A good weekend, over all. The academic conference was great, although I was so exhausted from my 5:55 am wakeup (EARLY train to Cardiff!) that I felt mildly woozy throughout. I got to see people whose names I've known for years, and sometimes I even got to be completely shocked when I realized that they looked COMPLETELY different from the way I'd imagined! (It made it so much more difficult to have an intelligent conversation with one of my big musicological idols when it turned out that, in real life, he looks about 18. On the one hand, I was trying to sound interesting and thoughtful and soak up as much advice from him as possible, but at the same time I kept wanting to ask to see his driver's license and make sure that he really was older than me!)

By the end of the conference day, I was completely dead, mind burned out and body ready to drop. But when Patrick picked me up at the Bristol train station, he had really good news--I got another nice editor email! This time a story of mine is being held for consideration by a really cool-looking new 'zine that has been giving out lots of rejections but is waiting to do acceptances until the end of their reading period. I. Am. So. Pysched! Especially because it's a story that I love but have had terrible luck with--magazines keep saying, "We really liked it but we don't buy retellings of myths"--which would be fine except it isn't one! It's original! Aaargh! I've gotten so paranoid about this point that I nearly wrote "By the way, it's not a retelling! It's mine! Original! New!" on the cover letter this time. (I didn't. I am not that crazy yet. But it was a close call on my part.)

And now I'm trying again to register at my university. Sigh. Oh Bureaucracy, how I love thee.