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This time next week, I will be in New Orleans. Louisiana, for the 2013 South Central Modern Language Association (SCMLA) conference.  There, I will be presiding over the two panels allocated to Old and Middle English, and I hope to attend one or two other panels that are of some interest to me.  At this point, my beloved wife plans to join me on the little trip--so those who will be in the area and want to stop on by are welcome.  I'm sure we can figure out something to do to entertain ourselves without putting the pending little one in too much danger.

I tend to look forward to conferences.  In past years, I have not had as much time among working scholars as I would like (it is true that things are better now), and trips to conferences such as SCMLA have afforded me the opportunity to be back among my own people again (I am still going to go to conferences even though matters are improved).  Too, because SCMLA is relatively broad in its treatment, it allows me the chance to sit in on panels whose topics are unfamiliar to me and from which I can therefore learn much.  My coursework as a graduate student was markedly generalist, and my research continues to reflect a degree of openness in its repeated return to treatment of appropriation and refiguring.  SCMLA helps me to be able to do so, offering me access to ideas and resources I would not otherwise have considered--or even been able to consider.

There is this, too: I have friends (shocking, I know), some of whom I only see at conferences.  The International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo is remarkable for it; each year, I meet new and amazingly interesting people there, and each year I reconnect with others whose awesomeness I encountered in previous years, furthering relationships that produce new insight and damned good times.  SCMLA is not as intense an experience as the Congress--the broader focus prevents it--but the variety of locations allows it to offer more in the way of interesting times outside of planned events, and there are people whom I tend to see again only at SCMLA.  Having access to the other interesting things makes the re-encounters all the better.

Because I will be out, it will be the case that my blogging will slow down a bit.  I have been making an effort to make a post of around 500 words each day, and while I have not been as successful as I should like, I have been getting better about it.  The past couple of weeks have demonstrated it, and I am looking to continue as much as I can.  I am like to come back from the trip with a report on my activities--and I am already planning to propose a special session for the 2014 SCMLA conference in Austin, Texas.  If you know that you have something to say about fighting words, get it ready to go and let me know; I have had good luck getting on the card so far...