Strictly Speaking

I went to Chapel Hill, NC to attend a conference and present a paper. Things turned out well, in that I wasn’t too nervous, the audience was friendly, and I got some good questions. Also, it was great to get out of town. Here, in no particular order, are some things I saw on my trip:

1. A woman wearing a wedding dress, posing for pictures on the main lawn of the UNC campus. Why was this worth mentioning? Oh yes, because the floor-length strapless white wedding dress had an attached extremely long train which was Tarheel Blue. No one in the immediate vicinity appeared to find this strange.

2. A stack of New York Times, Sunday editions, no less, on a desk in the UNC student union, with a sign saying “Free — take one. Courtesy of the Union and the New York Times.” As of 4pm Saturday, the plastic band on the bundle hadn’t even been cut.

3. A booth outside the union featuring a large-haired female offering “free kisses if you buy a misprinted Bible.” Not really sure what this was about. There was a small crowd of kids I would tend to classify as “popular kids” (although I’m sure I’m too old to really do that accurately anymore) and someone had a video camera, so I’m hoping it was a student film. I didn’t see anyone actually get a kiss, and there were no Bibles evident.

4. A surprisingly beautiful campus! Who knew that the red brick colonial architecture I associate with the Northeast extended down to warmer climes? I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, after all, UNC lets pass few opportunities to remind you that it was the first state university in the nation.

The vagaries of an academic career require that you be prepared to end up almost anywhere in your pursuit of a job; I would think you could do much worse than Chapel Hill, NC.