So I head out tomorrow for the conference, presenting Friday at the butt crack of dawn. My bags for the most part are packed, I’ll finish that tomorrow. It’s only one night, so I’m not bringing all that much. I plan to make my exit rather quickly after presenting and get back home. It’s about a 2 1/2 hour trip.

I had written a 16-17 page paper to give, assuming that it would take me a minute to get through each page. Oops! Not even close! So I’ve spent today slashing and trying to get my paper to fit into the 20 minutes I’m allotted. I think I’ve done it, I just would rather not have to cut anything out. I also made a very quick power point presentation, with some nice photos trying to summarize what I had to cut out. If I could I’d just record my paper onto my PC and get up there and pretend I was reading, I so would! I do not like standing up in front of rooms of people and speaking to them at all. It’s more because when I have to read from a printed script, I tend to be nervous and fumble my words. Given the fact it’s so early in the morning too, that won’t help. It might though mean most people won’t be getting up and coming to the session that early. One can only hope.

I had my meeting with my advisor this week to in order to get comments on my dissertation chapters thus far. Much less painful than I expected. Upon getting back from the conference I need to revamp them with his suggestions and send them to the rest of my committee for feedback. The goal is to have the whole dissertation drafted by Mayish, which is going to be a lot of work but doable. It looks like I might make August graduation too. I was expecting being stuck waiting for December/Fall graduation. Woot!