Deadlines and fever

...are not good combination. I am down with a throat infection and hence high fever. To top it, I am still jet-lagged so I wake up at 2 AM and then 4 AM every night (if you call AM hours as night). And then I had a deadline of submitting a 4-page extended abstract by 5 PM Central time (which is 2 hours earlier than Pacific time, which means I had to submit by 3 PM my time) today. The worst possible combination, if you ask me.

I have no idea what I wrote in that paper, oh sorry the extended abstract. I am 100% certain its going to be rejected. Actually I have been wondering why they call it extended abstract? Its a full fledged paper, if you ask me (well sadly no one asks me but then thats why I have this blog). Just because they want everything to be squeezed in 4 pages doesn't make it an abstract. Actually its worse, as you need to squeeze a 10-15 page paper in those 4 pages. Very unfair, if you ask me (ok. Some body. Ask me.). Its not a simple abstract where you can just submit the summary of your work with no figures and references and its not a paper where you can explain your work at your leisure with 'all' the figures. So you are stuck somewhere in middle trying to figure out how to condense your one year's work in those four pages. And fever don't help either. Anyways, finally its done and submitted. And as I said, there is a large probability that it will be rejected. But at least I tried.

Did I tell you why I wanted to submit this paper, ooops, I mean extended abstract? Hey you never asked me. The conference is to be held in LAS VEGAS this November. Now who would want to miss the chance like that?

Anyway, now thats done, I can go back to my nice warm bed and sleep for a while. And thanks all for your get well wishes. Hey that was the point of the post, wasn't it? Getting some sympathy, some attention. Now I can sleep peacefully...ciao.

PS: Don't mind the ramble. I am known to do that when I have high fever. It some how affects the brain, I guess.