Stuffing it down

That's what I'm trying to do with all of my frustration over these symposia, but it's not entirely working. I think part of it is that I helped plan these sorts of things (in a different format but comparable scale) in the past, and I can see all the things I would have done differently. (Like having planned bathroom breaks...it got to the point where people just got up in the middle of a talk and left, because we didn't know if or when we'd get a break). I may just volunteer to be on the committee for next year's one (if there is a next year's one). It will be painful and I will hate it....but sometimes you have to do that, put up with something you dislike when you know your expertise will help.

I'm trying to think about what kind of a "fluster" to get for myself to reward myself for making it through, but I'm coming up blank. I'm sure it's partly because I'm tired and bummed out.

Two other things on the bummed out scale:

1. The meetings all took place in a refurbished building, and while I couldn't smell the carpet outgassing in most of the rooms we were in, they did note that there was new carpet....and I'm sensitive to some of the VOCs that are in some carpet (and also to the solvents and stuff used in the laying of that kind of industrial carpet). Where we went to eat lunch, though, I could SMELL the formaldehyde. So that probably affected me. Also, I wound up stuck behind someone wearing too much perfume this afternoon and couldn't move to a different seat.

2. One of the papers I submitted at the end of the summer - this was a sort of longshot one, written with a colleague- was pretty much returned unread, as "not enough conclusions." I had kind of feared that, but it's still a bummer. I've volunteered to re-enter all the data (it's complicated), but colleague is not sure if it's worth trying again. I think it is but colleague has the final say....

So yeah. Not a stellar week. Also heard someone imply that being introverted in personality was somewhat counter to being "collegial," which is something I disagree with, but which just reminds me yet again that most people believe Introverts Are Weird And Need To Be Fixed. 

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Probably what I need to do now is go wash my hair (or maybe, figure out dinner first, if that will require a trip to the grocery...my appetite has kind of departed me again so I don't know what to eat). And then put on some quiet music and knit on the Putney Shawl and try to forget these past couple of days.

Or I need to put on some loud music and sew on the current quilt top.

I don't know. (I don't have all that much music that works as "loud." I think I have one of the Proclaimers' albums, and the soundtrack from Godspell....but as far as pop music my CD collection is pretty sorely lacking. There are a few pre-1965 things: some of Clyde McPhatter's stuff, I think a couple of the Rhino doo-wop compilations. But I don't have any good "angry and need to get it out" music. I suppose there's some kind of classical music that would work for that if I thought about it a little.

I think I have a couple of bluegrass albums, that might work. 

I'm afraid maybe the monteleukast I'm taking is making me "stupid," as my chair claimed it did to her. I find my creativity has been a lot lower recently. Or maybe I'm just thinking it's making me "stupid," I don't know.