Chronica Kalamazensis, Friday Edition

Today was:

6:20 a.m.: Wake up after only two freaking hours of sleep. Shower, and try to remain vertical while doing so.

7 a.m.: Cafeteria breakfast. Because I paid for it. Breakfasts are the only meals I'll pay for on campus while here, and even those are starting to seem less worth it. Melon. Hate melon.

7:45 a.m.: Arrive for blogger meetup! (pictured below) In tiny dorm coffee shop, which happens to be 45 seconds from my dorm room door. It's like they know me. Barista greets me with "Hey! I remember you from last year! You've lost weight!" Possibly a transparent ploy for tips. Whatever, it worked. Eventually people start to drift in. Ever tried to schedule a meetup between people who you've never seen in person? Sure, everyone's wearing nametags, but since they give our real names, rather than things like "Dr. Notorious" or "Professor Heu Mihi", we're stuck. But we find each other, then eventually become very easy to find because we end up being over two dozen people. Two dozen fun, interesting, and highly attractive people. Even at 8 a.m.

10 a.m.: First panel of the day. Though the whole panel is interesting, I'm here primarily for presenter #3. But presenter #1 goes for 40 minutes. Presenter #2 goes for 35. And these are senior people! Surely they know by now that they can't present 20 pages worth of material in 20 minutes? Sheesh, people. The papers were all very interesting, but I found myself growing resentful, especially since I had to leave at the end of the panel, so missed not only the questions, but the comment.

11:40 a.m.: Meet up with Future Colleague, Another Department for lunch. We talk about life, housing in Sunshine City, and who's crazy at Urban U.

1:30 p.m.: Second panel, at which I deliver a paper for Absent Colleague. ::sigh:: I go 5 minutes over time, and can't bring myself to feel bad about it (though there is a bit of hypocrisy there).

3:30 p.m.: Third panel, at which I watch a friendly senior colleague grow increasingly furrow-browed during what seemed to me to be a good paper. S/he scribbles a note about 10 minutes into the thing: "This is basically a summary of my "X" article, except s/he's getting important parts of it wrong." Ouch. Meet up afterwards with would-be collaborator on edited volume, but we don't have time to talk right then, because I need to head for...

5:15 p.m.: Business meeting with small society that exists basically to devise society-themed panels for K'zoo each year. I half-heartedly say that I may have something for one of the panels they propose, but the truth (which I tell them) is that I may not even be in the country. But I count the meeting a success for me because a) I promise to talk to a Known Person who I'm meeting with later about presenting something, and b) I manage not to get elected to any position of responsibility.

6:15 p.m.: Meet up for dinner with ex-nemesis. Oh, ex-nem, if you're reading this, know that I mean this in all affection. Because of the "ex-" part. Ex-nem and I mercilessly picked at each other through years of grad school. I'd say that neither of us behaved particularly well. But we tentatively mended fences a couple of years ago, and had a really nice dinner together. And I think it's nice that we both decided that being grown-ups was a better choice than bearing career-long grudges that didn't matter.**

8:15 p.m.: Return to dorm. Buy can of diet coke. Try to catch up on e-mail, etc. Have a nice break when an undergrad in one of my classes (but from another department) passes by and shows me the interesting book he got on the cheap at the book display.

Blog.

Start thinking about bed (see above), once I've gone over my schedule for the next day.

10:31 p.m.: Sign off.


**Of course, this means that I'll need another nemesis now. Am I the only one who works better when I have one?