SMT 2013: Charlotte

Last weekend was the SMT's Annual Theory-a-thon in Charlotte. While I was there, I also heard people refer to it as Theory Camp and Theory Christmas. Theory Camp I understand, but Theory Christmas...that's too much. 

Anyways, it was a productive, fun, and also exhausting conference, per usual. I got to reconnect with lots of people from IU, though none of the students in this IU department ad were present, including Mark: 

I got to see my former classmate, Drew (shown below), give a paper about baroque dance that was great! He also played piano in his presentation to demonstrate different conceptions of baroque meter, and his playing is excellent. Presentations with live performance are always the best. 

The DJ and Bryn were present with little Trudy and it was great to hang out with Mama DJ for a bit in between sessions! Trudy is cuter in real life than in pictures, if you can believe it. 

This year's conference had included several great pedagogy sessions, though I was sad to miss Bryn's as it was on Sunday morning, during my flight (but you can check out the materials here!). I found those sessions particularly inspiring and I'm going to try to incorporate some more new tech/media into my teaching. I love the idea of having a short, weekly podcast to introduce the topic of the week for my students. 

I also somehow managed to do a bunch of personal work during the conference weekend. My plan was to go to things when I wanted to, but not to force myself to go to any sessions just because I was there. The result was that I had a little extra time on my hands to write, especially Wednesday afternoon before everyone else arrived. I had the hotel room to myself and got all kinds of stuff written before my roommate, Anna, arrived. It turns out that an expensive hotel room that does not include internet is a good place to get stuff done because you don't have the internet to offer distractions. It did give me the idea to get a few fun colleagues together, rent a cabin (or cottage, as the locals always say) somewhere pretty, then work all day and have fun in the evening. It would be sort of like an informal writing retreat! 

On Saturday I went to the parties and snapped this picture of several senior theorists playing poker at the end of the Yale reception.

Then John went to AMS almost right after I got back from SMT. Bobo and I had the weekend to ourselves and we filled our time with walks in the gray weather.

This was our first fairly cold weekend - highs in the 30s - and it's starting to feel like winter, even if it still looks like fall. 

Bobo has her winter wear all ready to go. She's wearing her red, heavier coat in the photos above. And below you can see her knit sweater for moderately cold weather. As you can see, she loves them both.