Losing My Academic Conference Virginity

I attended, presented and worked at my first academic conference this last week. It was up in Denver and it was wonderful to stay in a baller hotel for free and even more wonderful to get away from my office for a few days as work has become pretty excruciating of late. Here are the things of note:

1. I presented a paper I wrote last semester that I fully intended on revising over the past few months but naturally, didn't. I actually didn't end up even reading it all the way through until the night before I was supposed to present and luckily, as I was reading, my initial thought was the this shit was pretty good. It might be one of my finest papers ever, to my great surprise. I hope I am able to produce history papers like this next semester. The topic of the paper was about the rhetoric in advertisements in feminine hygiene products over the last century. I was able to look at over 100 ads and code them into themes. The paper is interesting, appropriately narrow and even really funny at times. Sweet. For some reason, I am able to think in much narrower terms for my women's studies coursework than for my history coursework and I need to find some way to translate that skill. Anyway, back to my presentation. It went well although my delivery was a little choppy. I presented with another guy my age about his dissertation on cybersexuality in MMORPGs, which also was a fascinating , fascinating project although I secretly suspect he chose the topic purely because he could incorporate his game play into his academic work. People asked questions and had some interesting comments and one professor from New Mexico even wants to use my paper as assigned reading in her Intro to Women's Studies classes, so that is pretty sweet.

2. I learned a great deal about socializing with academics. It comes as only a surprise to me that some are boring, some are interesting and some of them are interesting to me. I tend to idolize academics a little too much sometimes and I need to remember that they are all just people too--sometimes cool people, sometimes awkward people, sometimes people I want to be friends with, sometimes angry and inconsiderate people. I was invited to dinner by both the sociology people and also the history people, although the majority of them were americanists and I fully realize my American history knowledge is not very detailed. I got some cards though and so I feel like this will be useful in the future. I also got to see Abby and one of her colleagues, who was my section leader. I adore Abby to pieces and also, I really, really liked the other sociology people. Unfortunately, I put my foot in my mouth a couple of times and I am sad about that but I think maybe only one person noticed?

3. I'm getting sick. I have not been sick in forever and so this sore throat and cough business is making me even sadder. I am going to make my dad take me to go get Airborne this afternoon so that I can get on top of this unfortunate business. I also seem to have wrenched my knee and I hope that heals quickly so that I can get back to working off all of this week's brownies.

I think that's all. I'm glad I got to attend a fairly low key conference because next year I hope to be able to go to the enormous Medieval Congress in Michigan and possibly the Women's History conference in a couple of years. I like this life. I'm glad I'm getting my doctorate.