Finally (!) an Acceptance

No, I have not been twiddling my thumbs over here: I've actually been working my butt off (and, like half of the grad students in my office, I've been sick for weeks), and I'm finally seeing the fruits of my labor - I got accepted to the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association conference in April! 

My luck with conferences has been, well, no luck at all, and my goal for this semester was either to 

1.  Finally get accepted somewhere after already having been rejected at 5 conferences; or 

2.  Really (depressingly) impress myself with 10 rejections total by year's end. 

I have to say, I'm pleased with the outcome :). 

On top of writing up an abtract for PCA/ACA (which took me unusually long for some reason), I wrote a different one for a conference in Louisville and submitted creative work for their creative panel, and I'm in the midst of organizing a panel on a different topic for the Narrative Conference - a bad*ss international conference being held in Las Vegas in March. 

B/c Narrative is so super awesome it's really hard to get into and they don't have much love for grad students I've been told. So, I'm not holding my breath. Even so, I've got an assistant prof. on my panel and a doctoral student with a number of publications, and I think all our papers sound pretty strong. Basically, I'm keeping my fingers crossed but not gonna freak out over a rejection (besides, after 5, I'm so far beyond freaking out about such things). 

Anyway, good things are happening, and the stress and time suck that is applying to these things is winding down for the time being, especially since I'm not applying to ALA b/c I've got stuff going on during May when the conference is scheduled. Spring already promises to be busy as I'm reading in a creative writing reading series sponsored by the department and most likely presenting in a university program that features researchers on campus as well as from outside the university. 

Finally finally finally! I'm exhausted, but I feel so much less loser-y. And it's a good conference to boot :).