- W. D. Wetherell
Last week I attended my second graduate conference, held at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and entitled “Framed: Delimiting the Film Image.” My paper, "Children & Memories of the Spanish Civil War: The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth & La Lengua de las Mariposas," was part of the Politics & History panel. With the help of a PowerPoint presentation, I gave those listening a glimpse of my Master’s thesis and three films which I recommend to everyone who hasn’t yet seen them to go and Netflix. Perhaps the coolest part of the day was that Alex was in the audience. Not only did he finally get to see my graduate school, that mysterious place in the city that I run off to every so often, but I think it might also have been the first time he heard me give a scholarly presentation of sorts. It was definitely cool. I am going to insist he now be at every future conference I attend =)
Then there was a string of birthdays. The day after the conference, we went to Medieval Times to celebrate my cousin’s birthday. I never thought eating chicken and drinking soup without utensils could be so gratifying. The knights were there, too, of course. I think our group was more excited than some of the 9-year-old birthday parties in attendance.
For my sister’s birthday the next day we went to Lenny the Pug's Annual Birthday Benefit for Animal Haven in SoHo. Rocco, our own pug, came along, and proceeds from the event went to help Animal Haven continue to be able to provide the type of adoption care and services that place dogs and cats in excellent homes. Do I sound like an advertisement? Well, if you had ben there, you’d be touting the glories of this place, too.
Then it was back to the work week on Monday, with a welcomed break on Wednesday when Alex and I had the privilege of attending Soraya’s “Special Person’s Day” at her school. We got a tour of the building (I think three times), got to hang out with her friends, ate lots of pasta, took lots of pictures, and attended mass, where we learned about the habits of sheep.
Later that week, it was off to the Martha Stewart Show with Soraya, my mom, and my aunt. We were at a taping for a show that will air in May, so we had to act as such. We won tickets to SeaWorld, and I thought Soraya and I were going to fall out of our chairs (yeah, we were that excited). We also won a lot of 3M sponges, which is cooler than it probably sounds.
That night, Alex and I attended the grand opening of CityView Racquet Club. Some semi-celeb sightings included tennis player Justin Gimelstob and Ramona from that Bravo show, The Real Housewives of NYC. Regis Philbin and his wife showed up after we left. I’m sure they were upset about that.
The weekend rolled around again. My mom and Soraya’s friends threw Soraya a surprise birthday party, and that was pretty awesome, ice cream cake included. The night ended with rousing encores of Rock Band. The party continued the next day with more gifts, more cake, more birthday, and I, by chance, found out that Fablehaven 3 was out and picked it up at Barnes & Noble.
All in all, it’s been a crazy week, but an exciting one. You know, one of those weeks where every day brings something new, but you’re glad it does. Not at all like the story of that poor lady in Britain who almost got eaten by a python. That’s a good example of something unexpected you’d rather the week never brings.
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