Travelogue I: Kalamazoo 3-7/May/2006




I finished compiling the travelogue for this trip to the US yesterday afternoon. It's good to write everything down before my poor memory fails me in the near future, or before my anxiety about amnesia gets worse.

The trip consisted of two parts--the academic and leisure--and both were fantastic.
The conference in Kalamazoo went very well. I met some old friends and came to know a lot more enthusiastic medievalists from all over the world. There were plenty of neophytes--first time in Kalamazoo just like me, and a lot more well-established scholars who have been attending this annual event for more than 25 years. Every year, they would come back for this annual meeting and have developed a strong emotional tie between each other after all these years. The idea of "international conference" itself is still a bit intimidating, but I was amazed and moved to find how these medievalists keep returning to meet their old friends and support each other.
It is a great resource of knowledge as well as a celebration of friendship and "familial" reunion.
The academic part was as fruitful as expected, but the fun part went beyond my imagination.



There is a legendary ball for the conference every year. At first, I thought it was a formal drinking reception, but it was not. Every attendee, no matter how serious they look when talking about their studies in the daytime, danced disco. And the most important of all, they were indeed great dancers!! My dancemate and I tried polka, and it was a great fun. I was not very good though, I kept bumping into other couples on the dance floor. Thanks! Vera, Jessica, and Carola. (these girls are great dancemates!) Those worldly-known scholars were terrific polka dancers. I wish I could upload my video clip...

Maybe I should treat seriously the desire to dance from now on.

It is a good lesson in life and work indeed: to have fun and serious life at the same time. The horizon of the view of life and work has been changed, and I am enabled to see a broader and a more positive world.

For more photos about Kalamazoo, check out Kalamazoo under the tag of "Kalamazoo 2006".