is me grinding my teeth.
I have been struggling, on and off, for a week, to get my paper for the Vancouver World Congress down to twenty minutes. I achieved this yesterday, by dint of cutting every unnecessary adverb and adjective and cutting down examples for points I was making, from two to one if lengthy and three to two if short.
About half an hour ago the panel chair e-mailed the panel participants to tell us that we no longer had 20 minutes (although she had confirmed that just last week) but 15.
Somehow I am supposed to find the time to cut my paper by 25%! Like I say, it's bedtime here in the UK and I only just got the message, tomorrow I have appointments and packing and stuff, I fly out at the cack of dawn on Tuesday. Where in all that am I supposed to find the time to reduce my paper to something so truncated it will hardly be worth giving?
I have e-mailed the chair and other three participants expressing my dismay and suggesting that, as it is so late in the day, we leave the papers at 20 minutes and sacrifice the first half of the tea break for questions/discussions.
We'll see what transpires. I am not hopeful, and I am very very very cross.
That is ridiculous! I hope they accept your suggestion. How unprofessional of them, to leave it so late!
ReplyDelete(Also, is "cack of dawn" deliberate? Because that's how I feel about it too!)
not deliberate. but very apt!
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