My life in State College: Criticism

I'm not sure I'll ever find it easy to take criticism...even when it's well-meaning. I gave a practice conference talk in my department last week (going to a big conference in Chicago on Friday). It went alright, but it was overwhelming at the end.

I also gave a talk at a small conference this past weekend, but it was here in State College. It was a low key event - a chapter meeting of Central PA German teachers. My talk there went swimmingly though, and it motivated me to get preparing for next weekend's much bigger talk.

In academic contexts, all you do is get criticized and questioned, though not necessarily in a bad way. People like to engage, discuss, question preconceived ideas and so on. No problems there.

But it's tough to take criticism when it's from your peers, even when they are right. You have to swallow your pride and re-organize. And when they try to help you make your work better they are often doing it because they think your stuff is actually really cool, and want it to be presented in the best way possible. I am thankful for the support of my department community in these areas - and am happy I put myself out there and came out alive ;)

And yes, this weekend, I'm off to Chicago (!) for the annual Applied Linguistics conference. I can't wait to see some of my friends who are no longer at my institution and... hang out in Chicago. But more importantly, I look forward to the unique feeling of being surrounded by some of the most brilliant thinkers in the field. Plus the 1500-2000 others. How neat it feels to be at a conference with so many people who are interested in similar areas. Most are critical thinkers, engaged, participatory, community-minded. They encourage, and yes, they criticize. I hope I get some good feedback from my (to-be-improved) presentation there.

Bis dann!

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”  -Abraham Lincoln