Planners and Papers and Meetings, Oh My!

I'm down in LA, staying with B. He started school this week, and so I'm mostly at home during the day, immersed in a world of thesis. Today, I found a paper on PubMed that did exactly what I'm doing -- only at a different site. Phew! I seriously almost choked when I thought I had been scooped. Luckily, so far, so good. But it's a really, really good reason to finish my work efficiently and with attention to detail.

So I'm checking stuff off in my brand-new Moleskine planner, which is International Orange, the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't usually like orange, but this one just attracted me. I love new planners. This one is amazing. I don't know if I'll ever want another planner. It was worth every single penny.

So anyway, it's Tuesday night (technically Wednesday) and I'm putting the finishing touches on my background paper. Of course, now I have to work this other paper in. I am kicking myself because it was published in 2008. I should have seen it. It's in a journal I read. I came so close to missing it. Yikes.

Which would be my bad because...I've been invited to speak at a conference! It's this spring, it's the premier conference in my field, and they gave me 25 minutes. I'm so excited. I wonder if these almost-scoopers will be at the conference? That would be amazing! They are students in sociology. I wonder if they'll think I'm a complete fraud? I'm using a sociology theory but I only minored in it, and that wasn't the classics. But if they are there it should be fun. We're making a tiny little research field! Yay!!

Now, I just need findings. You know, to present at said conference. I think I've answered my research questions, but I really just need to solidify and read. And come up with a plausible discussion of these findings, complete with a beautiful model.

Sigh.

It's like Murray said in the timeless 1995 film, Clueless: "Just relax and drive, baby. Just relax and drive."