Wednesday was our only day of bad weather – we woke up to cloudy skies and cool breezes.  Temperatures were in the 50’s, which wasn’t terrible.  It’s odd to think of it being cool and needing jackets in California – I think we are so conditioned to think of L.A. we forget about the rest of the state!

We spent a little time down at Fisherman’s Wharf in the morning, where we found the sea lions (much to the dismay of a local vendor.  When we asked where they were, he proceeded to tell us with much disdain where to find the ‘biggest tourist trap in San Francisco).

They were so cute!

Most of them were laying and sleeping, or posing, but some of them were playful…

Disturbing others from naps…

These two were quite fractious, constantly jockeying for position on the dock…

One finally was forced off, after much tussling…so he (she?) went to bother a new friend…

After that, it was time to head back to the hotel to prepare for the conference.  I sent everyone else on to lunch, saying I had to prepare, but mostly because I felt like I was going to throw up.  It’s interesting – I’ve studied Communication since undergrad, I teach Public Speaking…yet I detest speaking in public, and get horrifically nervous.  I usually beg my boy to ask questions for me if it’s a strange person – like if we are in the grocery store.   I’m weird.

We got to the conference, I found my room, I sat down and chatted with the panel chair.  The first person got up, and I was not nervous anymore.  He was terrible.  He raced through his presentation, did not speak clearly, and gave a talk about a decade old television show.  The 2nd girl got up, and while you could at least understand her, she was wearing jeans.  Jeans.  I was in a suit.  I figured at this point, even if I blew my whole presentation, I’d still be better.

While this section could be construed as tooting my own horn…well…I guess I can just say that I learned the difference between my Ph.D. program, which is ranked #6 in the country, and everyone else.  The people that came to watch said that I was by far and away the most professional and my presentation was the best.  Cool!

Despite that being cool (and a huge ego boost), I figured out during that panel that I probably will not return to this particular conference again.  Call me an academic snob, but I was really unimpressed with the presentations of my fellow panel members, and dismayed at how casually they presented their material.  The material presented seem to be largely qualitative, and I think I may be more of a quantitative researcher (oddly). If it was closer to ‘Bama I might consider it again – but definitely not in a TV division.  I don’t watch enough TV to be able to join in those conversations.

So we left the conference for the day, and headed up to Telegraph hill.  We had just stepped out of the car, and I was raising my camera for my first shot when I heard gasps, and a horrified calling out of my mom’s name.  I looked around, then down, and saw my mom laying face down about 4 steps below me (large stone steps).  Long story short, she fell, has no idea how, but as best as we can figure, she landed on her face somehow.  Thankfully she walked away with only an impressive knot on her face and a couple of cuts, which turned into an impressive knot and huge black eye.  I still get nauseous when I realize how much worse it could have been.

So mom and I spent some quality time together in her hotel room that night, as I became the nurse and tended to her, and she spent the better part of the night with ice on her face.  I was not going to take pictures of that!!!

There was a plan to get up bright and early Thursday for some sunrise pictures, so I’ll be sure to share those tomorrow!

(On a personal aside, one of my papers for the semester can now be labeled as “done”, and the other two are not far behind!!)