Gymno

succumbing to peer pressure

Friday, August 22, 2008

Feeling a little professional love

I just wanted to gloat a bit about how happy it makes me that I'm in the sort of field where knowledge of Neal Stephenson actually gets me a useful professional connection, an e-mail requesting a letter of rec is replied to with a ps-recommendation to read Alan Moore's The Watchmen because it's 'one of the great graphic novels of our time,' and I can send a link to one of my profs about the McCain camp's insult to geeks and he replies 'Ouch! No invisibility cloak there!' I can only hope that my professional life continues to be as peppered with friendly geeks as my student life.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Sleeeeeep Deprived

I don't know what genius (read: me) thought it would be reasonable to have dinner with JP last Tuesday (two bottles of wine), dinner with a classmate on Wednesday followed up by cheap birthday beer with the roommate, kickball happy hour on Thursday, Wordsmiths fundraiser followed by bar hopping on Friday, then another wine-drenched dinner with JP last night. All while staying up until 2 or 3 am every night because I'm a sucker for 'Olympic glory.' I'm not complaining - the socializing has been more than lovely. But I think sometime around yesterday or today my brain stopped functioning properly. Which is a real problem considering that I have 9am meetings every day this week.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Continuing the wedding debate...

So I have to confess, JP sort of has a point in comments - I've been thinking today, and taking my family baggage out of it, I've always been a supporter of people who do what they want for their weddings, insisting that it's their special day and no one else's. And skipping the service and having a hoity-toity black tie affair at the four seasons is very my brother. So while it is genuinely annoying for me, on balance, I have to say it makes sense for him.

So. Minus the family baggage, or perhaps just sort of minimizing down to one suitcase, here are the pros and cons:

Pros
  • It would be fun - despite my grumbling, I love a wedding, and this one would be all fancy-schmancy and feature an open bar and tasty nibblins and would inevitably be a good time
  • Again, despite my grumblings, it would be an excuse to buy a pretty dress. One I might not be able to afford, but still, pretty dress = rare shopping extravaganzaa
  • I'd get to see my parents
Cons
  • Stressful travel - the wedding is Saturday night, in DC, and at 8:30am Monday, west coast time, I have to give a conference presentation in California. That translates to a long day of travel on Sunday and not a lot of prep time for the conference
  • Family baggage - I'm still working on my relationship with my brother, and while one of the bonuses of it being his wedding is that he'll probably be too preoccupied to spend much time with me, I will, inevitably, end up acting as if everything is ok, which is what drove me to several tearful phone calls to friends over xmas since I don't deal particularly well with my emotions.
Sigh. So there's that. What it will inevitably boil down to is will the combo of fun - (family + travel)*stress > family guilt? In other words, will it hurt more to go, or more to skip out?

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Annoying

So it turns out that my brother's stupid wedding is a black tie affair at the fucking four seasons. So now not only do I have to fly to DC two days before I'm supposed to speak at a conference, but I'm supposed to plunk down money for a fucking ball gown just because my brother is a snob! Bah! Kate - I may find myself calling on you out in the burbs, just to put some distance between me and my family. Also, I'm definitely going to have to find a flask/garter belt combo. Or a larger purse...