Devenish

Today started badly with a rejection of my BU abstract: I guess I won't be going to Boston this November, once again. My disappointment was offset by the fact that the reviews were mostly fair and helpful (if I ever think of redoing this piece of research), but was heightened by the consideration that my success rate with conferences and papers in recent years is woeful compared to a time when I was more research active, and when anything less than 80% seemed like failure. So at 9:30am I was feeling pretty flat. Less than two hours and one class later, however, it's clear to me that I don't actually care that much and that there are things that matter much more than a line on my cv. (I'm happy for those who can do both life and career advancement equally well, but I'm not one of those, and I'm happy with my compromise.) The twist is that if I did care more, I'd put more time and energy into writing more, and better, abstracts and my success rate woul