I'm back, and France was great!  Getting to the conference venue was a bitch, but once we were there is was completely awesome.  It was one of those smaller (<200 people), highly focused meetings where they have you at an isolated place so you stay together a lot.  We had all our meals together instead of breaking off into groups going to different restaurants, so there was tons of opportunity to interact with all different people.  The pacing of the program was really good too, with tons of time for poster viewing and discussion.  That worked because the posters were super good.  Surprisingly, I had lots of traffic at my poster which I hadn't expected given its topic.

I made kind of a personal breakthrough at this meeting as well.  I recently read the book Who Moved My Cheese? and the line from it, "what would I do if I weren't afraid?" really stuck with me.  I kept that in mind as I reminded myself not to be Advisor Junior.  In other words, when I go to meetings with Research Advisor, I tend to stay by her side a lot.  She's great and all, but this means that I don't carry on my own conversations with people and they probably remember me as someone from her lab rather than as someone who is interesting in her own right.  So this time, I made a concerted effort to gracefully walk away to start my own conversations or sit with other people during meals.  It worked really well and I felt like my networking was really effective.

After the conference, I made my way to EGM's sister's place and had a fantastic weekend visit with her and her family.  I'm grateful that we get on so well given that I've only met a few times.  And I'm happy that I made the effort to see his family since we have so little opportunity to visit them.

Now, I hope that the meeting we're hosting next week will be anywhere near as successful!

Prepping

This fall has brought me way more travel than I'm used to.  I went to a meeting a several weeks ago, then there was a departmental retreat, and now I'm getting ready to go to France on Friday!  This is my first international travel for work and I'm super nervous about it.  At least Research Advisor is going too.  I'm happy about that because it will make the travel easier and because it will be nice to have some quality time to catch up.  Like about how we're both so sad about Awesome Technician leaving (I cried at her good-bye lunch, which is the first time I've ever cried at work about anything).  After the conference, I'm going to travel to another French city to visit Ecogeoman's sister.  That should be great fun as well.

All this has been happening in the midst of intense planning the conference we're hosting, working out the kinks in a lab experiment, and planning a major field experiment.  That is to say, I'm juggling way more balls than I have before.  That's cool because this kind of multi-tasking is what I'm supposed to be learning as my career progresses.  On the other hand, the stress makes me wonder if I would be happy with a job like PI's with this kind of stress day in and day out except times ten. 

The meeting

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.

RBOSnow day

• I spent the better part of last night suffering from nausea. I had skipped dinner, so I thought I was just hungry. I finally got up to find a snack but had to run to the bathroom to puke instead. Afterward I felt 100% better, as though it had never happened. I'm pretty sure it was because I took the second pill of the month on an empty stomach, which has been vomit-inducing in the past. I fear that if I ever get pregnant, I will have some wicked morning sickness.
• My research institution closed at noon today. We would have left early anyway because it was snowing pretty hard, but it was nice to have their blessing to go that early. Traffic turned out to not be too bad, but I was still really happy that it was my carpool buddy's turn to drive.
• I'm hoping that I don't have trouble driving to my hometown tomorrow. Things look manageable right now. Fingers crossed.
• I emailed a potential post doc mentor in Hometown. I need to find out more about what this person does, but I'm not sure I'd be a good match for the lab. It can't hurt to make new contacts, though. I guess there is some small chance I might visit the lab while I'm in town.
• I think I need more iron. I've been feeling sort of weird sometimes lately, like kinda weak/lightheaded/floppy/hungry. I had been vegetarian for a long while but this year I started eating some meat. I still eat very little and almost never red meat. I have a brother-in-law who has some um, non-mainstream views on public health, one of them being that iron enriched foods are not good for us. He was moderately convincing, so we started to avoid Fe-enriched food when convenient. At around the same time, we decided to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from the things we eat most, and that was a higher priority than the Fe thing. It turns out that most of the no-HFCS alternatives also don't have Fe. My point is that I think I hardy get any Fe in my diet and that was fine for a while but I think I've had enough periods now that my stocks are depleted. Perhaps some lamb tonight.
  
• This was a long bullets post. Sorry.
  

Say fromage!

Here are a few of the photos I took in France. Some of them will poof out in a couple of days. I might post more another day after I see what I've got.



This is the little house where EGM, his parents, brother, sister-in-law, and I stayed. It's tucked into a vineyard just outside a castle (with a now-dry moat!).


*POOF!*

This is us at the bridge over the moat to the fields behind the castle. Sigh...



The view from a high point in St Emilion, with endless vineyards in the distance.



So much cheese at a stall at the Libourne market.



So much wine at a winery we visited.



The 86-year-old winemaker is on the right. He seriously is wearing a beret.


*POOF!*

And finally, EGM and me at the wedding. The expression on his face is fairly representative.

Summer is flying by!

It's already time for our France trip! I can't believe it. This trip seemed like something in the distant future until like, yesterday.

For those of you who haven't been hanging on my every word for months, we're going to France for EGM's sister's wedding. She lives there and is marrying a French man. She made our lodging arrangements so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I'm pretty sure we're staying near here. Looks splendid to me! Also, I got this dress on sale (but still expensive to me) to wear at the wedding. They had it in petite and it actually fits which is rare so I'm happy.

I'm also pleased with myself because I feel like I left things in pretty good shape at work. I sent another draft of my paper to my advisors and another colleague. I also sent a draft of our symposium proposal to Academic Advisor, who is particularly good at seeing the big picture to make things sound sexy and he makes good general comments on early drafts of text. We let the Society people we're working with know where we are in the process and told them we're pausing work for the next week (Cauliflower will be traveling as well, although probably with better Internet access than I'll have). I feel like I accomplished a lot this week.

I think I'll write a post sometime soon about the symposium stuff. I've had a few observations I'd like to share and a few people seemed interested in the process.

List

First of all, the new Scientiae is up at Faraday's Cage is Where You Put Schroedinger's Cat. Cherish did an excellent job putting it together in a most creative way, so go see it. Second, Silver Fox has an explanation for why many blogs aren't loading right today (if you're lame like us and use Internet Explorer).

Anyway, I'm wound up tighter than a tick (as my dad would say) preparing for Big Meeting, mostly because I'm not settled with my talk yet. So, a list.

• Finish talk (nearly there).
• Email talk to Academic Advisor. We had a great meeting on Thursday; he made many helpful suggestions to improve the structure and flow. I want to send him the completed presentation so he can make any last comments if he wants. Research Advisor, who knows the work I'm presently much more intimately, has been away on vacation without her computer for the last week and a half (good for her!) so I haven't been able to benefit from her guidance.
• Practice, practice, practice. It's the only way to reduce nerves.
• Obtain quarters for laundry, do laundry, iron.
• Review the meeting program so I can figure out what I want to see and when I'll have free time.
• Visit Walgreens. Need toilet paper (the cats have shredded some of my stock); clear-ish nail polish (to try to prevent biting. It's unbecoming in so many ways, not the least of which are annoying the person seated next to you by making disgusting chewing sounds and offering to shake someone's hand with a hand that's just been in your mouth.); travel size hairspray and toothpaste; gel inserts for the cute shoes I really want to wear but are just slightly too big and rub blisters.
• Pack suitcase with clothes and backpack with proof of registration, bus ticket, supporting info for my talk in case people want to discuss it later, etc.
• Cat stuff. EGM won't be back from Canada until Wednesday, so I need to leave them with enough supplies for a few days alone.
• Tidy up. But not very well.