Oh a conferencing I will go!

Well folks, the quarter is over, the husband and I are in a fancy place for my conference and I've been conferencing away.

Can I say that it has been an amazing conference? OMG! It's like the raddest one yet, yo! I feel a little bad because I've been actually "conferencing," going to panels and stuff, and the husband has just been hanging out, but one of our friends from BLT-U is here, too (we were on the same panel), and he has NOT been conferencing at all except our panel, so the husband has been hanging out with him. I feel bad; we've not actually seen any of the sights yet or really done anything--the husband has walked and run around the city so far, but even with our lack of touristing, it's actually been a bit of a vacation. I finished my paper up the morning we left, so I wouldn't have to worry about it. I did some read throughs (right? is that the right word? why can't I think this morning?) and some small edits here and there, but it was nice not to have to "work" on the paper while at the conference. I had some grand plans for what we'd do here, and there's still today though. There have been three other panels that I've needed to go to though besides mine: the one I chaired, the other society's panel, and my old prof's and friend's panel. Today I need to go to one more and then that's it until the reception thingy.

Also, one of my friends from grad school is here! I didn't know she was going to be here until the day I got to the conference when I was looking at the program at the airport. I haven't seen her since she graduated five years ago! Or maybe it'll be closer to six. Anyway, she and her husband hung out with our group twice and last night we really got to catch up on a lot of stuff, and while we were friends at Grad City U, I do wish that we had hung out more than we did, but we both were really always sort of on autopilot with our stuff. But anyway, it's been so wonderful to hang out with her and meet her husband and her husband and mine really hit it off, so that was great to see that, too.

Our panel went amazing, btw. One of the best attended that I had seen, and it helped that it was scheduled at a very choice time, too. My former prof/mentor/friend came and said it was the best of my papers I had done yet (and this is four he has seen now), and he's been really supportive and encouraging with the writing and keeping the fire to my feet regarding publishing. One of his friends from grad school, another person in the field, also came too and had some really positive things to say about it and gave me a little applause when I was done with my paper.

What I love about this conference and why I go broke every summer trying to come to it and why I bust my ass and get stressed out about the deadlines and stuff right after Christmas is because this conference has been really really good for me. Since the last three of my four papers have dealt with the same field of study (the one five years ago, when I was still a grad student came from my diss and was by far the worst of the papers), I am now being sort of groomed, perhaps for lack of a better word, for the field by the top scholars in the field right now. And this is what's great about this group and the conference--they think my ideas are good; they are encouraging me and helping me network and giving me advice about what I need to do to help to make sure I get the scholarship I need to get out there for myself, for the field, and for tenure. That's what's wonderful about them--they are senior, established scholars who are good friends with even more senior and established scholars, and they're not like "talk to me when you have a book" people. So they are trying to foster the development of the field with the people they want to see in it, and they are very welcoming to junior scholars (whether grad student or early career profs).

The other thing, too, and this struck me last night as my grad school friend and I were talking, because she's disillusioned it seems with the publishing stuff for tenure and feels confined by the ebbing and flowing of trends in scholarship (although it sounds, as always, that she is doing some brilliant stuff in the field she is slowly moving in to), and feels very much like "who cares about this stuff? like four people?" At which point you have to do something publishable that *you* enjoy and care about. What I like about how this conference has developed for me is that there are more than four people out there who care about the stuff that I'd like to do. Or maybe it still really is just the same four people in the field, but the point is that they care enough for it to be important for the field that it does matter in the grand scheme of things. And that's what I get out of this conference and being around this group of scholars. Unlike MLA (I know there are those of you who love the MLA, so no offense to you) where I leave the conference just wanting to kill myself because I feel like everyone is walking around hoping to detect a fraud or looking for the stars (which admittedly is a cool thing about MLA, and Dr. Crazy has a cool story from last year's MLA if I remember correctly). But here, I feel like I matter. I feel energized and ready to go forth and do scholarship when I leave this conference. I feel revitalized and reinvigorated by my field and my ideas and other people's ideas. I learn new things at this conference.  And I think it's important for non-tenured folks to feel like they matter.

My grad school friend and I were talking about how demoralizing the tenure process can be even at places where the scholarship requirements are not a book, and that's one of the things that helps me at this conference--the last thing I feel here is demoralized or stupid. And granted this year at the new job has not been one of demoralization at all (sadness and disappointment over my friend's tenure denial, but not demoralization; perhaps a week of disillusionment and frustration here and there, but not demoralization), but I think we all need to feel like we're doing something worthwhile, for our field, for our students, for ourselves. We all need to feel important every once in a while in a meaningful way. And that's why I like this conference and why I've switched fields. I know that there are people out there reading when I'm working on, paying attention to what I'm working on, and people care about what I have to say. It's not just about publishing crap but about being a part of a conversation about stuff I love with other people who are invested in the same books and ideas I am. It's about the ideas and sharing those ideas with this group. And I'm thankful and lucky that I get to be a part of that, especially this early in my career.