Day Late, dollar short, an added expense

In January I submitted a paper proposal for a conference in Maynooth, Ireland in June. I was thanked for my 'interesting proposal' and told I would hear back from them very shortly. For the first week I checked my email a bit obsessively. After the second week I decided I didn't care. After the third I felt a bit relieved that I wouldn't have to come up with an extra paper or figure out how to present to a group of professionals with more elegant accents and superfluous letters after their names. Believing I would have four solid months of time to write, I helped buy my sister a plane ticket to Scotland, planned a monastic visit to the Pluscarden Abbey, and scheduled an extensive tour of Scotland across the month of May.

Today I was supposed to turn in a draft of the first chapter of my dissertation. I didn't. I even believed myself to be a bit of a rebel, setting my own guidelines, working at my own slow pace. Then I got two emails. The first is from the English department secretary, a rather terrifying lady really. Her email trusted that we had all turned in our draft or if we had not, that we had notified our advisors in advance. I spent the evening at the theatre feeling every second of 'wasted time' dragging me down. I came home,  feeling quite rotten, and received a schedule of the Maynooth conference. I scrolled through it rather wryly and found to my horror/excitement that I am presenting a paper at 9:30 am on June 19th.