When tomorrow’s dream became yesterday
Fifteen years, you chase a dream for so long it becomes a part of you. You wake up, check the boxes you need to the best you can, and do it all again tomorrow. Then you do it again. And you do it again. And you keep taking the steps to get where you want to be, because you’ve already been doing it for so long you figure it would be a shame to throw in the towel now. You’ve bled for the dream, sacrificed for the dream, it’s in you now. After a few years maybe you even start to think it will never happen, because if it was going to happen, it would’ve already. Right? Until one day you wake up, you cross that finish line and the dream you spent so much of your life working towards becomes history. What happens when your dream of tomorrow becomes the history of yesterday?
(more…)The second conference prep
It’s conference season. When I say season I mean season, how many conferences can be crammed into the span of two months? I’m not sure, but I do know that just for my field specifically there are three going on in the next seven days and while I do wish I could attend all three, for the sake of my sanity, health, and the safety of the time-space continuum I’m limiting the number of things I am doing. Conference season, on one hand I missed it. For the past two years COVID has basically eliminated all the major conferences in my field. Unfortunately for me, COVID is still a thing, sooooo we’re playing it safe with the good ol’ N95. That said, let’s dive into what the next week will look like and the prep I’m doing for conference number two.
(more…)Fabric conference posters!
It’s here!!!!! My poster is finally here and let me just say it looks great! I’m thrilled with how it came out and the last post on the topic (here) discussed why using a fabric company over a school based company was a great idea, mostly because of the level of expected quality so I won’t be talking about that today. Instead I think I’ll cover why I’m so thrilled, but also how I managed to get it printed, because that’s a story. Although, the linked how-to guide in the previous post on the matter does a great job, I figured I could pass along some other advice. Namely, what to do now that I need to cut it to size…!!!
(more…)The final week
It’s officially prep time, well it’s always prep time, but in this case I have two conferences back to back next week, so there’s some work to be done. I’ve got a lot of work to do, but what else is new? While everyone is different, since there’s so much going on, I thought it would be great to take the time to discuss how exactly I am getting ready for these events and talk a bit about the stuff that will come afterwards. The next week will be a major one for me, in my opinion anyway, so I want to give myself the best chance at a good outcome.
(more…)So you want to print a conference poster
Well with the DARPA conference coming, I need to print the poster. Easier said than done unfortunately. Sure, with the advent of giant printers, you can get it done in minutes, but there’s a line involved and because it’s conference season and because I want to try something fancy, the line is fairly long. Weeks long, but the conference is in less than two weeks and I only recently finished my poster. Now I SHOULD have taken care of this at the beginning of the week, but again we have an oops because I did not. Moral of the story, if you want to stop reading, don’t be me. Now, since I’m doing something fancy, let’s talk about why and how!
(more…)The double conference dilemma
So next week it’s conference time! But wait… there’s more, it’s also conference time! That’s right, there’s not one, but two conferences happening at the same time and guess who has two different jobs and will be attending both? This guy! That’s right, as of today I’ll be attending both conferences, luckily one will be done virtually so there won’t be a mad dash from one to the other, then back again since I need to be there at the start and end of one of them, it’s wild.
(more…)Fantastic posters and how to make them
It’s that time of the year again, time to make a poster! I’ll be doing at least a couple this year to display some of the work I’ve been doing, but the current one I’m in the process of finishing up is for the summer conference the hospital holds. They sent out a template and a example poster from last year’s event, but the example was bad. Like really bad. So maybe we need to talk about what makes a good poster, because apparently people think they need to be books.
(more…)Conference update!
A few weeks ago I submitted an abstract to a conference that’s coming up. It’s an internally run conference that the hospital puts on every year for us to share our work with other labs. A lot of the stuff we do in the hospital is similar across labs so doing stuff like this helps everyone explore different collaborations that could be done or work that compliments other work. There’s a few things that need to happen now that I’ve been selected and there’s not a lot of time to do it, but what else is new?
(more…)Presentations in a pandemic
Today was the first in person presentation I’ve done in years. Literally years thanks to the pandemic. I’ve been avoiding large gatherings and will continue to do so, but this was a special case since it was a hospital event. We’re all vaccinated, masks were required, and we were distanced in a well ventilated area, so it was the first time I’ve really felt comfortable attending an event like that. Before we get into the talk, let me just say it feels weird wearing dress clothes for the first time in years. I don’t know that I mind the sweatpants lifestyle so much (okay I definitely don’t mind it), but it was fun to mix it up a bit and shave, which I also stopped doing since the pandemic because, why not?
(more…)One presentation done!
Today was the final presentation on some research I did. The road was long and I wish I could blame it all on COVID, but there was a lot for me to learn between when we started and now. I’m happy with the outcome and I think my school-PI is happy as well. There’s still one minor milestone left and that’s the publication, but the paper is written and I’m waiting for edits from my co-authors, so the hard part is done at least.
(more…)Day 240: Conferencing at a distance!
Not everyone has access to such luxurious setups.
It’s that time of the year again, well one of two times of the year really (for us anyway). Unfortunately with the coronavirus conferences are better held virtually than in person. While I have mixed feelings about the usefulness of meeting virtually to share our work, I am grateful that there are workarounds, don’t get me wrong, but there are some logistics that make it, well painful and some things that make this worthwhile.
Lunatic Laboratories 