"tales from the road" (conference day: 2 of 3)

yes, i lifted the title from the ongoing series from ph.d comics. i remember being excited about the first mathematical conferences i attended, and at some point i became blasé about them.

i blame this, however, on having attended too many conferences as a passive participant: quite often i was neither a speaker nor collaborating with friends.

i think that will change now.

this past conference was a bit of fun, catching up and talking math with friends and familiar faces. so over the next few days i'll rant and ramble about some thoughts i had, but in no particular order of days.

this will explain why there was no "(conference day: 1 of 3)" post, yet. i might write one later.

at any rate, my first thoughts:

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1. it seems like everyone who reads this blog (and who knows me personally) has their own story about how they stumbled upon it. i've always preferred that people find this archive of rants by their own accord and not by my advertising it as good reading ..
   
   .. which it isn't. it's not a bad way to waste time. then again, i could recommend better wastes of time than this! q:
   
   at any rate, i like the stories of discovery, so this website will remain unadvertised for a very long time.
   
   
2. i'd like to wish good luck to all my friends who are on the market this year and have not heard from schools yet. being new to all of this, i don't know what to say, except that it will work out.
   
   that, and it's still early.
   don't let the rumor wiki dismay you!
   
   
3. this morning (day 2 of 3) i thought that there would be coffee at the conference and resolved to have one before the first talk.
   
   while brushing my teeth in the hotel room, i stared longingly at the mini-coffeemaker, but resisted.
   
   i walked past a coffee urn in the hotel lobby. then i retraced my steps, stared carefully at it, slowly raised my hand towards it .. but then jerked it away and walked past the urn again.
   
   over breakfast at a diner, i chose against having any, in favor of conference coffee.
   
   and once we made it to the conference building, i looked at the tables outside of the lecture room: plain white tablecloths ..
   
   .. no coffee. full of breakfast, no caffeine, little sleep ..
   arghhhhhhhhh. this can't be happening ..
   
   .. but of course, it did. it wasn't until midway into the second talk that i could keep my eyes open for longer than a minute without closing them and drifting off.
   
   [sigh]
   hence: a lesson learned.
   don't fight it: drink coffee when you can!