Day 112: Conference Prep

We are just a few days away from my first of two events back to back. First up is the confrence I keep mentioning. It’s a meeting with collaborators from several schools to discuss work we’ve been doing that the group funded. I have one of those projects, so I will be presenting a powerpoint with an update on the work along with a poster that I’ve made.

This of course means that I need to print my poster and plan for the travel coming up. Which also means packing (ugh) and practicing my talk. The latter will happen tomorrow, but to be honest packing will probably be last minute. As I’ve mentioned in the past few posts, I’m feeling run down. Stress can do that to you and I don’t get a break quite yet.

In any case, the printing of the poster shouldn’t be a huge issue, the transport of the poster on the other hand can be some trouble. We don’t have a selection of poster tubes like we did in my last lab so we search for containers to shove them in last minute. We’re on the ball here.

But seriously, there is a bunch of planning going on between now and then. On top of that, we have the three people who defended their PhD graduating on friday. Yep, right in the middle of everything happening. Now, the neurotech confrence will only be attended by 30 people worldwide, we have a few people from our lab who made the cut, but that means that most will be back for the graduation.

Funny enough, one of the people graduating will be attending the workshop, so he will stay behind, graduate, then fly out that evening for the event. I don’t know how that works, but it’s impressive to me.

Which brings me back to the things I need to get done for the neurotech workshop. Well it looks like there are still a few loose ends that need to be wrapped up. Namely the first events will be friday evening and as a student coordinator, I am in charge of organizing the events alongside my fellow student coordinators. Most of it is just logistical, we already know what we are doing so it’s just a matter of making sure that we are all on the same page.

I also am in charge of one of the speaker sessions. I’ve been working with my four speakers to organize everything and to make sure we know who is doing what. I have a short introduction to give at the beginning of the session introducing myself and the speakers, plus I will be moderating the discussion portion of the event.

The trick with this is that I am the first session. Yep, I get to go in blind and hopefully not screw anything up too badly. I’ve never done this before, so it will be a learning experience. Someone had to go first though, so it might as well have been me. On the brightside, once I’m done, I won’t have to stress about it anymore, so that’s a plus. It’s going to be a busy week basically.

When I get back, things won’t slow down either, I have my QE defense two days after I return. So there are a lot of moving parts at the moment and so far it looks like I’ve got it all. We will see though.

Until next time, don’t stop learning!