Well, I'm back

WOW!

What a weekend! It turned out that there was not rain the entire time (in fact, very little of it) and I didn't need that umbrella. What I needed was sunscreen - which I didn't bring - so as I type this, my nose is shining a beautiful Rudolph-esque red (which I really hope fades by tomorrow when I have to go out in public again!)

But even aside from the sunny weather, the conference itself was fabulous! It was great to be with so many people who are doing that "weird" pop culture stuff like I do. And the level of discourse in some of those papers was amazing! There were some really cogent and intelligent arguments about the most mundane phenomena - the stuff that we enjoy and take in almost without thinking much of the time. It was stimulating to hear those papers and engage in the discussions that follow!

I feel energized and excited about not only the projects that people were presenting on, but on my own work. One paper in particular was doing much the same kind of thing (very different texts) as I am in the paper this week (man, I'm gonna be tired by the time that one's over!) and I had a long discussion with its author and he gave me a copy of his paper about it, which gave me some great ideas for revising my paper and fixing some of the places where I was having a problem making things relate to each other easily.

My body is exhausted (the hostel was right in the middle of the club district of downtown San Diego - noise, not activity), but my mind in energized, and I've got a boost of energy and feel inspired to keep going - just what I needed about now.

(I need to figure out a way to get to next year's conference!)