Back Online, Back in Business

I'm finally back online, after being off since last Wednesday. Last night I checked email, but I had to work on my conference presentation, so I couldn't blog.

Five days offline were hard on me, since I'm definitely addicted to the internet. It's not a really bad addiction, though, since I didn't have withdrawal symptoms, I just felt kind of weird and "empty," a bit disconnected from the world. Tonight I'm planning on catching up on all the blog reading, I hope my online friends didn't post much during the past week...

The "Back in Business" part from the title refers to the fact that I'm here attending a conference. I joke that now that I'm only dissertating and not really "working," I work a few days every year -- when I attend conferences. It does feel good to be "working" on those days! My presentation went OK (in spite of some problems with the computer and the video projector). This was my very first presentation in Portuguese since I started going to academic conferences back in 2001. The conference is also taking place at the university where my husband and I went to college. That place brings me lots of memories of the time we met and started dating.

It's raining very hard here in Sao Paulo, which is causing some turmoil for travellers, given the horrible accident that happened here last week. This afternoon 4 people (out of 7) who were supposed to present were absent. Airline pilots have been refusing to land in Congonhas, the airport where the accident took place -- I wouldn't blame them.

Well, I'll try to write a few more posts later today. It's good to be back.