A Lack of Color
Life post-comps has been filled with relief and joy (and celebration), alternating with anxiety, stress, and fear as reality gradually sets in that it's time to write my dissertation, and that I'm on a super-tight time line if I want my degree conferred in May (as opposed to August or December 2010). If I don't defend my dissertation by March 31st, I automatically tip over into having my degree officially conferred in August, 2010. That isn't really a big deal, although it would be so nice after all the work I've put into the past four years of my life, to be able to participate in all the pomp and circumstance of the May 2010 graduation and doctoral hooding ceremony, instead of having to wait and come back to participate in the May 2011 ceremonies. I can't even begin to think about job-searching yet--I have some big decisions to make about the type of job that will be right for me, and what locations/geographic regions/cities/states are acceptable.
First things first, though, I'm busy putting the finishing touches on my powerpoint presentation for a conference on gifted education, in St. Louis. I fly out to the "Show Me" state tomorrow morning, and will be back this weekend. It's my first full-length scientific research paper presentation, so, naturally I have a wee bit of the jitters, but it's not really so bad. I'm actually trying to add some color to my powerpoint presentation right now, because, oddly, they wanted people to upload their presentations in black & white--(the reason being that people might want to print the slides, and those with a dark background or lots of graphics don't display well when printed). I uploaded that version, but now want to add a little bit of color to make my presentation more aesthetic and less cut-and-dried. After all, wouldn't you fall asleep if you were in a warm, stuffy room at 1:30pm, with a full stomach, and me talking at you and then displaying a bunch of statistical tables?
I'm still dealing with foot and lower leg issues that may be a little bit more serious than I thought. (I'm being referred for an MRI next week). This not only curtails my plans to get back into running, and train for the local 10-miler. More immediately, it limits the types of shoes I can wear, other than my athletic shoes with arch supports, or possibly Dansko clogs or Merrill/Keene shoes. Fine if I'm all casual, but not ok if I need to be dressed professionally. However, this evening, I've narrowed down to three reasonably comfortable, but professonal looking choices: 1) black ballet flats from Ann Taylor, 2) these black patent slip-on wedge shoes from Nordstrom (which I LOVE) and 3) these red Mary Jane shoes, which add color to all of the black and dark colors I wear.
OK. Time to go finish the powerpoint and put some antibacterial hand sanitizer gel (travel-size, of course) into a ziplock bag.
