OK, I'm here at MSU for the LAND Conference, where two colleagues and I presented a panel on Remix Culture: Copyright and Plagiarism in the Digital Age. (It went really well. We've been invited to present it at a community college up around Saginaw, and we think we're going to try to get on the program at the League for Innovation in the fall . . . )

So a colleague and I have taken a few hours this afternoon to walk over to the MSU library to do some research. I have a paper that's got to get out by Monday (I really am terrible about this stuff; I procrastinate and throw things together in the last minute, and I really really shouldn't do that!), and so I'm here looking for books.

It's such an eerily familiar activity, and place. Even weirder to be here again now that we live here . . . I made my way to the same floor, followed the same stripes on the floor to the same areas where I've always done research. The collections have changed, of course, but my old favorite books are still where they used to be; and my old favorite places to sit are still there. But there's a coffee shop here now, and I'm connecting via wireless internet on my laptop while sitting in the location where the card catalogs used to be; it all makes me feel like a time-traveler.

But on the other hand, it's also making me feel like an academic, too. (This is always dangerous for me. It leaves me vulnerable to start the cycle of: 1. Think up a really cool idea. 2. Promise to write something. 3. Put it off. 4. Rail, wail, and be miserable. 5. Write it. 6. Feel proud. I just implored Louise to gag me the next time I say I want to write an academic article . . . and here I am, getting all caught up again . . . )

Well, my colleague should be wandering back soon and we have to walk back to the Kellogg Center for the rest of our conference - and me with about 30 pounds of books to carry now, too . . . Plus ca change, plus la meme chose . . . :)