I wasn't planning on "Working" tonight.

Tomorrow I go to Seattle for my annual "Thanksgiving Away" holiday, or as I like to see it "Dena does Random City Solo, V. 3.0"  Soon I'll work up to something off the North American continent, but until I win the lottery or the Nobel Prize or some shit like that, I'll have to limit myself to Canada and the US.

Because I'm leaving on a jet plane tomorrow, and had yet to pack, I wasn't planning on working tonight.  I was going to get my shit in order so I could edit my proposal on the plane and hand in a final draft when I get back.  Seattle is known for coffee houses; I figured that this would be primo opportunity to take part in the local culture and get some work done - mostly so I could feel all pretentious and pompous in a coffee shop, with a laptop in front of me.  I'd fit right in in all honesty.

Bottom line, I ended up working.  After I passed off Chaos to Mom for the week, I made the mistake of going back to school to drop off some books and pick up others.  On the way out, I bumped into Supervisor, he gave the usual 'Make sure you check out "this place" while you're there' advice (and he's been pretty spot-on and will usually suggest a sweet pub, like when he suggested I check out the Ear Inn in NYC just weeks after meeting him), and said that he'd sent me an e-mail for a Call for Abstracts for a conference in SPAIN!  Deadline is next Friday, so he suggested that I get something together before I take off if I can and then we'll work out the details when I get back.  I smiled and nodded, said "OK, sure.  Sounds good."....then we parted ways and I realized what I had agreed to.  I'm pretty sure I had that dumbfounded look on my face. 

I think I'm getting better at writing abstracts on the fly.  I hope it's good enough to get me there. 

Bottom line, I guess my research is "good enough" to take to the international scale, or at least good enough to put our research group's progress on the big-ass map.  Cool!

Flattered, yes.  Stressed, of course.  Excited, Oh YEAH!

Tonight I took work home.  I guess that's OK.  If it gets me to Europe, even for a weekend, I'll take it.  

I guess I should brush up on my Spanish.....