absent-minded

When I'm especially busy or nervous (and especially on days like today, when I'm both), I can get a little irritable and a lot absent-minded. I think my mind simply pushes things away that it doesn't think it needs to attend to, with the result that I forget important things, like the meeting with the student I had scheduled today at 2:15. Ack!

All I can think about (despite trying to avoid thinking about it) is my qualifying exam list meeting tomorrow. It's not supposed to be a high-pressure event, but it is a chance to demonstrate that I'm decently knowledgeable, competent, etc. After all, this is the committee that decides eventually whether or not I'm ready to move on to the dissertation and the Ph.D. I just hope it's not one of the many grad. school moments in which I feel a bit like an imposter, like I'm trying to be an expert in a field I've only begun to understand.

Is academia the only field like this, where you can work your tail off and still feel like you haven't done much yet? I suppose not; being an artist, I imagine, is not much different. Still, it's nerve-wracking and may explain the whole absent-minded professor phenomenon. (Although he at least made flubber; that's cool.)