one of these days...

... I will learn not to take the hard road.

So, somehow I always manage to find ways to make life more difficult for myself. Example, I am in Germany, trying to do a difficult experiment in a short period of time, not to mention get in some sightseeing. Ok, that's not so bad, but I've decided to add on top of that... just "for fun"... to give a few talks while I'm here: one at the university I'm working in and one at another university where I was invited to go speak some time ago. This all sounded like a great idea several months ago... now it feels like a lot of work, and I have to prepare an abstract and settle on a title when I'd rather just go to bed right now. Meh.

I keep telling myself at times like this that I don't really need to do all these extra things, and next time I should just step back and say "no, I'm just a grad student, it's ok not to give a talk everywhere I go, it's ok not to start up collaborations with groups around the world". But, no, I always get "excited" about all these "opportunities" and my brain and my mouth take off at a gallopping pace before my common sense can catch up.

Really, it's all ok though. Things are going fine to well here (which in science is pretty good), I'm enjoying my stay, and I'm sure the talks will go well, and I'll get some interesting feedback. Sometimes though I just think it would also be just as good to be at home, getting my normal, thesis-progressing work done, and spending Saturday morning sipping coffee with my hubby instead of being a globe-trotting mad scientist who barely even keep straight where she needs to be when... but then, what the heck would I blog about??