This blog is long due, I thought I'd be less busy after my conference, but there is still so much work to do!! Anyway, the following briefly describes my first conference experience.
To begin the conference, I flew to Chicago. One would think that this would be easy and trivial - but not so! A friend took me to the airport and said that for domestic flights, I only need to be there 30min in advance. I haven't done much domestic flying and so I believed him, still I told him to hurry, but we arrived at the airport with 30min left. And they told me it was too late...I missed my flight and was put on standby for next flights. But the flights to Chicago were all full and I was 25th on the standby list. I waited for 3 rounds of flights, yet my number kept on going down the list! So I talked to the AA people, apparently I was moved down the list because they pushed in people who were on delayed transfer flights - ie not their fault. They told me that there were only 2 flights left to Chicago for the day - but they were both full; and the next day flights to Chicago were also full. They suggested for me to fly to St Louis which had open seats, but St Louis to Chicago was again full - wtf would I want to do that?! Basically the gest of it was that if I kept on waiting, I most likely wouldn't be able to get on a flight even on the following day - which means I'd miss my poster presentation! At that point, my computer and cell phone had died (the chargers were in my check-in luggage), so I called my friend on public phone to book me another flight. All the flights to Chicago were full, he finally found one on VA for $535 and it was again, 30min in advance. So I ran over to that terminal but with only 20min left...and behold, I missed it again. Luckily the lady there was super nice and made sure that I'd get on the next flight (again a full flight). If not for her, I may have just missed my presentation! She was so great and nice - there need to be more people like her! In conclusion, after being in the airport for 7hours and stressing my hair out, I still had to pay $535. I wouldn't stay in the airport for 7hours even if I get paid thousands of dollars for it. I've been very good this year and saved money - so this is where the saved money goes :( Lessons learnt 1. Never, and I mean NEVER going to be late for flights again 2. Avoid AA.
I arrived in Chicago near midnight and my old friend from the lab came to pick me up and I had some real food for the day. Then I checked into my hotel - it was quite nice. It was a suite with 2 bathrooms and 2 plasma TVs, I enjoyed it just because it's so over the top and I was laughing at the ridiculousness of it. But I did genuinely enjoy the clean bed sheets and pillows.
After having had 6hours of sleep, I went for my first day of the conference. On this day, I'd get my badge, walk around, attend some talks and get a feel for the place before my presentation the following day. I was wearing a business shirt tagged into my pants - I have to say that I look like a different person when I dress up - I look a lot smarter. The talks I went to were about novel drug molecules. I was disappointed to see that there were no nanoparticles in the mix. It was always the same thing - small molecules or antibodies with targets - over and over again. At the end, I asked one of the speakers some questions, my questions were somewhat critical and he kept on deflecting them. Sooner or later he'll come to these problems so there was really no point for him in avoiding them. So I was a bit disappointed that people are so overly protective that they are no longer critical about their work. Then I went to check out the poster sessions, there were more poster presenters than attendees!! Again - disappointed.
Hence, the next day I was half asleep on the shuttle ride to the conference for my presentation. I set up my poster and soon after people came to look at my poster and ask questions - I was awake at that point! I typically first give them a brief introduction then they'd ask me specific questions. There may have been about 80 or so people and I was talking to them one after another, which was pretty good considering there were not many people viewing the posters to begin with. Of course a lot of folks came because of my advisors name, many of them asked me when I will graduate and what I want to do afterwards (they mostly thought that I am a postdoc which I'll attribute to the quality of my research :P). It's unfortunate that most people there were from academia, but I did get a couple of job offers from startups. I also met a guy from Netherlands who's the founder of a blood brain barrier company. He came early in the presentation so we had some time to chat. I really liked talking to him and I told him that I want to go to Europe afterwards. He says how Europeans are very direct and that most people may not be comfortable with that - I told him that that is one of the main reasons why I want to go to Europe! I learnt a lot during my presentation, from answering peoples questions to their suggestions etc etc. Time seemed to pass by really fast and I enjoyed it very much except I was standing in heels for 4hours and my feet especially my toes nearly killed me. I bumped into a former grad student from the lab who was also presenting a poster and we had dinner. Later I met up with my old friend again and he took me to the Navy Pier and drove me around Chicago.
I like Chicago, more than the other big cities like NY and LA - it's clean, historic yet modern at the same time. But I did stay on the magnificent mile - so that probably gave it some unfair advantage. I got up early on the last day of my stay in Chicago to see the sunrise. It was quite beautiful against the river. There were many runners in the morning. Speaking of which, there were also lots of cyclists in Chicago, and they rarely use lights at night and none of them wore a helmet! Another observation - Chicago seems to be full of revolving doors, at any possible chance they'd use them. Thinking about it makes sense because its cold and windy most of the time and the revolving doors would keep these out versus using automatic sliding doors. All in all, it was a fruitful trip - I learnt a lot about what's going on in the cancer field and about my own research, and I didn't realize just how much I like presenting my work :) :)
On a side note, I have already taken a pro photo for job applications in Europe. Since I'm such a last minute person all the time, I thought I'd be early for this! I think I'll start applying for jobs in June (OMG, that's in 2 months time!!) In this time, I'll have to write up a paper and do SO much research!! I don't think I've been so busy since.....since ever!!!
To begin the conference, I flew to Chicago. One would think that this would be easy and trivial - but not so! A friend took me to the airport and said that for domestic flights, I only need to be there 30min in advance. I haven't done much domestic flying and so I believed him, still I told him to hurry, but we arrived at the airport with 30min left. And they told me it was too late...I missed my flight and was put on standby for next flights. But the flights to Chicago were all full and I was 25th on the standby list. I waited for 3 rounds of flights, yet my number kept on going down the list! So I talked to the AA people, apparently I was moved down the list because they pushed in people who were on delayed transfer flights - ie not their fault. They told me that there were only 2 flights left to Chicago for the day - but they were both full; and the next day flights to Chicago were also full. They suggested for me to fly to St Louis which had open seats, but St Louis to Chicago was again full - wtf would I want to do that?! Basically the gest of it was that if I kept on waiting, I most likely wouldn't be able to get on a flight even on the following day - which means I'd miss my poster presentation! At that point, my computer and cell phone had died (the chargers were in my check-in luggage), so I called my friend on public phone to book me another flight. All the flights to Chicago were full, he finally found one on VA for $535 and it was again, 30min in advance. So I ran over to that terminal but with only 20min left...and behold, I missed it again. Luckily the lady there was super nice and made sure that I'd get on the next flight (again a full flight). If not for her, I may have just missed my presentation! She was so great and nice - there need to be more people like her! In conclusion, after being in the airport for 7hours and stressing my hair out, I still had to pay $535. I wouldn't stay in the airport for 7hours even if I get paid thousands of dollars for it. I've been very good this year and saved money - so this is where the saved money goes :( Lessons learnt 1. Never, and I mean NEVER going to be late for flights again 2. Avoid AA.
I arrived in Chicago near midnight and my old friend from the lab came to pick me up and I had some real food for the day. Then I checked into my hotel - it was quite nice. It was a suite with 2 bathrooms and 2 plasma TVs, I enjoyed it just because it's so over the top and I was laughing at the ridiculousness of it. But I did genuinely enjoy the clean bed sheets and pillows.
After having had 6hours of sleep, I went for my first day of the conference. On this day, I'd get my badge, walk around, attend some talks and get a feel for the place before my presentation the following day. I was wearing a business shirt tagged into my pants - I have to say that I look like a different person when I dress up - I look a lot smarter. The talks I went to were about novel drug molecules. I was disappointed to see that there were no nanoparticles in the mix. It was always the same thing - small molecules or antibodies with targets - over and over again. At the end, I asked one of the speakers some questions, my questions were somewhat critical and he kept on deflecting them. Sooner or later he'll come to these problems so there was really no point for him in avoiding them. So I was a bit disappointed that people are so overly protective that they are no longer critical about their work. Then I went to check out the poster sessions, there were more poster presenters than attendees!! Again - disappointed.
Hence, the next day I was half asleep on the shuttle ride to the conference for my presentation. I set up my poster and soon after people came to look at my poster and ask questions - I was awake at that point! I typically first give them a brief introduction then they'd ask me specific questions. There may have been about 80 or so people and I was talking to them one after another, which was pretty good considering there were not many people viewing the posters to begin with. Of course a lot of folks came because of my advisors name, many of them asked me when I will graduate and what I want to do afterwards (they mostly thought that I am a postdoc which I'll attribute to the quality of my research :P). It's unfortunate that most people there were from academia, but I did get a couple of job offers from startups. I also met a guy from Netherlands who's the founder of a blood brain barrier company. He came early in the presentation so we had some time to chat. I really liked talking to him and I told him that I want to go to Europe afterwards. He says how Europeans are very direct and that most people may not be comfortable with that - I told him that that is one of the main reasons why I want to go to Europe! I learnt a lot during my presentation, from answering peoples questions to their suggestions etc etc. Time seemed to pass by really fast and I enjoyed it very much except I was standing in heels for 4hours and my feet especially my toes nearly killed me. I bumped into a former grad student from the lab who was also presenting a poster and we had dinner. Later I met up with my old friend again and he took me to the Navy Pier and drove me around Chicago.
I like Chicago, more than the other big cities like NY and LA - it's clean, historic yet modern at the same time. But I did stay on the magnificent mile - so that probably gave it some unfair advantage. I got up early on the last day of my stay in Chicago to see the sunrise. It was quite beautiful against the river. There were many runners in the morning. Speaking of which, there were also lots of cyclists in Chicago, and they rarely use lights at night and none of them wore a helmet! Another observation - Chicago seems to be full of revolving doors, at any possible chance they'd use them. Thinking about it makes sense because its cold and windy most of the time and the revolving doors would keep these out versus using automatic sliding doors. All in all, it was a fruitful trip - I learnt a lot about what's going on in the cancer field and about my own research, and I didn't realize just how much I like presenting my work :) :)
On a side note, I have already taken a pro photo for job applications in Europe. Since I'm such a last minute person all the time, I thought I'd be early for this! I think I'll start applying for jobs in June (OMG, that's in 2 months time!!) In this time, I'll have to write up a paper and do SO much research!! I don't think I've been so busy since.....since ever!!!
