PTSD

It's a month of football

This means that non-football-loving PTSD readers (yes, all of yous) will most likely be hugely bored by the time I am done with this month. I will write on the hellish few days preceeding last week's BNC and SmallRegionalConference deadlines in my next post. Suffice it to say that I am never leaving things this late again. Never. Yes, I know both PTSD members said pretty much the same thing last year but this time I mean it. Really. I do.

I was on the bus on my way to New York, frantically trying to see if any of the other panellists had sent amended versions (or even titles--are titles too much to ask for?) of papers so I could send it off when I got there.* Oh, and try carrying around a fairly large notebook computer about with you in the cold and the rain and the wet of the past few days. I'm actually hugely surprised my computer's still alive.**

New York was excellent as ever, especially since it was LilSis's first time there. We did the usual walking around and the (usual, when my family's involved) arguments and the (usual, again, since none of us has any sense of direction) getting lost.*** We also saw Sweeney Todd, which was fantastic. Who knew murderous barbers singing songs about their nefarious deeds could be so much fun?

This week involves much work. Getting things ready for various classes that folks (including me, but I'm mostly a TA) are teaching over the summer, amending a draft of a paper I finished a couple of weeks ago, wondering what to do with LilSis if her visa to Kiwiland does not come through by Friday, starting on the reading list to prepare for the first day of the Workshop in SmallTownVA (starts this weekend) and, of course, the World Cup (starts Friday).

To whet your appetites for Friday, read this. Now, I just need the names of a few Chinese pirate web sites so I, too, can watch footy matches while in the midst of workshopping about terrorists.



* E had sent an amended abstract though I never got it. I also made up titles for most of the papers on the panel. The strange similarity in titles will hopefuly be ignored by the BNC panel-pickers. The upshot of this tale is that I shouldn't be the one submitting panels for any Conferences from now on. Ever. I'll leave this part of the job to other people who do it better (and who don't accidentally press the "Enter" button so that the submission gets sent off without the contact details of one of the panellists. Thankfully, that was an easy one to correct).

** A shout out to Acer right here from me. My first-ever computer, the one I saved up by picking fruit--lychees, mangoes (mostly), grapes (payment included free bottles of wine), bananas (requiring machetes--better not to ask) and tomatoes--from Northern Australia to Southern Australia, in over 40 degrees (Celcius) weather, was also an Acer. It's still working, despite having been through many mishaps, including being thrown down a mountainside in Wales.

*** Umm...yes, getting lost in NYC is rather difficult, what with its well-planned city centre. Needless to add, we still managed it with ease.

posted by Priya @ 3:14 PM