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“You’re right. Let’s go.”
I follow John and Mark out to the car. John puts on a podcast as soon as we’re on the road. It’s about how students are taught writing through high school, and how that writing differs from the actual academic and professional writing they’ll have to do in the future. I find it fascinating. I’m interested in subjects like that. I don’t mind learning about literature, but I prefer more practical applications.
“Look!” John cries out when we’re about halfway to our destination. “A moose!”
My eyes widen, and I look to where John is pointing. Sure enough, there’s a young moose grazing on the side of the road. I open the window to get a better look as John slows to a stop and puts the hazards on.
“Go on, check it out!”
I shake my head. “I can’t!”
“Just stay a safe distance away, and you’ll be fine.”
I hesitate, but when will I ever get an opportunity to be this close to a moose again? The answer is never, so I get out of the car. Mark and John follow me.
The moose looks up at us curiously, but he must not find us threatening because he just continues eating his late breakfast. I pull out my phone and take a few photos. I’m about ten feet away from the animal! I can see the different shades of brown in his fur. His antlers are starting to come in, but they’re still small.
His parents are probably somewhere nearby. I don’t know if moose are aggressive, like bears, when someone gets too close to their young, but I don’t want to find out the hard way.
“We should go. Thank you for stopping. I can’t believe we’re so close to a moose!”
“I’m just glad we got to see another one. And I’m sure there will be even more during our adventures.”
I hope so. I hope we see more animals as we drive and hike, too. It’s so cool to see the creatures I normally see on TV or in zoos right out in the wild. That moose might be the highlight of my entire trip.
The rest of the drive is filled with a few more animal sightings. We don’t have time to stop and stare at the rest, but John promises we’ll see more on the trip. I’m tempted to skip the conference so I can continue looking for animals, plants, and trees to photograph, but I can’t do that. Mark and John paid for my conference entry, and I won’t waste their money that way.
After we park, John, Mark, and I make our way inside the convention center.
“Where do we go?” Mark asks, looking around.
“That way,” John responds. He points at a sign that says, “Effigies of Femininity in Western Literature.”
I squint at the conference name. I have no idea what that means. The guys must because they walk in the direction of the arrow on the sign.
Maybe this was a mistake. I’ve never been to a conference before, and here I am attending one with a subject I don’t understand. I should’ve told the guys not to buy me a pass. I would’ve been better off at the hotel.
Then again, if I’d stayed behind, I wouldn’t have seen the moose. I think that one experience with nature is worth the anxiety currently settling in the pit of my stomach.
I walk slowly behind Mark and John. There are a few people mulling about near the entrance to the conference, and they all look like they belong here. The women are dressed like me, but somehow, they look fancier. The men look like the kinds of hipsters I’d see in Brooklyn. It’s exactly what I expected, yet I’m totally intimidated. What was I thinking? I can’t attend an academic conference! I’m only nineteen. I haven’t even finished my first semester of freshman year!
I stop in my tracks. It takes Mark and John a few beats to realize I’m no longer following them.
“What’s wrong?”
I point toward the door. “I think I’ll hang out outside while you guys are in there.”
John chuckles. “Relax, Mari. You’ll be fine.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t know what the conference is even about. What does that title mean?”
“Many books in the western canon were written by men,” Mark explains. “So they’re usually gender-biased. Sometimes it’s outright, but sometimes it’s more subtle.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“There are many representations of women in literature in ‘effigy’ form, such as shadows of women, or scarecrows of women, or even cadavers of women. Instead of showing a full, three-dimensional representation of women, they’re portrayed as singular objects with no say in what happens to them. Many people, including us, believe this is discriminatory against women.”
Wow. This is more intense than I’d expected. I thought conferences were more people sitting around and chatting about literature. I didn’t think they got so deep into meaning and discrimination and stuff. I am totally out of my element here. I usually shut down in class when the conversations get this real.
