It has been the longest 4 days of my life. I'm exhausted, feel like a kid in a candy store to be back to my life and am thinking that takeout and the couch are the bill of the night.
So, I headed out to Edmonton and Calgary for the last of my recruitment trips this fall. I was at 11 schools over the course of 7 weeks and I'm spent. Living out of suitcases makes life painful and doing it with someone who you aren't compatible with makes it that much more painful.
But this trip was the funnest (yeah, I know it's not a word but cut me some 'effin' slack - I've been trying to get home for more than 24 hours) and most stressful of all.
Tuesday afternoon I left work to head to Edmonton. I had a flight to Calgary and then to Edmonton for the first leg of the trip. I noticed that while in Calgary at the airport waiting for my connection (read the noiseiest little prop plane in the WORLD) that there were a lot of men in the little section of the airport I was in. I figured, meh, whatever, maybe I just have men on the brain - hey, it happens sometimes, I'm single.
So I get on this itty bitty plane and end up sitting beside an oil grunt in the very first row of economy. I am not making assumptions based on dress or scruffy beard or dirty fingernails (although all those supported it) but because he actually pulled out his Shell ID badge at one point to put it in another pocket. ANYWAYS, the "first class" section was actually two seats that faced backwards so I was sitting with them in a foursome with le grunt. The only seat of first class was taken up by a man in his 60's-70's (based on dress and hair colour) and he had a really friendly face. I'm not entirely sure what the story was but he kept catching my eye and giving me the twinkle "I am so amused by you" look. You know, the type that people give little kids who get excited to see santa or whatnot? Couldn't quite figure out what it was about but it started to get to the point that I wanted to say "ok Bob Barker, what's so funny?"
So, I get to Edmonton safe and sound (amazingly) and I get to the hotel where K from public school is waiting to go out to dinner with me. We make it a yearly thing when I'm there to get together and catch up. Over the course of dinner, I told her about my observation in the airport and she was like "Ugh yeah. It's like 6 single men for every woman out here" to which my speak-without-thinking comment was "what the hell am I doing in Ottawa?"
On Wednesday, I also had the pleasant surprise of a former work colleague surprising me for lunch. It was good to see her and I'm sure she appreciated having a piece of home visiting.
Funny side story: You get all kinds at these recruitment events and certain schools you see trends in how they act, what they look like, etc. The BEST guy I've had (over the guy who high fived me for having good enough marks to get into grad school with "that's awesome, give me 5") so far was in Edmonton. He was saying that he was surprised at the fact that we all come together to promote our wares. He thought we would all be really cut throat. The rest of the conversation went like this:
L:No, we're all pretty cordial with each other
English MA student: Okay, so like if this was Survivor who would you align yourself with
L: Well, Ozztrek, Guelph, U Manitoba and Ryerson but Ryerson sends out different recruiters to each event so while we like them all it's never the same person. So they would be like the poor person who keeps getting sent to exile island that you welcome back but they're just not a full memeber of the aliance
EMAS: Okay...and who's the enemy?
L: Well now I'm not going to tell you that but let's just say it's all about geographic proximity. HEY, you have Waterloo pens - think you could go steal us a couple?
EMAS: sure, how many do you want?
For all the headaches, I really do like this part of my job if for only those kinda one off blue moon conversations.
In the cab from U of A to the airport, the Aliance was together and swapping plane horror stories. Little did I know I was about to have the best one yet.
-end of Act 1
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