I'm a real academic now

[charloween]

After months of anticipation, my first academic conference has come and gone. I'm still in the UK (at Gatwick), but the crazy Japanese-style capsule hotel I'm staying at has free wifi, so I can update! And be cowed by the state of my inbox. The important thing is that my paper was well-received by most of the people there. I don't feel like I wasted my time or money, I met some fun people, learned stuff and got to spend nearly two whole days alone at the end of it all (a needed people-buffer).

I'll say one thing for a Doctor Who conference... it's probably the only place where you'll hear a paper on the Lacanian construction of the self, go on a tea break, and then trade fic recs with one of the writers on Doctor Who. The entire week has been surreal but mostly awesome. One highlight was the paper that more-or-less mathematically proved that Torchwood was fandom crack... there was a picture of a half-naked Methos involved. thucyken, you should have been there. There were charts!

One revelation was that audience studies is a lot further along than I'd been led to believe. It's very exciting.

The horrible part, though, is that after four straight days of talking about Torchwood means that now I want to go back and watch it again. Even after everyone there agreed that it's a bad, bad show.

I'm off to another conference again in a few weeks, though not presenting this time. And it looks like I'll be getting some cash up fron tfor that, which will be a nice change. What with this conference, that conference and house-sitting for my sister, I don't think I'm going to be home much before January.



This time, the water tower thing was actually running, and not covered in strawberries.

okay, more pictures later when Photobucket isn't being a meanie meanie meanie meanie. We found the tourist info centre entrance to Torchwood, and there was a creepy-as-anything "Santa's Grotto" in the middle of the town. Alas. When I get back to Canada and my own internet connection (and my own time zone!) I'll post them.

Comments

[serrico.livejournal.com]

Yay, fannish academia! :)

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Oh, totally. I don't think I want to watch any Who for a while. Overload! But it was still really cool.

I have two seasons of Hamish Macbeth for you. The websites say there are more DVDs out there, but alas - neither HMV nor Zavvi had them.

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

BROWNCOAT!

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

INORITE! If only the Alliance had fallen through a rift, then the Independents would have stood a chance. Actually, River could probably call down some righteous Rift action on those purplebellies and zap them into oblivion...

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

Or maybe some Daleks could show up, and the Alliance and Daleks could fight and take each other out!

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Oh man. Daleks would make mincemeat of the Alliance.

And River would probably find a way to keep a pet Dalek, like, use her brain to neuter it and make it into a maintenance bot. With a frilly apron. GOOD MOR-NING CAP-TAIN REY-NOLDS. WOULD YOU LIKE SOME EGGS AND FRESH BA-CON FOR BREAK-FAST?!

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

And Mal would be all skeptical about the Dalek, but Jayne would be sold as soon as he heard the Dalek say there was fresh bacon for breakfast.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

"Shaddup, Mal. Can't you see the thing is trying to cook us breakfast? When was the last time you had gorram proper breakfast with real meat and all? No sense in getting uptight about it being a cyborg or whatever. And if that's the way you feel, well... more bacon for the rest of us. Right, Doc?"

Simon has to pause at the door - he'd just wanted to get some water to make tea, but now he seemed to be drawn in to an ethical debate about whether a former killing machine should be cooking them breakfast. Mindful that Mal could space him, Jayne could break him and the dalek had a body-mounted evaporation laser, Simon seriously considered claiming that he was a vegetarian and therefore that he should be excused from answering.

[piratefanatic.livejournal.com]

SO MUCH WIN.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

It was totally weird to be back. Weird but awesome. I finally figured out what city Cardiff reminds me of: Halifax, NS. Which will mean nothing if you've never been there, but it's a port city that used to be all about shipping (and still is) but is also gentrifying, working the tourism angle, has a university and an arts scene, and so on.

We had better weather on our trip. Believe me.

[omicron34.livejournal.com]

Congrats with your presentation....we're still weathering out a strike over here :P not missing much.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Thanks! My brother said that undergrads are holding anti-strike rallies, which is rather scary.

[omicron34.livejournal.com]

Yup...that is true....next thing it'll be the clash of the titans..choice of weapon...picket signs.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

Don't forget - we have fire on our side.

[omicron34.livejournal.com]

Curses, flaming picket signs *RETREAT!!!

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

See? Grad school gives you that extra edge.

[deleriumd.livejournal.com]

I wanna be covered in strawberries.

And the dryingthebones@hotmail.com is still the best

I'm praying the compy will live so I can finish a 10 page paper on international law and it's fun...ness.

[naturelf.livejournal.com]

They were big 2D strawberries.

International law sounds excellent. I... don't have any schoolwork. Everything's on hold.