Writing

So, 25% of the way in to scifibigbang and I'm only 6% done with the rough draft -- that's the prologue and the first scene of chapter 1. Then again, this isn't supposed to be NaNoWriMo -- for one, I'm supposed to have a finished fanfiction at the end of this, not a rough draft.

Hopefully my trip will let me get some writing done. Shame I can't take the laptop to the beach itself -- I have enough sense to know that would be a bad idea.

I must be crazy...

So, I'm giving a talk during the first week of October on Saturn's A and C ring*. 10 minutes, including time for questions, so really 5-7 minutes, and if the session chair is any good, s/he's going to turn off my mic at 7 minutes because science conference need that kind of iron hand.

Today I asked Carl if I could use our informal Friday afternoon seminars to practice this talk sometime in late September -- this is a typical use of the seminar, since it's only grad students and post-docs (and the occasional undergrad -- no professors allowed).

And I emailed Shoshe, who is in charge of Planetary Science Lunch Seminar because she was asking about people to give talks and better now than later, because the job of the PLunch coordinator is to whine, beg, guilt-trip and lurk outside the offices of every other planetary scientist until he or she gives a lunch talk. So, I now have a 30-40 minute talk in late September to give. Not sure if it'll be on Hyperion or the rings.

Shoshe was also putting together a DPS Post-Conference Extravaganza on October 19th, which means asking if people who are going to make up a short presentation on their personal highlights. Guess who also volunteered to give a 10-15 minute talk on what I learned on my vacation? (No, I don't think she'll let me put the pictures of the beach in. At least not for all my slides.)

Have I mentioned that I don't like public speaking?

* The B ring is left out because it is too thick to see through. And it is ugly and its mother dresses it funny.