Of My Conference

I was out of California and out to Maryland to attend a conference from April 9th to April 12th. The stem cell research had been accepted at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research, and I was assigned as primary author. As such, it was my responsibility to design the poster and print it – both tasks were minorly neglected (I’ll just say it was a group effort.) And when we departed for the conference, it was my responsibility to carry it everywhere I went until I got to our hotel. …

The university at which the conference was hosted was beautiful; it’s always nice to wander other campuses to see what life could have been like had you been there. I think I’d love the campus life had I gone to Salisbury University, but the environment was definitely not for me. I presented the poster with 3 other gals on my birthday (April 11th) and we were honored with a fatty frontal of the gym. Our poster was assigned the kiosk that faced the front entrance. No joke! <~ Inside joke. As such, many people came to talk to us. I felt in my natural element talking to people about the research, but I forgot that people at conferences had their game on. The types of people who came to talk to us were already familiar with stem cell research, had been doing stem cell research, and asked questions that weren’t expected! There were also people who didn’t know anything about stem cells… people who were pro embryonic stem cell research (just because I do mice doesn’t mean I’m into it)… people who were dumb asses.

IN FRONT OF THE ENTRANCE!

[rant] I give props to people who come up to the poster to ask, “What are stem cells?” I also give props to greatly scientific people who ask, “Do you know why you received those results with those induction factors?” I DO NOT give props to people who pretend they are scientific and they try to ask smart questions. This girl marched up with this attitude ready to tear me apart. She briefly glanced at the poster, picked at a few key points for me to explain, then essentially asked me the same question. When I tell you the induction factors are Retinoic acid and dimethylsulfoxide, that means those are the induction factors. “So you mean to tell me that you don’t know the induction factors?” I mean… was I really being dumb and genuinely didn’t know how to answer the question? The induction factor in DMSO. It’s a chemical that has two methyl groups and a sulfur. So she smirked at me like she nailed me. She did the same thing about immunofluorescence microscopy. Stupid girl. [/rant]

Anyway, I was initially going to write about my birthday too, but I’m jet lagged. Tomorrow!