All papered OUT

Okay, I am all conference paper-ed out. I arrived back in Brisbane less than 4 weeks ago from Singapore (it feels like I never left) and now I'm buggered from writing god-damn conference papers! For the last 3 working weeks, I have written conference papers, done RA work and written more conference papers!

I had a paper for a social marketing conference due the day before I was supposed to arrive back in Brisbane. Bugger that. I managed to put it together before I left, but apparently it needed reworking. Much reworking. It was due at the end of May, but we received an extension for the middle of June. We submitted that paper TODAY.

It was (finally) finished but not without much drama. For those who don't know, a conference paper is just 5 pages long, including tables and diagrams. It doesn't sound like much, but the damn thing takes weeks and weeks to finish. Imagine having to articulate your entire research project in 5 pages, including an abstract where you are only allowed 10 lines! Pain. In. The. Ass.

There was also another conference which I wanted to submit a paper to. It's the Australia New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference (ANZMAC), which was the one QUT hosted last year and I got to attend for free. I actually wanted to submit 2 papers (HAH); one on my Honours research and another on my current research. I ended up doing only one paper because the call for papers closes today and everyone was stretched too thin to do an additional paper.

In the end, I submitted a paper on B2B Brand Loyalty, which is my Honours research. It wasn't too bad because I basically cut and pasted out of my thesis. Imagine downsizing a 150-page thesis into a 5-page conference paper. Anyway, that was the extent of my involvement as Rebekah was the one who edited it and sent it off to Charmine (my Honours associate supervisor) for a final edit. And I was still first author. Sweet!

I sent off the B2B paper to New Zealand today (the conference is in Dunedin in December), Jo sent off the social marketing paper to Griffith today (the conference is in South Bank BRISBANE in September) and today, I am back writing ANOTHER paper.

This time, I'm working on a paper to submit to the Doctoral Colloquium. For those who don't know, almost all conferences will have a Doctoral Colloquium preceeding it. Doctoral colloquiums usually last for 2 days, just before the actual conference and the purpose of the doctoral colloquium is for PhD students to present their work and receive feedback from academics in their area. I did this last year as an Honours student but paid little attention because I'd already submitted and was just so god-damn happy about it.

So anyway, my torture continues. At least for another 3 weeks when this one is due. By then, I would also have my confirmation document preparation to have a whinge over.