York and the meeting of like-minded folk

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The Conversation Analysis and Clinical Encounters meeting has been much anticipated in my academic calendar since attending in Plymouth two years ago. This year's has been alternatively challenging, inspiring, motivating, nerve-wreaking and educational.

This three day meeting was just as good as two years ago, if not better. Particular highlights were the talks by Jeffrey Robinson, Nikki Britten and John Heritage (all fantastic contributions). I was too nervous for my talk, which was disappointing. There were lots of good papers and discussions and I have come away feeling excited about what is coming up next in my academic life.

On Tuesday evening after dinner on campus, Israel and I headed into the city to take in the sights of York by night. We wandered around for a couple of hours and finished with a drink at a fairly empty, but rather quaint pub.

On Wednesday, Israel and I headed into York proper again, this time for lunch. We found the John Bull sweets shop and bought fudge and coconut ice, had tea and a rarebit scone at Betty's and ate lunch at a vegan restaurant called El Piano. In the evening we had the conference dinner at Barley Hall in the city. THere was a pretty cool exhibition there about historical fashion, which used costumes from movies and television throughout (I could pick which Jane Austen film/TV adaptations that a each hat in row of six was from). The food was ok, but the atmosphere and the company made up for it. We then went to the bar next door for a drink. Around 11pm, five of us decided to walk back to the university, which was a pleasant way to wind down from the evening.

On Thursday, there was little social activity. Most people left and for those staying on for the early careers workshop there was dinner at a cafeteria on campus... most of us then absented ourselves to prepare talks or just relax after a fairly intense three days.

Looking forward to the next two days!!

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