It’s morning of day 2 of the National Communication Association annual convention, and I’m happy to be here. I didn’t do much yesterday except the thing that I think NCA is about – catching up with people who you know, who you care about, who interest you and you them, and seeing old friends and students. It’s really wonderful. I think I’m one of the few people who is happy to take the negatives of NCA (size, scope, politics, performance pressure, etc) due to the really wonderful moments it affords and the freedom to speak primarily as members of a scholarly discipline.  

I’m also glad I was wrong about the mid-term elections and the Republicans don’t control everything. But it’s also odd how people still call what happened a “blue wave” and are excited that less-oppressive millionaries are deciding how to fight for their version of bad laws we’re all subjected to. Do you want a really massive military or just a massive one? 

I attended a panel yesterday that just really didn’t click for me. I feel that the best papers tend to push a question rather than a result. Part of the mis-step was trusting in the online scheduling tool which doesn’t really allow for the diviniation that the print book does. There’s something about seeing everything there in print and feeling out the panels in total that is a real advantage over just choosing papers via keyword online.  

Today though I have a bunch of panels selected and the Arnold lecture tonight which is going to be fantastic. Tomorrow I present, and last night I was really too tired to work through my notes and get them down to presentation length. Maybe I can do that today at some point, but it’s a pretty full day.  

I’ve been trying to vlog a bit but there’s not a lot of opportunity and people don’t really like appearing on camera. I’ll try some more today and see how it goes. I’d like to have some good examples of it for the off-chance that I get to teach online public speaking, aka vlogging next term.