Things to Do When Hiding From Your Research Paper

...update your blog, I suppose. Right now I'm trying to write a section on Florentine portrait busts as compared to their Roman antecedents and it's really kicking my ass. I have class in 45 minutes, which is starting late because someone had their PhD defense today. I should have gone to see it but I convinced myself I should go work on my paper instead, and I think I wrote less than a page in the four hours I've been here. Sigh. I've decided that I will get up ridiculously, insanely, cruelly early tomorrow (meaning 6am or so) and be at school working by 8am with at least eight hours to kill before class. I will also probably be a zombie by that time, since the portrait heads are trying to eat my brain!

I went to New York Thursday night so I could go to Columbia's Palladio conference on Friday. It was a very long day in an uncomfortable chair, but I got a chance to hear from some of the best scholars in the field, so that was cool. Also, Dr. Cooper presented a paper on "Palladio and the Politics of Magnificence." She was the only woman on the entire panel--architectural history is a bit of a boy's club.

One of my classmates, who also went to the conference, took a train from Philly at 6am on Friday and went home right after the conference to maximize her working time. I, naturally, spent two nights in New York and then proceeded to get absolutely nothing done on Saturday when I got home. However, I did have a chance to have dinner with Sara, Meredith and yes, my sister on Friday night. We were supposed to meet up with Heather too to see her new blonde bob (very new--she was having it done that evening) but her hair appointment took five and a half hours, so sadly, it didn't happen. Luckily we're going to see her (and Rae!) in a week and a half for our high school reunion. Sara and I have jokingly decided that we will pretend to have lost touch over the years so we can "catch up" if we don't feel like talking to other people. Ah, good friends.

Ugh, I just remembered that I have to go BACK to New York this weekend to visit the Met with my medieval class. That means catching the train on Sunday at 7am, joy. All the more reason that this paper must a) get finished and b) DIE.