Vegas, Vegas, Vegas!

Hey readers! I'm back!

Sorry for the huge delay in posting-- life got REALLY REALLY hectic from a particular event: Senior Seminar. So much has gone on, and instead of trying to fit it all at once, I decided I'm going to write about each topic one at a time over the next week (in order to make up for all the time I've deprived you of my adventures!). 

We'll start with Vegas. Right before Halloween (has it really been that long? wow!), the Writing Center went to LAS VEGAS, Nevada!!! Dr. Bob was taking us to the IWCA (International Writing Center Association?) conference where all these writing centers from around the nation (and world, I suppose, there were some people from London and Japan and Korea there) came and gave presentations about their writing centers.

Well! Let me tell you! I don't think I've ever been so proud to work for Coe's Writing Center as I did during this conference. There were SO many people from SO many universities there, yet when I asked almost everyone the size of their college, I found out that we were representing probably the smallest college there. But with that being said, we had the largest representation! 21 students went on this trip, along with three faculty. We were all required to presen

t a poster or seminar. Dr.

 Bob put me in charge of a team of five girls to do a poster on our Writing Fellowship Program, a program to allow incoming freshman compete to work in the writing center five hours a week in exchange for a $1000 fellowship each year. Well, needless to say, our poster was AWESOME! Not only did it look great (note the color coordination in poster in the picture; that's me talking about the program with a director of a writing center at another college), but no other writing center has this kind of program. People were really fascinated with the success of the program. ~75% of the people who now work in the Writing Center come from this Fellowship program. If you like writing and want a great way to make friends who are sociable and involved and serious about schoolwork as well as great leaders 

on campus, I recommend trying to go for this Writing Fellowship. The Writing Center has honestly been one of my greatest joys at Coe.

I learned a lot of other things at other presentations I attended. By the time the conference was done, I came out with two things: (1) Our writing center rocks. I don't know how many times people looked at my name tag with "Coe College" on it, did a double take, and said, "You're from Coe?! You guys are famous here! Oh my gosh, we hear SO much about you, you guys really know how to successfully run a writing center!", and (2) I wish we had a greater diversity of ESL students (English as a Second Language). Most of the ESL students here are Japanese, which is great, but I heard some of the difficulties with other students from other countries (such as Saudi Arabia, Korea, Thailand, countries in Africa) and wished that I could experience interactions with these people as well as study their writing.

Vegas social life: Well... Needless to

 say, Vegas is a whole new world. It's definitely NOT the Midwest! Flying over the Rockies was my favorite part of our 15-hour trips to and from (to save money, Bob drove us to Omaha, flew us to Denver, and THEN to Vegas!). Because everything is so expensive in vegas and I'm trying to save money for after college, I mostly went with friends to free events or to 

see the ridiculous resorts. Here is a pic of myself and three other WC consultants hitting up the Bellagio resort to see their autumn display. I also saw a pirate vs. sirens dance on Halloween night outside of Treasure Island, and then had a staring contest with the men of Blue Man group. It was fun! Nevertheless, there's no place like home, and after four days in Sin City... it was nice to come back to the heartland of America: Iowa. There's just something about the laid back atmosphere and "takin' it easy" ideology that suited me much more. :-)