Oxford was...well, Oxford, really: gorgeous ancient stone bridges and buildings, cool little French cafes and creperies, the biggest bookstores I've ever seen. Talk about my dream city! :)

Sadly, I didn't have much time in the town itself, because I was busy with the conference for most of the time I was there. It was fun in that hectic conference-y way--lots of interesting people, each of whom I talked to for about 2 minutes at a stretch, before crowds remingled and new conversations started. Interesting, yes; good for my career, yes; exhausting, definitely. But my paper went really well, and best of all, I won one of the five grants being given out to graduate students at the conference, which was a wonderful surprise. (At the end of my particular session, the treasurer of the Society came up to me, said, "Stephanie, I have a check for you," and handed it to me. Woohoo! Suddenly, the financial month ahead looks much, much rosier.)

But coming home to Patrick and Nika was the best part. We celebrated muchly, Nika's been clinging very close ever since I got back home, and we're about to eat luscious apple-and-banana bread. We also went out to see House of Flying Daggers this afternoon, which was wonderfully fun. We've been a bit rushed, actually, ever since I got home--that's the problem with trying to fit an entire weekend into one day!--but it's been great anyway. And, best of all, I finally seem to have ripped through my writing block on Music of the Stars, and I managed to write over three pages of it today. Yay!

Tomorrow it's back to normal work, as well as catching up on all the emails and crits I owe. But we're going to start off with an early-morning coffee shop session, to start the day off right (and to celebrate my story "Inside the Tower" going up tomorrow morning on Strange Horizons!).

It's really good to be back home.