PTSD

Checklist of things (not) to do before BNC

10. Have a b'day (that can't be helped, unfortunately. Leads to people taking one out for dinner. Leads to lots of time wasted, time which should have been spent working on various papers but, on the plus side, lots of free food)
9. Realise one's rucksack is with Lil Sis up in Maine. Realise there's no time to get it back. Wonder if US airplanes (not having flown in any yet as all my other travelling within the US was done on land-based transport, to great amusement of the rest of my fellow PhD-ers) will allow passengers to get on them carrying large carryout bags.
8. Wonder if one has any large carry out bags to take on the plane.
7. Contemplate writing paper no. 2 (for Friday) in the time between presenting paper no. 1 and Friday. Wonder where to do that since...
6. Realise that place-to-stay is full. Decide to worry about that when in BNC city.
5. Decide to give up drinking.
4. Watch sports which involve Irish folk winning a trophy with a last-minute try against former colonial masters. Makes following no. 5 impossible as entire pub is up in arms and (free) alcohol is flowing. Realise one might not want to talk about Irish history when not PhD-ing, but one can talk of Irish sports, especially sports with blokes wearing short shorts and looking like this and this.
3. Worry about flying (again, can't be helped. Have reached fatalistic stage now and will be making a will tomorrow. Now that I own a set of used dishes, someone has to have them)
2. Realise a "poster" at BNC actually means double the work: a poster with pictures and all AND a paper. Wonder why one accepted it instead of just going for the panel-ing.
1. Learn that stepping on glasses will lead to a bad end for said glasses and mangled glasses with broken lenses are not conducive to being worn (though I tried). This means ending up with a choice of having to wear either pink or blue glasses for BNC.

posted by Priya @ 11:22 PM