The week of madness is over! And it was quite a success.
Tuesday's conference was definitely the more formal of the two, and a lot of fun because of the interdisciplinary angle it was going for. Everyone was a bit limited in terms of material since we had to impart more basic information than usual to get everyone on the same page, but nonetheless I learned a lot of random and interesting things about topics ranging from WWII salvage to Roman coin propaganda. My own paper went over quite well, I think, and I didn't make a complete fool of myself trying to answer questions, so altogether everything went smoothly. It was a really fun group of people as well, so conversation was excellent and we all went out to dinner afterward. Good times!
As it happens, I noticed (and have been talking to Erin about) how interdisciplinarity seems like a relatively new thing over here, at least from a teaching angle, which I find really interesting. It's making me glad that I did my undergrad in the States, because I get the sense that had I done it over here I would have a much narrower range of knowledge to draw from. So perhaps I did my academic Pond-hopping in the right order after all. It's nice to be able to whip out my random postmodernism and religious studies knowledge when I need it.
Thursday's conference was less formal, but definitely a bit more technical at times given that we were all coming from a literature background. There was definitely some stuff that was totally out of my comfort zone, but nonetheless really fascinating. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone about their work afterward to get some further insight. And again--really awesome group of people, and the day went very smoothly which means really good things for the future of the conference. This is the first time the MA students have put together an event like this, so I think we really impressed the faculty with our organization and enthusiasm.
The next day of course I had my meeting with my advisor, where I got some really helpful feedback on my first section. Basically the main issues I'm having is with style rather than content--I tend to go a bit artsy rather than accurate with my organizational and linguistic choices, so I need to break that habit and really just focus on being straightforward and exact. On the plus side, though, my professor said that my ideas and content are sound, which I suppose is the more important thing in the end. I'm going to try to get my next section done before our last meeting, which can't happen past 12 July, so after taking this weekend off and being a slug I'm going to try to put myself on a fairly rigorous research schedule. We'll see how that (read: my self-discipline), works out.
So all in all, the craziness of the past month or so have paid off quite spectacularly, and I look forward to just concentrating on my one topic now. Oh right, and looking for apartments and jobs in Durham. Yes.
