Star Trek and Le Guin in Las Vegas
I am all flustered this morning because I’m supposed to be grading papers, but I had an email first thing when I came in about a new book of Ursula Le Guin’s (which turned out disappointingly enough to be a reprint), so I browsed on over to her website to see what’s up in Le Guin world. She’s going to be on sabbatical this year for her seventy-fifth birthday—I hope when I’m seventy-five I will still be writing and writing well. But she’s taking a little time from her sabbatical to be the guest of honor at the Science Fiction Research Association conference this summer, which will be in Las Vegas.
Well, Las Vegas is also the home of the Star Trek Experience (which I’d link to except the site doesn’t seem to be working today): sort of a museum, sort of a bar, like a set for the show—basically a place for Star Trek whackos like me to hang out and indulge our fondest fantasies that we too are boldly going where no one has gone before (yes, I like the gender friendly Star Trek, thank you very much).
It’s just too much for me. I think only the combination of Ursula Le Guin and Star Trek could ever induce me to set foot in Las Vegas. I’ve spent the morning shopping for plane tickets and trying to figure out who could take care of the kids—because Chris is going to be in St. Petersburg for a professional development workshop for the new International Baccalaureate class he’ll be teaching next year at the same week as this conference. The tickets are too expensive right now, or otherwise I swear I think I would’ve already bought them (but I know I can get to LA for cheaper than $400). And once I finished that, you won’t believe it, but I quickly pulled together a conference proposal out of a paper I’ve got about half done on Le Guin and sent it to the conference organizer—a month late. I am not kidding. Wild horses couldn’t normally make me do something like that. But I have got to go to Las Vegas this June.
We’ll see what the conference organizer things (probably that I have lost what little bit of mind I ever had left). And in the meantime, I guess I’ll walk over and check my mail so I can calm down enough to grade papers. What a day this is shaping up to be.
Well, Las Vegas is also the home of the Star Trek Experience (which I’d link to except the site doesn’t seem to be working today): sort of a museum, sort of a bar, like a set for the show—basically a place for Star Trek whackos like me to hang out and indulge our fondest fantasies that we too are boldly going where no one has gone before (yes, I like the gender friendly Star Trek, thank you very much).
It’s just too much for me. I think only the combination of Ursula Le Guin and Star Trek could ever induce me to set foot in Las Vegas. I’ve spent the morning shopping for plane tickets and trying to figure out who could take care of the kids—because Chris is going to be in St. Petersburg for a professional development workshop for the new International Baccalaureate class he’ll be teaching next year at the same week as this conference. The tickets are too expensive right now, or otherwise I swear I think I would’ve already bought them (but I know I can get to LA for cheaper than $400). And once I finished that, you won’t believe it, but I quickly pulled together a conference proposal out of a paper I’ve got about half done on Le Guin and sent it to the conference organizer—a month late. I am not kidding. Wild horses couldn’t normally make me do something like that. But I have got to go to Las Vegas this June.
We’ll see what the conference organizer things (probably that I have lost what little bit of mind I ever had left). And in the meantime, I guess I’ll walk over and check my mail so I can calm down enough to grade papers. What a day this is shaping up to be.
posted by Lisa at 3/01/2005 09:59:00 AM
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