On the Saint Mary's University "Queering Ireland" conference

... and here I am, floating around yet another strange city. Story of my life these days, it seems. I just got in to Ottawa-- my flight from Halifax was so early it bordered on red-eye. The flight was at 06:40am, so I had to leave the hotel at 04:30. And since last night was the final night of the conference, everyone was dragged out to a bar, so I really only got about two hours of sleep. All I want to do now is nap and shower, not necessarily in that order, but the hotel check-in isn't until 3pm. And it's 8:30am right now. They let me stow my suitcase, though, and right now I'm having coffee in the hotel restaurant. I might take a walk around town and get my bearings, maybe do a bit of shopping-- I want a new coat, and I feel like Canada is a good place for coat-buying.


So my combination jetlag-sleep deprivation aside, it's been a fantastic weekend so far. The conference was brilliant, in both the American understanding of the word and the British-Irish colloquial sense. Great papers, great talks, and an overall great group. It was small enough that we were able to really get a dialogue going, and rather than being like lectures the talks ended up being more of a conversation most of the time. A conversation that was continued at the bar in the evening. The whole tone of the thing was very informal and friendly; I originally brought a suit to wear for my talk, but then after seeing that the other conference participants were overwhelmingly in jeans, I went for a much more casual outfit. At first I was rather intimidated, because after all I'm just a lowly unpublished graduate student and maybe 75% of the people at the conference were professors who have books and monographs and journal articles all over the place. But everyone was very friendly and supportive, and there wasn't any distinction made between the Doctors and non-Doctors. So, overall, it was an incredibly positive experience.

I also got to drink some truly excellent dirty martinis and sleep in the most comfortable bed I've ever encountered, so that was pretty nice too. The only regret I have is not really being able to see Halifax-- I got in late Thursday night, spent all day Friday and Saturday at talks, and then left early Sunday morning. What I glimpsed of the town seemed very cool, so I definitely have to come back some day, maybe even for a proper vacation!