ISN Conference and Lonergan Workshop

This weekend T and I attended the 2nd annual conference for the Institute for the Study of Nature. It was a very enjoyable two days! Not only were the talks interesting, but the eclectic, enthusiastic, and entertaining attendees were great fun to get to know. The conference began on Friday afternoon, and we met up with our friend M and her sister and father, who were also attending the conference. Dinner that night (at Bertucci's--such good food!) was a loud and energetic variety of conversations and we stayed well past our bed time. Partially due to the lateness of the evening before, and partly due to my need to clean the house, we skipped the morning sessions (which, when we got there, appeared to be a shame, since everyone was raving about the second keynote speaker's lecture!) and got to the conference in time for lunch. Mostly all I did was listen to the discussion of the previous talk, since I had nothing to contribute, but it was fun to listen and watch. Two of the afternoon sessions were divided up between two or three rooms to facilitate concurrent lectures, and from all accounts were all pretty good. Dinner that night was a blast, too. It was held at the Kendall Hotel's Black Sheep Restaurant, which was converted from an old firehouse. Quite charming, in its own right! Home again, way past our bedtime, but after a very yummy dinner and more fun conversations and good connections. All in all, a very delightful conference. We were going to go to yoga on Sunday morning, but we decided to catch up on a bit of sleep instead. We had a nice breakfast listening to (and watching) the rain pattering outside our kitchen windows (and watching the cute little birds hop through the rain to get at the bird feeder we put up on our fire escape). We went to Mass at St. Clement's, and the father's day homily was excellent. After Mass we hung out downtown and ate brunch at a friend's house. Then we toddled off to the airport via the T to pick up Dr. S, who's here for the Lonergan Workshop... which is this week! (It's been a month of conferencing.) My sweet husband is the "gopher" for the Lonergan Center here at BC, but he definitely loves it. The only problem he has so far is being torn between different lectures and having to figure out how to record both without bi-locating (though he's still working on the bi-location bit). He also has to wait for some bookshelves to be delivered at the Lonergan house, which might interrupt a lecture. Last week, he typed up a four-section essay for a professor (and Jesuit) who doesn't use a computer. Now Fr. F says that T could work for the CIA, having successfully deciphered such difficult handwriting! T loved that, too, though. There's not much that discourages him.. he's an eternal optimist! So that's our plan for this week... Next week we're going to CA to visit my fambily :) which will be wonderful. Until then, I must somehow manage to finish the report that's due for work this Friday (eek!) and coordinate details for events while I'm gone. Exciting times...