Maybe I am all that

Email today from Bidar Aharon, organizer of this conference in the Spring I've mentioned before. In September he contacted me requesting that I prepare a paper and provide some suggestions for others to invite. I was flattered, and wrote him back. I mentioned back then that I understood the difference between "a paper please!" and "we'll pay all your expenses". In corresponding with him, I indicated that I was currently "without papers" so to speak, and would appreciate any support they might offer me, to assist my coming.

A few weeks ago, I was taken aback by his immediate and enthusiastic response to my abstract submittal. Today's email brought the following message from Bidar:

Dear Articulate

I'm trying to procure some funds for you, and some others from the States, and what I'm going to do is apply to [Funding Source] for you and the others to do a kind of keynote panel. We'll see if it works... What I need from you is a cost for travel, and any other expenses.

Wow! Um, yeah, sure. It's nice to be treated like this, even if it's all tentative at the moment. I'm simply unused to being courted like this. I think of Bright Star's recent comments about being courted for a faculty post. Who knows? Maybe that's next.