Attempted Thoughts from Places: NCPTW Conference in Chicago, IL

One of my favorite writers, John Green, will occasionally post videos on YouTube entitled "Thoughts from Places", in which he documents trips he takes and then uses the experience to make a profound statement about life, love, literature, and everything in between.* Now, because he's a professional manipulator of words, everything he has to say is genuine, thought-provoking, and beautiful. He can take ten seconds of footage he took while driving down highway and turn it into a reflection of the idea of home and make it seem effortless, which is frustrating when a simpleton such as myself makes an attempt.

I won't lie to you, I tried making this blog entry Thoughts from Places-esque, but everything I had to say was just forced and vapid. I took pictures of the frickin' Bean and wrote about our perceptions of one another and true reflections of ourselves, and then connected that to Tutor Identity, (which was the point of the conference afterall) and it was disgusting. I tried being deep, and that just failed miserably, so instead let's just talk about my trip to Chicago.

I boarded a bus on a Thursday night, digesting a greasy Dollar Menu meal from McDonalds, knowing I was about to spend 13 hours with a group of people I hardly knew. The only thing that was certain in my mind at that point was we had a destination in sight and I was going to have difficulty trying to fall asleep. And while those two premonitions were absolutely true, everything else this trip brought with it was nothing I could have expected.

First of all, let's talk about the conference itself, since that was the whole reason for going. On Friday night, we received nametags upon registering, which made me feel immediately important and cool, and headed into the ballroom to listen to a young man named Colin give the keynote address. At that point, we were all tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep in a real bed, but the guy was captivating. He talked about tutoring in a way that was so refreshing; he talked about the feelings attached to helping others instead of just harping on the importance of posing Socratic questions. He made me realize that our job is important, that we do something worthwhile in our schools, all while managing to gracefully drop the F-bomb in front of a bunch of university professors, which I didn't think was possible.

Anyway, that speech set the tone for the rest of the weekend: finding surprises in every session room. I learned from tutors at colleges that were too small to pinpoint on a map and from kids that went to a high twenty minutes from my house. Listening to all these different perspectives was fascinating, because we all had one thing in common: we like helping people just as much as we like a good Oxford comma.

Oh yeah, and then after lunch there was my presentation. My friend Lehna and I had been perfecting a Powerpoint that started out as just a simple end-of-the-year project for months, and now we were using it to connect with people from all over the country in a meeting room of the Hilton Doubletree. We were nervous, and we played Foster the People to calm ourselves down until people started filing in. Once we got talking, though, there was no stopping us, and honestly my worries subsided once I started talking about “Tutor Identity, or Lack Thereof”: I was in my element. The applause we got signaling the end of our panel discussion was so rewarding, as were the hugs Lehna and I received from our fellow WSWC tutors. That was the big task of the conference, and suddenly it was over: now it was time to have some real fun.

Okay, so this blog post is starting to run a bit on the long side, so I’m gonna go ahead and go, but before I do, I’ll leave you with a list entitled “Things I’ll Remember About Chicago 2012”

1)      Deep, emotional talks about the state of my wellbeing with Lehna on the 26^th floor of the hotel.

2)      Meeting out-of-town friends on Sunday in front of the H&M

3)      Trying to get a straight answer out of a possibly stoned waiter at a pizza restaurant. All I wanted to know was if he had met Tina Fey!

4)      Deep, emotional talks about the state of my wellbeing with Marty on the bus at 2 in the morning on the bus ride home.**

5)      The most confusing sculpture ever at the Chicago Institute of Art. Seriously though, since when can we eat art?

6)      Bridget Mendler jam sessions

7)      Loving, loving, loving my job as a tutor and hating, hating, hating leaving the city.

So yeah, that was my trip. I hope you all enjoyed, and for your reading pleasure before I go, here’s an excerpt of my original Thoughts from Places post in which I tried to be deep.

“We looked into that giant metal sculpture and saw ourselves in our most vulnerable states. This whole trip was surrounding around our identity, and there in that glorified mirror, we truly saw what that meant.”

Seriously? Who am I?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!

Lauren

*I was running out of things that started with "L"
**I get emotional sometimes, okay?