Christmas Came Early

This is a short blurb that makes me so grateful and happy for the new year. Today I received word from the Sigma Tau Delta National English Honor Society that my T.S. Eliot research paper was accepted for presentation in the national convention this year. From the numbers that had submitted this year, I was accepted and have been told it is a huge honor. I was already excited and began planning the events in which I needed to arrange my teaching schedule. Then at midnight I happened to glance at my email on my phone. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a message from MAMA (a Medieval conference) that my Margery Kempe research paper had been accepted in their conference. This was the moment I decided that Christmas came early. I immediately emailed my professors and department chairs a second time this evening to inform them of this conference. With the first, i was told it must be some record I hold with a fellow graduate student to have three conferences in a year. Yet, at midnight, it became four. So, not only do I teach this semester, I go to Hawaii to present on Shakespeare, then to Kentucky to present on Margery Kempe, then to New Orleans to present on T.S. Eliot. This past year's work has become a fruitful harvest for the upcoming year. And it is interesting, I get to teach English 4, Brit Lit....and all my research is Brit Lit from Medieval to Modern. Excitement is not the word for this. I wonder if travel and presenting myself to people is the theme of the year?