Bus Guilt and TESOL Conference 2005
I'm back from the TESOL conference (http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/sec_document.asp?CID=23&DID=2136), which was fabulous. Sunny, mid-eighties, breezy, pool, river, margaritas, champagne, free dictionaries (I got 3 new ones!)... I got tons of really cool books on academic writing for ESL students. Among the programs I went to were: a murder mystery simulation, using blogs in the college writing classrooms, a high school chess program pairing native speakers with non-native speakers. I skipped a two-hour session on the TESOL acronym, since I figured I could explain it in 15 seconds or less.
Anyway, I took the bus from Dallas to San Antonio, and once again encountered that familiar emotion known as bus guilt. I was in an almost constant state of bus guilt last summer when I was living in Costa Rica and was at the mercy of public transportation. You get on the bus, stake out your window seat, splay out your legs, recline your chair, arrange your luggage and pillow around you, and you are totally comfortable for about 15 minutes, when the bus makes its first stop. You look out the window from your reclined position, and to your horror, there's a HUGE line of people waiting to get on your bus. The suspense!! Will someone sit next to you? If so, who will it be? A serial killer? A really talkative type who reeks of cigarettes and is intent on planning your future together? A really talkative serial killer? Or worse - a mother with a crying baby?? What's the best way to ensure that no one sits in the seat next to you? That thoughtless cad across the aisle from you has his luggage spread all over the place, is dangling his feet in the aisle, and shows no signs of moving. Maybe you should move your luggage in case someone needs the seat. You really, really don't want to move it, but you are torn with guilt. Bus guilt.
For some reason, people always sit next to me on the bus, even if there are thousands of other seats open. I think that women like to sit next to me because I look safe, quiet, thin (don't take up much room, which is always a consideration), and don't smell objectionable. Men like to sit next to me (I know this because they tell me) because I'm female and cute. Either way, I lose. True to form, I sat next to a man on the way down and a woman on the way back. The man was in his early fifties, a roofer, an enthusiastic smoker, a drifter type moving to Austin to find work. Apparently, roofers have a rather romantic, nomadic lifestyle, following news of hail storms across the country. He had a certain charm - several pieces of Double Bubble (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blgum.htm) gum dropped out of his backpack before he dropped the backpack on the woman behind me; however, we did reach a few dreaded awkward moments when he assured me that he could take good care of someone like me. On the way home, I feigned sleep.
Anyway, I took the bus from Dallas to San Antonio, and once again encountered that familiar emotion known as bus guilt. I was in an almost constant state of bus guilt last summer when I was living in Costa Rica and was at the mercy of public transportation. You get on the bus, stake out your window seat, splay out your legs, recline your chair, arrange your luggage and pillow around you, and you are totally comfortable for about 15 minutes, when the bus makes its first stop. You look out the window from your reclined position, and to your horror, there's a HUGE line of people waiting to get on your bus. The suspense!! Will someone sit next to you? If so, who will it be? A serial killer? A really talkative type who reeks of cigarettes and is intent on planning your future together? A really talkative serial killer? Or worse - a mother with a crying baby?? What's the best way to ensure that no one sits in the seat next to you? That thoughtless cad across the aisle from you has his luggage spread all over the place, is dangling his feet in the aisle, and shows no signs of moving. Maybe you should move your luggage in case someone needs the seat. You really, really don't want to move it, but you are torn with guilt. Bus guilt.
For some reason, people always sit next to me on the bus, even if there are thousands of other seats open. I think that women like to sit next to me because I look safe, quiet, thin (don't take up much room, which is always a consideration), and don't smell objectionable. Men like to sit next to me (I know this because they tell me) because I'm female and cute. Either way, I lose. True to form, I sat next to a man on the way down and a woman on the way back. The man was in his early fifties, a roofer, an enthusiastic smoker, a drifter type moving to Austin to find work. Apparently, roofers have a rather romantic, nomadic lifestyle, following news of hail storms across the country. He had a certain charm - several pieces of Double Bubble (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blgum.htm) gum dropped out of his backpack before he dropped the backpack on the woman behind me; however, we did reach a few dreaded awkward moments when he assured me that he could take good care of someone like me. On the way home, I feigned sleep.
posted by jessica rabbit at 12:00 PM
1 Comments:
Where on the couch? I don't see it.
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