As you can infer from the above picture, being in academia means you need some ducks. And in theory they should be in a row. Of course, some of them get sidetracked sometimes, or even appear to change shape or color, in which case they can appear more like this:
Today I gave my talk at Harvard, something that has been hanging above me as somewhat exciting and also anxiety-inducing for the last several months. It was in an informal setting -- and in fact, 4/6 of the people in the room listening to the talk (other than me) were close friends -- but still something for which I prepared. A whole lot. And in the end, I was glad I did it.
So, today essentially involved talk prep, work, and even more talk prep, giving the talk, de-briefing with friends after the talk, and deciding that after all that thinking and talking about talking I was ready to shut up for awhile, not study, and hang with friends at the Asgard. And they were up for it too -- because one serious perk of academia is that often you can set your own schedule, and so if you wanna go out on a Tuesday night to play some pub trivia, well, hell, you can.
