let's confer

i am currently sitting in my office where my office-mate erin bought me a fountain soda. i can't do anymore homework without my other computer, and i want to finish my pop before i go home, so naturally the only thing to do is write a blog post.

let's talk about...conferences!

i really love conferences. i was very lucky at yale because they sent me to conferences in d.c., portland, england, and copenhagen. in england, i presented my first poster. it went pretty well. in houston, last summer, i presented my second poster. i've gotten pretty good at making awkwardly huge posters.

so a little while ago my advisor told me i should apply to present at the visitor studies association conference this summer in chicago. she told me this about 24 hours before the proposal deadline so i quickly threw together a proposal and sent it in right under the wire. to my magical surprise, they accepted it! this is very exciting. the most exciting part was that the proposal was for an oral presentation, not a poster. i got accepted to do an oral presentation last year at the international zoo educator's conference but i was between schools and couldn't get funding to go. it was really sad. but i can go to this one!

sometimes people say they don't like conferences and i don't really see how this would ever be true for me (as long as i'm going to interesting conferences). i really like them now because i'm just starting out and it's been great meeting more senior people in the field and making a little name for myself (emphasis on the little). but i very much look forward to the days when i can go to a conference like AZA and see lots of old friends and attend in a very low pressure kind of way. plus, you get to see new places (kind of) and hear all the exciting things going on in your field.

but damn, conferences are EXPENSIVE. i got away alright with AZA because my advisor paid for my plane ticket and i stayed for free at cody's place. i still had to pay $100 for my registration (on top of what stanford was paying for). for VSA, i started making my budget and it looks like i'll need more like $1000 to make it work, because i don't know anyone in chicago to stay with. then NAAEE (north american association for environmental educators) and AZA are both happening in the fall, in north carolina and atlanta. and assuming i'm attending both of those, that's even more money i have to scare up. and don't worry, paying for any of this out of my own pocket is truly a last resort.

so anyway, the moral of the story is that i get really excited when i get to attend and present at conferences but the reality of money (as usual) sets in pretty quickly. rest assured, however, that if you're in portland this summer, you will be coerced into listening to my presentation at least once so i am sure to sound like an absolute genius once i finally get up on stage.

okay, coke is done. time to go home!