No, I haven’t been swallowed up into Cultural Studies hell, yet. I surprised myself by enjoying the conference, even down to meeting several decidedly strange delegates; I guess Cultural Studies attracts people who don’t find the weird world of single university departments scary enough. Some of them make English lecturers look normal. They have their own culture: their own way of dressing and speaking, their own (really, really crap) music. I’m calling it music, but there didn’t actually seem to be a tune, just a lot of strange synthesized noises, though that didn’t stop them all boogying around to it. And then they study their own culture and gather together to have a conference about it. I got out OK, just, but then I fled to Ballarat, hoping I’d be safe in a place that isn’t even civilized enough to have internet access.

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