*pictures to come*
The past three days I attended, helped organise, and presented at this top-notch fancy conference at Monash Uni. I’m still reeling emotionally so I apologise in advance for my sloppy writing… I don’t know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with the particularly difficult task of standing in front of 30-40 scholars who have all been to the part of the world that I was presenting on. They’ve all published books and articles. They all speak bahasa. All I can say is “I don’t speak Indonesian”, as well as the main things like “yes”, “please”, “how are you”, and “I’m good, thank you”. This was unsatisfactory.
Never have I ever felt more out of my depth. During my presentation, my voice wavered like it used to in high school, which I thought I’d since gotten a handle on. I managed to stick to the time limit and when question time came a good lot of them asked me questions that they knew I couldn’t answer. One told me outright that many of my assertions were wrong, which was fair because they (probably) were, and he gave me a lot of help afterwards and we’ll be in contact. I have a lot of respect for his writing already. As for the rest of the questions and comments, I could only respond with “I don’t know” and “thank you, I’ll look into that”. Keeping my cool only made them madder, and one lady lashed out at me the following afternoon – “How can you present when you haven’t done any primary research!?” She’s a little unhinged to begin with… Last night she ridiculed me in Indonesian in front of a group of Indonesianists I will be working with over the coming year. I didn’t mention to anyone I’ve only been interested in Indonesian studies for four or five months; I couldn’t afford to lose the single or partial shred of credibility that I already have. This handful of experiences gave the conference an elitist tinge – but this is only my view from below, as an unqualified, may-as-well-be-an-undergraduate, idealistic student. I was the microphone-runner in everyone else’s question time, which I have no issue with, but I think that this labelled me as inferior in the minds of others. It makes me wonder if these are the sorts of people I want to one day count myself among. It makes me wonder that maybe I don’t want to, even when I am eventually accepted. The last three days do not, however, dictate how I myself will end up. And I secretly love being ruthlessly cut down to size; if only for short bursts of time. They are life lessons on fast forward. I have never been more committed to learning bahasa and I’ve been reading the standard ethnomusicology texts like a Hermione.
ANNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDD I have been selected to receive the ANU Indonesia Project Research Travel Grant. I’m going to Indonesia baby! A year of a lifetime lies ahead of me!

N.B. A handful of them were super nice, I don’t mean to generalise. I met some really cool, supportive people also.