Conference thoughts

I don't sleep well when I'm away, and so last night, I lay in bed trying to find the perfect music to put me to sleep. The closest I managed was "Sketches of Spain" by Miles Davis. And tomorrow, I've got a first-thing-in-the-morning presentation which is just lovely, so you know tonight's going to be lovely. Recommendations?

Today, though, what I spent a lot of time doing was thinking about the difference between presentation styles by discipline. Mine tends to do informal presentations, built off notes. Interesting how many focus on reading an entire paper, though. I also got treated to a debate about the relative merits of presentation software. Is Google Presentations really better than PowerPoint or is it just that it isn't made by Microsoft?

Wish me luck!

Maybe I Should Call Myself "Dr. Yossarian"

I do not know how I feel about this week. It should be cake, what with the holiday that wasn't really a holiday and all. But the first day back gave me the first taste of the term of what a back-to-back set of classes that were over-full felt like.

I. am. pooped.

And in weirder, oddly more exhausting news, somehow many people - read: seven - from high school found my Facebook profile, and now I'm interacting with them because it seems weird to decline their friend requests. Worse, though, this seems likely to bring a run-in with The Ex (you know, the one ex who defined what all ex's would be: the crazy one who appears year in and out to remind you why you broke up in the first place). I am not looking forward to this - and perhaps it won't happen.

Also, has anyone had any experience with The International Professor Exchange? It seems harmless and yet, my Curmudgeon-sense tingles. Perhaps it just seems like too good an idea to be true.

I'm in a rush to find a couple of good conferences, too, while trying to navigate my school's Byzantine system for helping with the conference we're presenting. I think Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 about academia and only later substituted in the Army. Today I was sent to electronic forms that aren't being used, told my request to another department on campus must be faxed, and found out that food must be delivered prior to the tables it will rest on.

Hooray.

RBOWhining

• I am too tired to give you context.
• I wish my students who cry at romantic comedies would cry at the news.
• Why do interdepartmental decisions at this school feel like the meeting of the Five Families in "The Godfather"?
  
• Apologies to E. but Daylight Savings Time screws with my head like a college first love. It's true, and I cannot hide it.
  
• most of my blog visits recently have been related to the use of a Godzilla picture from way back. Perhaps this movie picture will catapult my views.


• my 3rd year review is scheduled. I imagine they're going to tell me I'm not on enough committees despite my attempts to ask questions that make what committees I am on tremble in fear at the tasks I'll make them undertake if they push me too far.
• just saw the tuition schedule here. Christ. Poor bastards. Literally.