Convention jitters

World Fantasy starts in less than 72 hours, and I’m getting nervous about it.  Really nervous.  This is the first big-time science fiction convention I’ve ever been to, and I’m worried that it will be too intimidating, or that I’ll make a fool of myself, or that I won’t put myself out there enough, or…

All the same, I’m expecting to have fun.  Lots of fun. 🙂

But between now and 5:00 am Thursday morning (when we take off for California), I have to: 1) grade 20 papers, 2) take a midterm, 3) write two essays, 4) run at least 30 regressions, 5) read 2 poli sci articles, and 6) finish American Babylon and write up a report on the last three chapters.

Yeah.  Not fun (except the regressions–what can I say, I’m a nerd).

In unrelated news, I met an interesting girl at Leading Edge last week.  She’s at least as much of an sf&f fan as I am, and one of the very, very few girls I’ve met who prefers science fiction over fantasy.  Somehow, she convinced me to read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin with her (or maybe I convinced her to read it with me?), but I started it tonight, and it’s really good.

Technically, I’ve got a class for Washington Seminar that I should go to tomorrow…but I can skip it and listen to the mp3 while I’m driving to California.  Don’t want to miss Leading Edge this week, for obvious reasons.

Speaking of which, if I don’t go to sleep right now, I’m going to be barely functional for the next two days.  Not good.  G’night.