The Dorky Taco: The Oceans Sciences Conference 2012, Salt Lake City, Utah

My first conference! Oh, and I gave a talk! Maybe you missed that. I got the incredible opportunity to present my research at a major international conference. Needless to say I was excited... but mostly terribly nervous.

I submitted my abstract in October, with the full anticipation that I'd be assigned a poster. It's not very common for an undergrad to get a talk, so I wasn't expecting much. Honestly I just hoped my abstract would be accepted. In November I got the email that I was given a speaker slot, and I was instantaneously on cloud-9. But as November melted into December and December into January, the nerves started to take hold. I was going to be surrounded by these pillars of science, the experts that I cite endlessly in any paper or presentation. I needed to prepare.

Flying in to Salt Lake City

I got into Salt Lake City last Saturday, not nearly as prepared as I wanted to be. On the plane over, I suddenly got this crazed new idea for the direction I wanted to go in, and began completely reorganizing my talk. This was probably not a good idea. So night one consisted of me endlessly tweaking my talk.

On Sunday, with fresh powder on the ground, my advisor, another researcher, and I decided to go skiing. Avoid the stress of my talk for a couple hours (maybe it was just procrastination). My advisor and his colleague were originally from the mainland and had been skiing since forever. In contrast, this would be the third time I had ever seen snow. I had been snowboarding once before so I stuck with that. The geography was incredible on the way up to Brighton.

Heading up to Brighton

Snowboarding was incredibly fun but also pretty painful. I managed to not fall getting off the lifts, but that's just about the only place I didn't fall. Trying to keep up with two experienced skiers is not the safest thing to do when you're on a snowboard for the second time in your entire life. I would get into the flow of it, get some good speed, then promptly catch an edge and fall. I fell pretty hard a couple of times, but I just kept wanting to go fast. By the third run, my advisor and his friend had ditched me and I was on my own, so I plugged in my iPod and just listened to music for the rest of the day as I explored the runs. Music and snowboarding is so much better than just snowboarding. It was more fun and I felt like I fell less for some reason. I'd just tune out and then suddenly I'd be at the bottom of the hill, lining up for the lift again.

Starting out...

Something a little steeper.

Heading back to the city

That night a number of my labmates flew in so the house quickly became filled. And by filled I mean overbooked. Some of us had to sleep two to a bed (luckily they were queen sized beds!). Everyone was some combination of excited, nervous, and jet-lagged. For dinner we grilled up some sort of pork, some flounder, asparagus, and potatoes. Being the 'rabbit' that I am, I stuck with the veggies.

Day 1 of the conference was exciting! The Salt Palace Convention Center is huge and I spent most of the morning wandering around various ballrooms. Thousands of people were in attendance, filling in and out of ballrooms as they attempted to see every talk of interest. This was impossible to me as so many cool talks were going on at the same time. I sat in on a session entitled "137: Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry and Ecology: Establishing Linkages Between Molecular Diversity and Ecosystem Functioning" and another called: "004: The Southern Ocean and Its Role in the Climate System."

Sitting in one of the talks...

Massive poster sessions!

Days 2 and 3 were a blur. Endlessly sitting in talks, then frantically speeding to the next one in the ballroom across the entire building. Day 3, Wednesday, was filled with plenary talks an there was a really interesting one about shark conservation and the impacts of the shark fin soup industry.

Day 4. Before I knew it, Thursday was here. The day of my talk. There was an entire session devoted to the type of work I'd be presenting: compound specific isotope analysis of amino acids (AA-CSIA): 123: Compound-specific amino acid analysis: a rapidly evolving tool for ecology, paleoceanography and biogeochemical cycle research. The line up of speakers was amazing. Marylin Fogel, the opening speaker, basically pioneered this entire method over 20 years ago. Other big names included Matt McCarthy, Yoshito Chikaraishi, and my advisor Brian Popp. Put simply, this room was filled with anyone who understood the AA-CSIA method. And here I was, fresh out of my undergraduate life, with a B.S. in Global Environmental Science. The talks started at 8:00 am and I didn't talk until 10:45, so I had plenty of time to work up my nerves. I had to keep telling myself to think of Max (a dog) who lives a stress free life.

On top of the sheer stress that comes from having to give a presentation to an audience of experts, I had two additional reasons to worry:

1) Both of my prospective advisors for grad school were in attendance, so this almost felt like a job interview.

2) My talk was essentially going against everything that the guy presenting before me was supporting. And the guy before me was Yoshito Chikaraishi, one of the biggest names in this type of science.

But you know what, I did it! I could feel my voice shaking a bit, but it wasn't bad. I knew my stuff and I could feel the repetition taking over as I settled into it. And I did alright! I didn't really get any difficult questions after, so I felt pretty good. After I sat back down, all the adrenaline left and I suddenly felt exhausted yet elated. It was over!

The poster session started at 4 pm every day and there was free beer for the first hour. I hadn't really taken advantage of this until now. I had to celebrate!

Title slide of my talk

The end of Friday's sessions at 4 pm marked the close of my first conference. It was a rush. A crazed, stressful, amazing rush. Now it's on to writing an abstract for an upcoming conference! It never ends.

Here are some pics of the city: