an ADD moment at my conference

***Cross-posted at wordpress.

I had an “ADD moment” at my conference over the weekend.

By some misfortune, I was scheduled to present a poster at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. This is the *worst* presentation slot, and I’ve now had it two years in a row. I’m a good sport, however, and prepared in advance so I wouldn’t have to scramble on Sunday morning.

I didn’t know about daylight savings time until I arrived at the conference on Wednesday afternoon. But, I still prepared in advance, set several clocks so I wouldn’t sleep in and miss my presentation time, etc. I even woke up on time, had a cup of coffee, and made it to the poster hall early. I was really, really proud of this, because I am not a morning person.
Five minutes after I put up my poster, I realized I hadn’t taken my medication. So on top of being really, really tired, I could barely string sentences together because I was sans-ritalin.

The punchline: I still didn’t remember to take my medication, even though I’d carried it with me to the poster hall! The 1-2 times I remembered I needed to take it I ended up getting distracted. The bottom line… I was too tired to remember to take something that helps me function like a normal person even when I’m tired.

I’m not beating myself up about this too much, and in fact, I’ve been laughing about it ever since. Fortunately only a few people came to the 8 a.m. session (my supervisor was not one of them), and I didn’t need to do any real deep thinking at that point of the morning. Plus, I could joke about not being able to think straight because I was so tired, just like everybody else at the session.

I did experience a cool “first” at this conference: multiple people recognized my name! I was greeted enthusiastically at one poster by name (”Dr. Addled! It’s so nice to meet you! I really enjoyed your article on French pastry techniques, and would love it if you attended my symposium later on croissants!”), and another person purposely found me to tell me how valuable they found my research. This has never happened before, and it’s pretty darn cool!