Thanks for all of your concern about my travel drama. I made it to the meeting the next day with a couple of hours to spare. My luggage didn't make it on my flight, but they delivered it to my hotel before I wanted to go to bed, so no harm done. That day was about as stressful as I imagined, but I got through it with no major bumps.
Our special session went much better than my travel. The speakers all basically talked about what we wanted them to cover, and we mostly stayed on time. I had the unenviable job of moderating, including cutting off famous scientists when they went on too long. I hated doing this, and won't volunteer to do it again if I can avoid it. On the other hand, we got some good feedback about the session. We have even been invited to write a couple of summary/commentary type reports for publication, which is very exciting. The due dates are really soon, and neither of us really have time for another writing project, but I think it will be quite worth it.
My poster didn't get too much traffic, but I felt fine about that. It was directly after the session and I was too worn out from the travel anxiety and stress of running the session to be interested in answering questions. What's more, it was based on the least interesting chapter of my diss. So whatev.
The social aspects of the meeting weren't as good as they have been in past years, partly due to the geography of the location, I think. Still, I got to see some old science friends, meet a few new ones, witness an ass-shaking contest (abhorrent), and I got a couple of post doc leads. We'll see what comes of those.
In all, it was a successful meeting for me. I'm glad it's over, as I always feel when I return from travel. The weeks leading up to a trip are filled with conversations ending with, "after I get back from the meeting, I'll do x". It's nice that things should settle down now so we can all get some meaty work done.
8 comments:
sounds like a great exerience!
ööööh, exPerience
Fantastic!
I'm happy for you that the session went so well! It will definitely have a good impact.
And good luck with the post-docs. I'm feeling a bit stupid that I dd not go to any conferences this year, rught when I need someone offering me a post-doc ... All interesting conferences were within the same week as my defence, so no chance.
Wow. I am very impressed. Not only does it sound like it was a nightmare from hell to get there, but moderating this session must have been at least a little stressful and it appears that you pulled it off without a problem. Just out of curiosity, did moderating this special session allow you to meet people that you may not have otherwise met?
Anyway, GREAT JOB and good luck with the writing. :)
Great news. We knew it would go well. Good luck with the papers.
sounds like a good experience overall!
Good luck with the post-docs and papers.
The moderating sounds tough. But good on you for doing it - some moderators let speakers ramble on for way too long, which is extremely rude to the audience and the other speakers. It sounds like a very productive trip overall though!
Thanks all!
Cath, I HATE when moderators let speakers go over. Also, this was one of those meetings with lots of concurrent sessions, so was important to stay on time so people coming from another room get to see the talk they came for.
MicroXX, yes I got to meet people I otherwise wouldn't have met, but that was more from organizing the session than from moderating it. We had to invite the speakers almost a year ago. It was cool to have a reason to email these famous scientists and ask them to talk about a topic I wanted to hear about, and then to get to meet/talk to them at the conference. There were a few speakers added to the session who we didn't invite, so those people were totally new meets for me. All in all, a very good thing.
Post a Comment