Recovering from Tapia 2017

For the past few days, I’ve been at the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing. I went to accompany a bunch of students, to pretend to run a booth [1], to help run a workshop on the craft of code, and to learn at sessions. It was a lot of fun.

For some reason, I thought I could get other work done at Tapia: I had readings to write, homework to grade, conference papers to review [2], and more. But, well … let’s see my schedule. On Wednesday, I got up at 6am to pack, then helped students print business cards and résumés, and otherwise got ready to go. We drove to the airport [3], flew to Atlanta, took the MARTA to the hotel, checked in, and registered. I then set up the booth, attending the opening session and the other events, and gather a bit of conference swag. I think I got back to my room at 10 pm.

Thursday started at 7 a.m. with breakfast and a meeting with my workshop co-presenters. After the opening talks, we ran our workshop, which was well attended [4]. I went to talks, rounded up a bit more swag, and ended the day reviewing posters and talking to colleagues at the poster session. I made it back to my room after 7 p.m., but after twelve hours of interacting with people, I didn’t have the energy for much other than musing, preparing Friday’s classes, and, um, whatever other work I got done [5].

Friday started a little after 7am. There were some really awesome keynotes. one by Avani Wildani and one by [James Mickens](https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens, who is even snarkier than I am. That day also went until the evening.

Saturday I got up at 7am to go to a post-Tapia STARS symposium and finally made it back to Grinnell at about midnight.

Now it’s Sunday. I’ve caught up on my conference reviews. I’ve started grading. I’ve dealt with a few more issues with my fried hard drives. I went out to breakfast with and made dinner for my family. I’ve answered a lot of email messages and sent a few of my own. I’ve done some other stuff. But wow, I feel behind. And my cough is back with a vengeance.

At least I found time to muse [6].

[1] We sent enough students that we got a booth. But CS has not yet been approved for a hire, so there was not much to do at the booth. We gave away some sticky note pads and let our LACAFI colleagues use the booth. Unfortunately, academic job seekers are in short supply at Tapia.

[2] More precisely, to meta-review.

[3] More precisely, we were driven.

[4] Forty participants in a room which was supposed to hold twenty.

[5] I really can’t remember.

[6] I didn’t really find time to muse in detail about Tapia. That will have to happen another day.

Version 1.0 of 2017-09-24.