Too much altruism in my life. I made editorial decisions on 31 papers in the past week (15 this weekend)*. Between now and August 1st I have to prevent the journal from accumulating any papers to be actioned or sent to review. I leave August 1st, and will be away from the office for almost 4 weeks. I'll be taking 10 days holiday in the middle, with a conference immediately beforehand (in Nashville, getting back on a Sunday, and leaving for holiday on the Monday), and another immediately after (in Potsdam near Berlin, getting back from holiday on a Friday and leaving for the conference on the Sunday). I plan to take a couple of afternoons at each conference to work on the journal so as to clear the backlog that will inevitably accumulate while I'm away.
*Some decision letters can be quite long, and others quite short. Disaster strikes when the quite short ones should have been longer. I've only had a couple of disasters so far (out of 653 decision letters written since I took the job last year - a 0.3% disaster rate).
And because of all this, I'm seriously worried about not having time to write up one of the nicest bits of data I've ever collected in my career. Is this a serious post or what?
If I had any energy left, I'd write about the algae in the pond; the advantages of having a BBQ in the pouring rain (tip: it's an even bigger advantage to have a massive garden parasol with which to cover the BBQ); the possibility that, no matter how unlikely, I may have developed some sort of allergy to milk (stay tuned..); the possibility that, no matter how unlikely, I may have developed some sort of allergy to my job; and the possibility, very likely, that I shall sit in front of the tv tonight, drink masses of beer, and wish that paxil and ambien were freely available in my local supermarket...
