If only we could know the future...
Nov. 17th, 2004 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosawThis weekend I am presenting my dissertation research at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in San Antonio TX.
Last February I submitted a proposal to the Consultation on the Cultural History of the Study of Religion group and was accepted. The proposal concerned the then last chapter of my diss which is now the second to last chapter of my diss. The program book was published in July and I was working on this chapter then so I very carefully did not look to see who else was on the panel. I didn't want to freak myself out prematurely. So October comes, as it does every year, and I began to work out what I wanted to say that would match my proposal from February (do you see how crazy this system really is?). Turns out that ten double spaced pages is both too long and too short to say anything of interest. Who knew?!? Once I had a draft (a much too long draft) I finally checked out the panel participants. There I discovered, to my absolute ambivalence, that one of my top 5 intellectual heroes is on the panel. His name is David Chidester and he's wicked smart. And I want to impress him. And I doubt not only my ability to be impressive but the cleverness of my ploddingly dull dissertation (all dissertations are ploddingly dull, it is virtually a demand of the process). The really confusing part is, he's really not the big name in my field. So when I tell people how nervous I am, they assume I'm nervous because Robert Orsi is the Panel Chair. And he is a big deal but does not really make my heart beat faster, if you know what I mean. Still, I'm a bundle of nerves. Yesterday I was the worst I've ever been in the classroom and I am only getting more freaked. It is my intention to become totally sloshed, but not until Sunday afternoon, because I am on a teaching religion discussion panel on Sunday morning.
This being a grown-up really sucks. But could be kinda cool, too. I'm even worse than Trelawney at reading Crystal balls.
I'll be gone from Friday morning to late Tuesday night.
**waves**
Last February I submitted a proposal to the Consultation on the Cultural History of the Study of Religion group and was accepted. The proposal concerned the then last chapter of my diss which is now the second to last chapter of my diss. The program book was published in July and I was working on this chapter then so I very carefully did not look to see who else was on the panel. I didn't want to freak myself out prematurely. So October comes, as it does every year, and I began to work out what I wanted to say that would match my proposal from February (do you see how crazy this system really is?). Turns out that ten double spaced pages is both too long and too short to say anything of interest. Who knew?!? Once I had a draft (a much too long draft) I finally checked out the panel participants. There I discovered, to my absolute ambivalence, that one of my top 5 intellectual heroes is on the panel. His name is David Chidester and he's wicked smart. And I want to impress him. And I doubt not only my ability to be impressive but the cleverness of my ploddingly dull dissertation (all dissertations are ploddingly dull, it is virtually a demand of the process). The really confusing part is, he's really not the big name in my field. So when I tell people how nervous I am, they assume I'm nervous because Robert Orsi is the Panel Chair. And he is a big deal but does not really make my heart beat faster, if you know what I mean. Still, I'm a bundle of nerves. Yesterday I was the worst I've ever been in the classroom and I am only getting more freaked. It is my intention to become totally sloshed, but not until Sunday afternoon, because I am on a teaching religion discussion panel on Sunday morning.
This being a grown-up really sucks. But could be kinda cool, too. I'm even worse than Trelawney at reading Crystal balls.
I'll be gone from Friday morning to late Tuesday night.
**waves**