Time of the Month

Highlights:

My humble little challenge, "The One-Line Lyric Challenge"  was nominated for best new activity in the Quill Awards!! It was originally nominated for "best contest" (which it's not), but our Quill Mistress Lilith of House Martell, in her infinite kindness, moved it to a more appropriate category instead of just throwing the nomination out. Thank you so much to whoever nominated the challenge and to everyone who's participated or shared the challenge in the newsfeed. It's the first activity I've run on WdC and the first Quill nomination I've received.

At the beginning of the month, I went on an intense two-day department retreat at a resort a couple hours away. I was on the planning committee, and still couldn't convince the director that 25 talks, a 3-hour poster session, and two 90-minute round tables was simply too much to fit into a two day "retreat". In fact, he started off the retreat by talking about all the fun things to do at the resort... when he'd given us only an hour of free time the entire 12-hour scheduled day. 14 hours if you include travel time. I did get to swim in the lazy river on the second day, and lounged in a hammock for about... 9 minutes. I call that a win. At the end, he announced that next year's retreat will be 3 days, so people can actually enjoy the resort. If things go to plan, I won't still be here at the institute next summer. However, things usually don't go to plan.

I signed up to present again at the big annual Neuroscience conference in November! The reason I've never been able to attempt NaNoWriMo before, and I guess this year will be no different. I feel like I have to play rock-paper-scissors between writing and work and life. Unfortunately, work wins. Work always wins. But don't get me wrong, I'm already excited. It's in DC this year and the whole lab is going. It's always a lot of fun, a lot of people, a lot of science, a lot of schmoozing, a lot of time. It's just a lot. But the timing should be perfect, right before I go on the job market. In fact, this conference is where I got the job I have now. It may well be where I get the next one.

Lowlights:

It's 85º today with an AQI of 161 and an air quality warning. And I walked home about a mile in it. Maybe don't do what I do, if you're also in an area downwind of the Canadian wildfires.