, artist types I know from college who protested on the streets instead of being classes and who spent night after night discussing politics and literature over cigarettes and alcohol. Beautiful, wasted youth. None of the guys I know survived their youthful exuberance and swagger, though.
Do I regret not hooking up? Not really. I think I’ll have a sweeter memory of the guy this way. Besides, I’m too old for hook-ups. Sad, but true. I ain’t no age-defying, rejuvenating cream.
