Stone Mountain and Atlanta (1)

I've travelled to Stone Mountain in Georgia in the US for the conference. It was a short trip for about a week, but meaningful to me in that it was the first visit to the US and the first talk in a conference. Talking about the conference tends to be boring to readers and myself. So, I'm gonna make it brief.

The conference took place at Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort. I stayed in the conference hotel for the first two nights and had to move out to the other hotel due to the expensive hotel rate. I was quite nervous in the first day of the conference since I was supposed to give a presentation. To make things worse, my condition was terrible on the first day probably because of food. (I really really hate continental breakfast)

Majority audience were lecturers and professors. My presentation was uncontentious, and the Q&A was quite easy. I find that presentation is always easy, but Q&A is not easy. Q&A is more difficult to execute well, and I want to be good at it. Most people came to the conference as a group, and some people individually came. During the session in which I was, I was able to meet several famous scholars. They are equivalent to Lady Gaga to the students studying the same subject. The invited speaker gave a presentation for his latest research, followed by three presentations for the conference papers.  
 
It was great to meet people, particularly PhD students from other Universities in the US. I've never met such many american people and it was great to talk with american students. I got extremely inspired and motivated during the banquet. It is a great opportunity to look at myself, and I realized that I had been meaninglessly spending such a precious time in the UK. This introspection might be the biggest gain from the conference. 



The banquet at the famous aquarium in Atlanta

 From the third day in the conference, I stayed in the other hotel, located several miles away fron the conference resort. I had to take taxi whenever I move around because there is no public transportation other than taxi. I went hiking to Stone Mountain. Readers can get information from a number of website for Stone Mountain. At the beginning, I imagined a hill, but when I reached the peak of Stone Mountain, I realized that it was a kind of mountain. My T-shirt and my face were completely wet by sweat during hiking and the weather was warm enough to remind me that I was in the South US. The scenery of the town was not very special, but very peaceful probably because of the lake.

After spending half an hour in the peak of the mountain, I felt like to go to the park located in front of the memorial carving depicting three confederate leaders of the Civil War. On the way down, I met two women, on their way up to the mountain, asking me how much they have to walk to get to the peak. I was thinking something which I don't remember now, and it felt like I was at the peak just 5 minutes ago, so I said 5 minutes. They said "Thank you". After they had gone, I realized that it was way more than 5 minutes. I appologize if one of you are reading this now!

Walking around the town Stone Mountain was quite enjoyable. This is probably because I had been busy since I started my study in Oxford. On the day, I was chased by nothing. I've already booked in a hotel in Stone Mountain, so even if I rush looking around the town, there was nothing else I could do in the town after that. This is maybe the reason why I remember the people I saw on the day and my image for the town is so clear.

In the park, unlike my expectation, just a few people were enjoying the sunny day with the memorial carving. I could see American people's effort to commercially exploit their treasure. But unfortunately, they were some construction and refurbishment. At around 5pm I took a taxi, and came back to my hotel.

 

The skyscrapers in the downtown of Atlanta



The memorial carving in Stone Mountain 

Three confederate leaders in the Civil War,
President Jefferson Davis, Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson