This is a story that just happened to me recently and it called for a lot of consequences and tough decisions to make.
Over this summer, I have submitted my term paper abstracts to three conferences. As far as I can recall, three were submitted — one in England, another in Switzerland and last in the US. Luckily, two of them were accepted while another is on the waitlist. I am so blessed and flattered at this point. The paper I submitted was one of the best pieces of paper I have written so far. I spent literally hundred of hours working on it and I can now see my hard work paying off.
But life is not always easy and simple because once my abstracts got accepted, I am left with decisions to make. In May, I turned the one in England down because it might not worth going and spending a great deal of money going to such conference at this point. I was disappointed but that was the reality that I cannot go to all conferences.
Now, I am confronting a question-whether I should go to the one in Switzerland. When I first read my email, I was, of course, delighted with joy of being accepted. But now it is another story. This is not going to be easy since my US visa is expiring in a month and this conference will take place in mid January. That means that I need to obtain a new visa in order to be able to re-entry the US after the Swiss trip. It does not end there because in order to obtain a new US visa, I need to go all the way back to Thailand, and apply again. As you may have been aware of, US visa application is complicated and it can take weeks. OH MY GOODNESS. What should I do with all complications I did not foresee?
Well, life is life and I know well that I need to deal with it. Let me just literally sleep on it tonight, consider all the factors and make the final decision later. I am telling myself that I still have time to think it through and it is definitely not a life-death decision so it should not be that bad after all. It should not be that bad….
7/14/16 2.13 am.
