Thursday, January 29, 2009

Bring on the conferences!

I've uncovered the existence of the Second International Conference on Self-Healing Materials! (see more info here!) It is being held from June 28-July 1 in Chicago, and I'm really hoping I will be able to go. Keegan and I actually return from our honeymoon on June 28, but I think I should be able to arrive on the 29th and still learn a lot (it is an international conference, so it is pretty long). I'll have to find out if I'll be able to arrive a day late and still be able to check in and everything (I've never been to a big conference like this even though I've presented at several university-sponsored symposiums, so I don't know if you can only check in between certain hours on certain days). Also the abstracts are due on February 5, which is a week from today... so I hope I'll be able to piece something together that is intelligent given that I've only been learning about self-healing polymers for the last 3 weeks.

It will feel fantastic to really have something to work towards now for the short term while I'm still learning to try to put together what will some day be my thesis project. Martha Absher, the woman who organizes the REU that I had at Duke in 2007, is looking for someone in Monty's lab to submit a project proposal so she could possibly pair one of the REU students with one of us. While the post-doc in the lab thinks that either me or the second year student should volunteer a project, I know that I will not have a defined enough idea of what I should be doing to be passing off work to someone else. Plus I know the program is only 8 weeks long and I will be out of town for 2 of those weeks and that for the first 3 weeks of the program I will most likely be frantically planning the rest of the wedding details and having last minute meetings with the florist, photographer, tailors, etc. I would feel really bad wasting the summer of an undergrad that worked so hard to get that REU.

Speaking of Dean Absher, she's being presented with a Community Betterment Award, and I was invited to go to the ceremony! It's a big meal and party at the Washington Duke Inn, which is super-nice and I'm looking forward to it. Too bad I have two midterms that same week, so I'll probably be stressed about how I should be studying rather than at a party...

I don't have class tomorrow! Yay! However, Keegan and I are meeting with the church to pick out the food we would like to have at the reception in the afternoon and I will be working on my review paper readings all day. But at least I don't need to come to campus. There are apparently undergrads coming to tour the lab, but I can't be here because we're going to be at the church. That stinks because it would be nice to meet with some of the potential students who could be joining us next year.

Well, back to the reading! I just wanted to share of the exciting discovery of such a conference. There's a conference for everything!

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