Thursday, June 28, 2007

More conference bullets

  • Mom's surgery is over and it went well.
    • Brother called at 3:30 and said they were were still waiting.
    • Surgery lasted from 4:20-6:30.
    • Dad called at 6:40 to tell me everything went perfectly, according to the doctor.
    • Brother and Dad are waiting in her private room. She's still in recovery and should be seeing them in another hour or so.
    • I'm tremendously relieved that it's over and very grateful that it went well. I hope recovery goes as perfectly.
    • Thank you for the prayers and thoughts.
  • Friend said something like "Think of the conference as an event designed to distract you from worrying."
    • This made me frown as Friend isn't normally all "embrace the universe for it cares for you."
    • Maybe Friend needs to vacation more often so she is more optimistic and zen-like.
    • Then again, it kind of freaks me out.
    • Friend, as usual, ended up being right.
  • Brother just called.
    • Mom's back in her room!
    • When Brother and Dad stepped out so the nurses could get Mom settled, she was concerned and told them not to leave the hallway.
    • They promised they would not.
    • Brother said she's concerned that they did her knees wrong.
    • She wanted to keep her old knees so they could be reinserted if these new ones are somehow unacceptable.
    • The doctor said they didn't do that.
  • OK - back to this conference.
  • About this talk length issue, folks. It's not cool.
    • I am convinced that the problem is that nobody practices.
    • I know many people say they don't rehearse.
      • That's fine.
      • But know how long your talk will last.
      • If you don't know, you need to run through the slides to get an idea.
      • Seriously. Just once. To get a sense of if you're running about 30 minutes or if going through everything would take closer to 2 hours.
    • There were breaks included so the time could be made up, but lunch today should have been 90 minutes.
      • It was closer to 40.
      • I find that mildly disrespectful.
        • It's not just that you don't find me important enough to run through the talk so you're aware of its length.
        • It's that you put the important stuff at the end, then can't get to it!
        • I want to hear the important stuff!
    • Some of the talks were brilliantly done.
    • Others could have used Black Knight's advice.
  • There were cookies in the afternoon. I'd just heard from Brother and didn't want any.
  • Same semi-reasonable sandwiches today! For crying out loud.
  • I was a bit flustered that I was interested in nearly everything presented today. I wanted a break, but didn't want to miss anything.
  • Luckily, tomorrow is completely irrelevant to me! So I can get some work done in preparation of heading home next week.
  • I'm ready to go home. I've talked to everyone a lot, but I still feel wrong about not having been there. I wish I'd been there. I want to be there soon. So Monday will bring about the start of what I'm sure will be a difficult week as Mom begins recovery, but I'll be tremendously relieved to finally start participating in this process.

3 comments:

ScienceWoman said...

I'm so glad.

Anonymous said...

so glad your mom is doing well. take care!

AS said...

Totally feel the same way about talk length and lateness! It's not right.

Still sending prayers...

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