The past week was so bizarre. After my pubbing, meeting new people, and going to museums, I got an email from the art gallery was I to interview at last weekend (I sent an email about when and where and never got a reply) saying that they need someone to work Saturdays and I can shoot them another email sometime this week and come in to see the gallery, which happens to be right next to the hotel I stayed at when I was here last year. Pretty cool.

Then I get an email from my modern art history professor from last year inviting me to spruce up my abstract/paper in order to apply for Scholar's day, which is a symposium/conference thing held yearly at my university to honor and showcase undergraduate research. Now, when I slaved over this paper last year, had billions of references, spent 10 hours revising five or six times, I did all of that with the intention of being told "your paper was one of the top five (in this case, though, it would seem top three) and therefore I invite you to present it at the spring symposium."

Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought beyond that point. This a huge opportunity for me, because I do plan on applying to graduate school and this would do the following 1) It will automatically give me a writing sample to send with my graduate application 2) give me the opportunity to be published 3) give me a huge leg up on other applicants who haven't done any of this.

So I said yes, I would be interested in doing it. I just have to be on campus on April 2 to present my paper if it is accepted. I feel sort of weary in regard to this. Yes, I can definitely be there on the 2nd, but I will miss classes and only be able to be there for the ceremony and then I'll have to leave immediately (or at least the following morning). I really want to do this and I personally think that the cost of flying in (around $650) is trumped by the benefits of it, plus this could possibly allow me to get more fellowships and grants because I will have shown my dedication to research and the like. I don't know why I feel so uncertain about it though. I guess I'm wondering how big of a deal one symposium is to my future and if I'm making it a bigger deal than what is actually is.

What do you guys think? Go for it or no?

Aside from that, I register for classes Monday. Finally. I'm really excited to find out what I'll be taking and actually get start my classes. Although the past two weeks have got by very quickly, I'm more than ready to fill my time with studying instead of wondering endlessly what to do.