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Semester 2 of my MA -- Begin!
Jan. 11th, 2011 01:30 pmWell, here I am. It's an office once again, but reasonably warm, so I am happy. I've got a can of soda in my fridge for when I next need one, my books for my first class are surrounding me on my desktop, and my friends and fellow students are coming and going from their own offices. It's good to see everyone again. I am abnormally dressed up, as the class I'm acting as writing instructor for is this afternoon -- enough so that when I picked up my books, the lady processing the orders said, "English teacher?" Yay, I have costumed myself correctly. Go me.
Last night was sort of a double-deadline sort of night. I both sent off an abstract for a conference paper and ran a session of Dresden. Took me forever to get myself and everyone else on task -- just hearing other conversations was enough to completely throw off my train of thought. I haven't been that badly scattered for some time, or at least haven't noticed it. One of my players tried to help me not beat myself up over it, and I said, "It's just really frustrating. It's like I'm trying to pull myself together and focus, but the surface tension is too great, so I'm all WHEEEEEE!" (complete with arm waving like a crazy person.) He found it amusing, at least, and it did get better. We didn't get started until late, but everyone was pretty focused once we got over the hump. It went pretty well. Totally not what I'd planned for the evening, but pretty well nonetheless.
As for my abstract... it was short. Shorter than it needed to be by about 100 words. I kept feeling like something was missing, but I couldn't think of what it was, and there was no time left to run it by anyone else. Honestly, I don't expect it to be accepted... which is okay, honestly. It would be awesome to go, but it would mean a lot of upheaval this summer and I'm not sure how I feel about that. If it weren't the boys' first summer out to see me, it would be different. Taking off time to leave the country (the conference is on Gothic literature and it's at the University of Heidelburg in Germany) means shortening time with my kids visiting, as I can't afford to take them, and I feel... awkward about that. Plus it coincides with GenCon, so no GenCon this year if I get accepted. On the other hand, Europe and paper presentations! It's a hard life, I know. I'll cope somehow.
Anyway. Have to read through Book II of Paradise Lost for tomorrow. Time's a-wastin'. Later. :)
Last night was sort of a double-deadline sort of night. I both sent off an abstract for a conference paper and ran a session of Dresden. Took me forever to get myself and everyone else on task -- just hearing other conversations was enough to completely throw off my train of thought. I haven't been that badly scattered for some time, or at least haven't noticed it. One of my players tried to help me not beat myself up over it, and I said, "It's just really frustrating. It's like I'm trying to pull myself together and focus, but the surface tension is too great, so I'm all WHEEEEEE!" (complete with arm waving like a crazy person.) He found it amusing, at least, and it did get better. We didn't get started until late, but everyone was pretty focused once we got over the hump. It went pretty well. Totally not what I'd planned for the evening, but pretty well nonetheless.
As for my abstract... it was short. Shorter than it needed to be by about 100 words. I kept feeling like something was missing, but I couldn't think of what it was, and there was no time left to run it by anyone else. Honestly, I don't expect it to be accepted... which is okay, honestly. It would be awesome to go, but it would mean a lot of upheaval this summer and I'm not sure how I feel about that. If it weren't the boys' first summer out to see me, it would be different. Taking off time to leave the country (the conference is on Gothic literature and it's at the University of Heidelburg in Germany) means shortening time with my kids visiting, as I can't afford to take them, and I feel... awkward about that. Plus it coincides with GenCon, so no GenCon this year if I get accepted. On the other hand, Europe and paper presentations! It's a hard life, I know. I'll cope somehow.
Anyway. Have to read through Book II of Paradise Lost for tomorrow. Time's a-wastin'. Later. :)
