Good leads

I have got to say, that as an oral learner (ie: someone who processes and remembers information they receive orally -- as opposed to written or visual or tactile learners), I love academic conferences. I soak up as many talks as I can, take tons of notes, make all sorts of exciting intellectual leaps along the way. I feel like every conference is the equivalent of a Master's degree. By the last day, I had re-outlined my dissertation and chosen a new test case, figured out how to revise an article that was recently rejected, and had enough info I thought for a case or two on boat burials. I am therefore a bad person to ask about how a conference was, because I judge a conference on how much intellectual stimulation I got out of it, not on how well organized it was, how good the food was, how nice the hotel, how good the whether, how many people found me charming and amazing, not even on how well my paper did or did not go over. I'm there to hear what other people have to say. 

I did also get some leads on a few other projects for the future, which is also nice. Phil for instance suggested a pretty cool possible archaeological site at the farm he works at during the summers. Which rather surprised me since he seemed a bit dismissive of archaeology when I asked him a question after his (very good) talk.

I wonder if anyone would ever want to hear the narrative of how I managed to get almost every single paper I heard to have some tangential influence on my own dissertation. Phil's paper for instance got me to discard one potential test case I had been considering, which then led to a day or two of intense thinking of a good alternative, and a wonderful feeling of victory when I came up with one. 

So, that's how the conference was, in my own private Idaho.