So yesterday I arrived in Pittsburgh, PA, en route to the first stop on my NEDAwareness Week speaking tour.
I was headed to a place called (by serious folks) “Slippery Rock” and (by not so serious folks) the “Wet Pebble”.
My driver and I hypothesized about the possible mysterious origins of this name – ancient Indian language translation? Mining incident?
We may never know.
But I knew from the moment I arrived in Pittsburgh Airport – an airport, by the way, that by 5am in the morning makes Houston Intercontinental Airport look like a small town pretender – that this would be no ordinary adventure.
For starters, this was my airport greeter:
Yes. As a matter of fact, that is a giant T. Rex.
Luckily, when I arrived at Slippery Rock University, my student greeter was much less intimidating:
Kaitlyn and me.
Kaitlyn and her student co-leader Dave have enough energy to power 10 of me….for a full week. Or maybe a year. The amazing things they are doing at Slippery Rock University – like scheduling and promoting a whole week-long Diversity awareness forum, speaking out against violence against women (and people), fostering understanding and acceptance of LGBT individuals….it is hard to wrap my mind around how inspiring these two young people really are.
I am grateful for the chance to visit SRU, meet Kaitlyn and Dave and the wonderful students who attended “Beauty Undressed”, and for good weather and (hope hope hope) smooth flights.
p.s. I am also very grateful for the fact that my flight home will be taking off soon so I can add to the 4 totally inadequate hours of sleep I got between when the event ended last night and when my driver picked me up this morning (at 4am) to come back to Pittsburgh Airport.
p.p. s. It is also worth mentioning that my greeter (see “T. Rex” above) looked every bit as grumpy and sleep-deprived as I felt this morning.
