As most of you already know, I attended a conference at Estes Park, Colorado early last week. The conference is for all the scientists who works at the Long Term Ecological Research sites all over the world. This is the first time I attended a conference on my own (the PI doesn't count since I only saw him twice the entire conference, once when I had to present my poster). I was nervous about being alone before the conference but I get to meet with a bunch of people who are also from KBS on the plane ride to Denver, CO. We figured each other out since we all have our poster tubes to carry.
The trip from East Lansing, MI to Estes Park, CO is the longest trip I have ever had within the US. I left home around 7.30am (ah boy have to be at work at 8am so we have to leave a little early) to catch the 8.30am shuttle (Michigan Flyer) that will take me to Detroit airport. We arrived Detroit at about 10.30am and hang out at the airport for another two hours until our plane to Denver at 12.30pm. The plane ride is only 3 hours. I love direct flights! No changing gates/terminal hassle! We arrived Denver at about 2pm (Denver is 2 hours earlier than MI) and we had to wait for another 2 hours before our scheduled shuttle to Estes Park at 4pm. Luckily I have already get to know a few people by then so it doesn't feel that long. The shuttle to Estes Park is another 2 hours. I was pretty excited to be in Colorado but the bus ride was no fun at all because I started to get dizzy when we were close to Estes Park. All those winding roads!! All the car rides to our house back in Batu Feringghi sure did no help at all! We finally arrived at theYMCA at 6.30pm. That is exactly 13 hours since I left my apartment in East Lansing! This is more than halfway back to M'sia! Hehe, can't help wishing that I am going home to Penang every time I fly.
When we get there, I felt much better because we have to check-in and rush to get dinner which was served only until 7pm. After dinner was the graduate student social so it distracted me from thinking about being dizzy. The food there is definitely great! We have some kind of potato dish every meal and I definitely had ate tons of sweet potatoes!! They also serve pineapple and oatmeal for breakfast, which are two of my favorite food! They definitely serve us tons here. We get three full meals a day and then there are snacks between the workgroups sessions and during the poster sessions at night. For snacks, they serve popcorn, chips and salsa or cookies. When we check-in, we were given a coffee mug and the program book. I thought that the coffee mug is a really good idea because it sure help reduce washing cups during the three main meals and cut down on the use of disposable cups during snack times and mixers.
Leila and I stayed at the Rainbow Lodge. We got a room that has two double-decker bunk beds and a queen size bed. Can you imagine 6 girls staying in this room with only one bathroom? Disaster! Especially since we all have to get up at the same time for breakfast and morning talks and then probably go to bed at about the same time too! Thankfully, it was just the two of us.
The first few days were pretty intense as I have workshops back to back with plenary talks. All in all, I was glad to be part of the conference. I definitely do learn way more from this meeting than the super huge American Society of Microbiology annual general meeting. This conference is much more interactive and allow graduate students the opportunity to be part of the discussions. The most beneficial part is to be able to interact with the graduate students from the labs that publishes the papers that I always read about.
It almost feels like I was back at Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, MA. The environment is great! The blue skies and nice cooling weather is definitely brings the mood up! I get to see awesome blue skies while walking to the main auditorium area from the Rainbow Lodge and lovely skies full of stars at night while walking back. Yup, definitely made me think of MBL days.
Soooo unlike MI. Ever since I got back, I have been greeted with blah cloudy grey skies. Boo! I know, I know, grass is always greener on the other side. But, but, I wanna see more blue skies! :P
No comments:
Post a Comment