the beginning of the end

We had our first round of conference papers tonight. I won't comment on those, but I will dole out a bit of helpful advice. If you are about to sit through about an hour-and-a-half's worth of paper-reading and question-discussing, do not first drink about forty ounces of water.

By the time we got to the final paper, thoughts of my bladder were filling my head. "Just how big do I think my bladder has become? I think it might be pushing on all of my other internal organs and they're pushing back. How rude would it be for me to flee from the room when someone comes to the end of a page?" I sat through all of the papers, but I was extremely uncomfortable, thank you very much.

Also, I kept having stupid thoughts of body language popping up in my head. Because I had to pee so incredibly badly, I just wanted to cross my legs and my arms and squish into a ball, hoping to squeeze in all necessity to relieve myself. However, I was fighting this desire because I read somewhere (not the internet) once that crossing your arms indicates a kind of hostility. This body language indicates that you are unapproachable. Yeah. So. Not one of the readers was looking at me, but in case one might glance my way, I wanted to appear open and receptive to their topics. So, instead of scrunching up into a ball, I constantly fidgeted around in my seat, praying that someone would just read super quickly or that all of that water would miraculously evaporate. Neither happened.

Anyhow, all is well now. Ah. And this post, like just about every other, had no point.

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P.S. Congrats Mistress J!