Oh, Canada!

Next month, I’ll be taking my first international flight. That’s right. I’m running for vice president. Oh, I kid, in an already-lame way.

No, I’m going to Toronto for the Association for Research in Mothering conference. I’m on a panel with some fine company, talking about “Creativity, Expression, and Agency.” In case you couldn’t tell from the title, it’s an academic conference, and I really have no idea what to expect, here with my aging B.A. Many of my friends are in academics, so I’m not fearing that people will suddenly start questioning me, using words like "hegemony." (I imagine they do that to each other when I'm not around. Kinky!) It’s just sort of the great unknown, both the conference setting and Toronto. True, my friend Trisha is from Canada (and thus gets first dibs on all Canadian karaoke, meaning the Barenaked Ladies and Alanis), but other than knowing the Canadian way of pronouncing “sorry,” I’m a blank slate.

Are you going? Will you? If you can’t, will you at least leave some tips on Canada and/or academic conferences?