Neuroscience 2014 - Art........

Gigantic mobiles at the convention center. Tennis rackets, bar stools, kayaks, guitars and bikes.

Neuroscience 2014 - Wednesday.......

So there I was, Wednesday morning, stuffing the last of my clothes and toiletries into my backpack. I rechecked around the room to make sure that I had everything and then hefted the pack onto my back. After checking out I got lucky and caught a shuttle bus just a few minutes later. Arriving at the conference I made my way to the "bag check" where I was told that each bag would cost me $5. Really?! The conference isn't making enough money off the 30,000+ attendees! I coughed up the money and handed my bag over to the people manning the desk. They literally wrestled it into submission and I stowed my pickup ticket in my shoulder bag.

I somehow had enough time to stand in line for Starbucks before finding my way to the minisymposium that was addressing the neurobiological basis of food addiction. Settling in for the talks I managed to juggle my breakfast and tea while taking notes. With my poster session behind me and it being the last day of the conference I was feeling pretty light. About halfway through the talks a thought struck me like a lightening bolt. You know all those books detailing everything that was happening each day at Neuroscience? The ones I threw straight into the garbage the night before? Right, that's probably a bad idea after I had taken some precious notes on the black pages at the back of each book!! With a mental head slap I waited for the current talk to finish then quietly snuck out the door at the back of the room. I called the hotel to see if my room had already been cleaned. They said they would check so I figured instead of waiting around I would just shuttle back to the hotel. Upon arriving one of the ladies from housekeeping was kind enough to find what had been in the garbage can next to the desk in my hotel room. I was able to extract the notes while thanking her profusely and feeling like an idiot for making such a silly mistake!

With the notes stowed safely in my bag I caught the next shuttle back to the convention center where I said to myself, "I'm calling it!". Neuroscience 2014 had been AWESOME but it was time to get going. So I retraced my steps to the bag check, hoisted my bag onto my back, adjusted all the straps and set off for the Metro. There I swiped through the gate with my nifty SmarTrip card and was lucky to nab a whole seat for my bag and I. We settled in for the ride up to Silver Spring. I consulted my Metro map to make sure I knew where I would be disembarking. I didn't need to check as I already had the details firmly etched in my mind but with riding the Metro for the first time I wanted to be extra sure I wasn't going to make a mistake. Without incident we arrived at Silver Spring and I hiked, well it felt like hiking - I don't know how people actually hike with these packs! - the three blocks to my mom's hotel. I could see it as soon as I emerged from the Metro station and it's always a relief to know that you're in the right place when you're traveling somewhere new. I walked through the doors and started looking around. That's when my mom came running up to me with a huge smile on her face. We hugged and laughed and took my stuff up to the hotel room. I unpacked everything and then we went downstairs to grab lunch at the hotel's restaurant.

Neuroscience 2014 - Tuesday.....

Tuesday was shaping up to be the craziest day of the conference! With this in mind I didn't go in at the crack of dawn to cut down on the exhaustion that was sure to follow. I arrived at the conference and decided I should go and get my poster so I would be ready for the afternoon. I pushed through the door at Fedex and was told that it wasn't ready yet and I would need to come back at 10:30am. This erked me because there was a special lecture I wanted to attend that related specifically to the research I've been doing since beginning my PhD. From there I went back to the conference and made the rounds to visit a few posters on my list. I had good conversations with several students about their projects. It was getting close to 10:30am so I went back to Fedex where they told me that it still wasn't ready and I would have to wait until 1pm. My poster session started at 1pm but I wanted to put up my poster at noon because I was going to a panel session on the use of animals in biomedical research from noon to 2pm and would run back to my poster as soon as it ended. Then I would stay until the session ended at 5pm. That was my plan. So my mind was racing, what could/should I do? Yell? Go back to the hotel and get my crumpled poster? I took a deep breath and said, with increasing volume, "Alright, I was told that my poster would be ready by 7am this morning then it would be ready by 10:30am and now it's 1pm. So which is it? I need to put up my poster in 45 MINUTES! What can we do?!". I'm fairly confident that I sounded like a crazy person. Dead silence filled the place despite the long line of people waiting to be served. Then one of the employees said, "Um, ok, let me reprint it for you right now". I thanked him for doing this and wondered why that hadn't been done when I came in at 7am. From there I watched the clock tick closer and closer to the noon hour. FINALLY, he held up the poster to which I gave a thumbs up. I paid and with poster in hand rushed out into the cold. I hustled to the convention center and went directly to where my poster would be hanging that afternoon. Now I was hoping that the morning poster presenters would be there so I could ask nicely if they would allow me to put up my poster during the last few minutes of the morning session. Alas, they were nowhere to be found so with a big sigh and roll of the eyes I made my way back upstairs and was able to sneak into the "Animals in Medical Research" panel. Out of everything offered at the conference I wanted to hear what people had to say about this topic and therefore could not miss this session! I found it very interesting and even heard from one of the people who has been involved in an initiative called the "Concordat of Openness in Animal Research" that is leading the charge to change the culture surrounding the use of animals in research. That is, a large number of universities and research centers from around the world have signed on to increase transparency about the work they do with animals. The UK is at the forefront of this movement and I hope the US will follow suit. I really wanted to chat with this woman or see if she would have coffee with me the following day but there was a line of people waiting to talk to her so I decided to cut my losses and headed back to my poster. Arriving at the posterboard, that was now empty, I quickly put up my poster, caught my breath and wondered if everyone who had wanted to talk to me had come in the hour when I was at the animals in research panel. For the first few minutes no one stopped to chat but soon there were a few people, then a steady stream including one of my fellow lab members. By the end of the session I had talked to quite a few people and got to see some posters from lab groups in Europe that are using the same rat model as our group. There are relatively few labs in the world that have this tool so it's exciting to meet with others who are using it. Suddenly, five o'clock rolled around and it was time to take my poster down, gather my things and head upstairs to attend the last Presidential Lecture of the conference. Again the place was packed with thousands upon thousands and we heard a talk about glial cells and their incredible importance in brain function.

Leaving the conference I was tired but had a smile on my face. Despite the hiccups with  my poster the day was a smashing success!! I headed back to the hotel to drop off my stuff. Then I set out to get some Chipotle takeout and the cashier was nice enough to give me some of my change in quarters. I wanted to do some laundry before checking out the following morning. After returning to the hotel I put in a load of laundry and settled in to enjoy my Chipotle supper. :) Then I decided I'd do another load of laundry but what do you know? The machine decided to eat my precious quarters so I spent about an hour getting a hold of the hotel staff, trying to retrieve the quarters, trying to restart the machine then getting the front desk to refund my money. Drama. In the end I was able to wash and dry everything and set to packing my bags for the following morning. I was planning to take my bag with me to the conference, leave it at their "bag check", attend a morning session and then walk to the metro stop so I could get on and take it up to Silver Spring where my mom's hotel was located.

I sorted through all my materials from the conference and threw most of them away. I mean, why would I need a comprehensive list of posters presented at the meeting? I will return to this point.

So after a huge day I crashed for the night knowing I was ready to check out and embark on the second part of my DC trip: sightseeing and shopping with my mom! :)

Neuroscience 2014 - Monday.......

Monday morning saw me going to visit some posters I had looked up prior to the meeting. While I was interested in the topics of these posters I had an ulterior motive for going to see them. As you know I'm in the final stages of my PhD and am seriously thinking about what will come next. In July this year I attended an ethics conference and heard a researcher from Stanford give two of the talks. I approached him midway through the conference and asked, I don't know how I was so bold, if he taking any postdocs within the next year. We chatted and I learned that he runs one of the only labs in the US that does animal welfare research. I was very surprised by this and unfortunately he needed a postdoc to start immediately which, of course wouldn't be possible for me. Anyway, in preparing for Neuroscience I looked him up and saw that he was named on several posters. So I wanted to talk with his students and see what he was like to work with from a student's perspective. I was able to meet several of his students and one of his colleagues. He wasn't at the meeting but they encouraged me to apply for a postdoc when I'm done with my program. I was also reassured that he wasn't a crazy person which is what I really wanted to know. :)

Next I attended a panel session on how to effectively communicate your science to a variety of audiences. Scientists get such a bad rap for not being able to convey their research to non-experts, that is the public. However, I would argue that scientists have trouble conveying their research to anyone, scientist or not, who is not an expert in that particular field. I found myself getting frustrated with people drawing very hard lines in the sand between scientists and non scientists. Just because I'm a scientist doesn't mean I automatically have the upper hand when it comes to understanding some aspect of science. I may be just as lost as someone who is not a scientist. And that ends my diatribe. Anyway, I've attended workshops on this very topic but found some interesting ideas for ways to convey science and it really got me thinking about "audience". Each one requires a different explanation making effective communication even more challenging!

After that I attended a special lecture about spinal cord injury. At this point I should've been walking around and not trying to wrap my head around a topic that I know nothing about. So it was mostly lost on me. Oh well. :)

My last session of the day was a symposium on exercise and the brain. Very interesting and more accessible than the spinal cord injury talk. :) When this session finished up I made arrangements to meet up with Meredith again for dinner. We had a great time chatting over big salads. I told her all about my adventures collecting data for Wellington Zoo. She's a fan of cats so those stories were a big hit.

Neuroscience 2014 - Sunday.....

On Sunday morning I woke up somewhat less tired than the previous morning and knew I was gaining ground against the jet lag! I got ready and made my way to the conference. After grabbing breakfast at Starbucks I quickly found the right room and settled in for a symposium tackling the issue of "reproducibility" in neuroscience studies. It was an incredibly interesting and topical session where NIH, representatives from peer review journals and those involved in training programs weighed in on the issue. They also provided ideas and directions for improving how we "do science". I enjoyed the practical nature of the session.

Side note: Straightaway I realized that this particular meeting was going to be different than the meetings I had attended in the past (2009 and 2010). First of all, until now I had always attended with my supervisor and at least one student from our lab. This time I was attending alone and going in I wasn't sure about this because I always felt intimidated by the size of the meeting and the caliber of the research presented there. Beyond going it alone this year I spent more time than ever before attending symposia and special lectures throughout the conference. But mostly the thing that was different about this meeting was me. In years past I had always felt that I understood relatively little of what was presented at Neuroscience (in the big talks) and smothered by the sheer number of posters I could visit (thousands in each morning and afternoon session). So this year I can't tell you how happy I was to find that I was having considerably less difficulty engaging with the material. It felt accessible - that I could understand and take something from it. I no longer felt like the wide-eyed student but more that I was attending a research conference with my peers. This is nothing short of incredible! And I guess it makes sense, I'm approaching the end of my PhD and probably should feel a bit more established as a scientist. Still it's a great feeling!

Next I attended two special lectures: one on ethics of inter group behavior (it was more interesting than it sounds!) and the other about sex differences in the brain. From there I needed to walk around and let my brain digest or at least do nothing for a bit. I made my way down to the huge halls on the lower level where all the vendors and posters were housed. Now visiting the vendors at Neuroscience has become a bit of a tradition. You make your way up and down the aisles where you'll see every type of equipment, software, as well as companies that will provide you with any reagent you might need or will process tissue for you. I find it's the best place in the world to collect pens. Yes, I always come away from the meeting with at least 30. :) I talked with several vendors about a variety of topics including special feed for laboratory animals, those who work with the USDA branch that manages animal welfare in the US, St Jude representatives who were advertising post doc positions as well as Eppendorf (they have the best pens that look very much like pipettes).

After that I went in search of a Fedex store where I could get my poster reprinted. I was able to make arrangements and was promised that it would be ready early on Tues morning. My poster session was Tuesday afternoon so that would give me enough time to pick it up and make it back to the conference.

I breathed a sigh of relief that I would have a non-crumpled poster to present. Here's to looking professional! I figured I would go back to the conference but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to take a walk. I wanted to locate the Metro stop I'd need to take to where my mom would be staying in Silver Spring, MD, when the conference ended. Within two blocks I saw it and decided to go in and purchase a SmarTrip card. We have Snapper cards in NZ and they have Oyster cards in London but in DC it's a SmarTrip card for taking the Metro. With minor setbacks I was able to purchase the card and load some money onto it so I would be ready when I left the conference on Wednesday. From there I walked down to the National Mall via the Sculpture Garden because I'd been staring at it on Google Maps and wanted to see it for real.

I returned to the hotel and messaged my friend Meredith who lives outside of DC. She was so sweet and offered to drive into the District and pick me up so we could go out to dinner. It was so fun to catch up and see a smiling face that I knew!

Neuroscience 2014 - Saturday......

The following morning I felt about 1000% (note, not a typo) better. Writing about that part of the trip is a little embarrassing because I had a serious meltdown when, in retrospect, it doesn't sound like it was that bad. And it wasn't, any of those things in isolation or experienced while rested and relaxed would have been annoying but taken in stride. In combination and mixed together with complete exhaustion it was a recipe for disaster!

Leaving the hotel I got my bearings and figured out which way I needed to walk to get to the conference; it was just under a mile from my hotel. With a brisk autumn chill in the air I was already in love with DC. It was as things should be, a chilly November morning with bright sunshine. I walked past many a brownstone and was enamored of the beautiful buildings around every corner. Consulting Google Maps to make sure I was on course I soon arrived at the convention center! I could scarcely believe I was there!

I went in and was able, without too much trouble, get my conference badge reprinted. I had registered with plenty of time but the badge did not arrive before I left for the conference. I also picked up the conference materials. With Neuroscience being such a huge meeting you get a separate book detailing all the lectures, symposia and posters for each day.

I then spent some time standing in the never ending line leading up to Starbucks - it was right in the convention center and throughout the entire conference I never saw the line any shorter than a mile long. :) They must've made a fortune! Neuronerds need their caffeine!

After making it through I got lucky and nabbed a comfy chair in the lobby where I munched on a slice of pumpkin bread, sipped my chai tea and perused the "Saturday" book of all that was on at the conference that day. I had done some planning before I arrived but not as thoroughly as I would've liked so this was me getting organized and formulating my game plan for the day.

From there I attended a symposia: Improving Animal Model of Neuopsychiatric Disorders. This was a series of speakers discussing, in a very candid manner, the shortcomings as well as new considerations and methods for improving the validity of animal models used in neuropsychiatric research. I've always had these types of questions as a researcher who uses animals in the laboratory and this symposia cut right to the heart of the matter - it was like a breath of fresh air to hear leaders in the field discussing this topic so openly.

Then I made my way back upstairs to attend the first Presidential Lecture: A Living Record of Memory: Genes, Neurons and Synapses. The Presidential Lectures are always given by top scientists in their respective field providing a broad perspective, albeit high level, to the overall neuroscience community. As I mentioned earlier the conference was host to more than 30,000 scientists and the vast majority will attend the Presidential Lectures each evening. I don't know how to explain the incredible size of the room where the lectures were held. I'm guessing they can sit 20,000+ people down in that space!!!!!!! The photo doesn't really do it justice but it was taken before one of the Presidential Lectures.

That night I left the conference bleary-eyed but happy. I found my way to a nearby Chipotle and settled in to enjoy the flavors I can't get in NZ; to be fair we couldn't get Chipotle in Bozeman either. :) After that I returned to the hotel and spent some time looking over my plans for Sunday.

Jet-setting......

Well, so much for posting updates along the way. My DC trip has ended with my safe return to Wellington this past Wednesday. It was a whirlwind of ups and downs that I will chronicle in the next several blog posts. Here we go.

The day I left for DC was a flurry of activity. I did the unthinkable, for me, and worked right up until the moment I left for the airport. I don't usually operate this way but I had taken on a great deal of work and then set arbitrary deadlines that would have me finishing various projects before I left for DC. I had finished everything else and just needed to complete my final report summarizing my research at Wellington Zoo. So that morning I woke up early combed through the report, made a few changes, touched up some of the figures and with a sigh of relief sent it off. From there I showered and started the  process of packing our larger backpack with everything I wanted to take with me. I was taking this pack, which is Tim's, because I could pack my poster, inside a poster tube, in the middle of the  bag. I had used this exact method of transportation for the poster I presented at EBPS in La Rochelle, France, when Timmy and I went to Europe on our "conference tour" in 2013.

I was just stuffing the last of my clothes into the pack when Timmy arrived home; he had needed to go in to campus that morning but came back to see me off to the airport. :) So just take a moment to conjure the image in your mind: a huge backpack, more suited to a man than a woman, that was stuffed to the gills and would be transported by me. Oh dear. I could lift it and put it on but not without some concerted effort. Tim took one look at it and said, "If you buy anything while you're there just mail it back to NZ". There was no way I could fit anything more into the bag.

So we set off for the airport but not before I, at the last moment, decided to change carry on bags so I could carry a smaller bag that I was bringing along anyway. After quickly moving my stuff into the smaller bag we left to catch a bus and Tim, being the gentleman that he is, carried my big bag. Upon arrival I wrestled the hip belt from the bag, snapped it around the middle of the pack and slid the entire thing into a lightweight carry bag. We use these when traveling with our packs to avoid the possibility of the various straps getting caught or torn off along the way.

I checked in and verified that I needed to pick up my bag and recheck it in San Francisco; the gentleman who waited on me looked up and said, "Yes, if you don't it won't follow you to DC". Right.

Timmy sat with me until it was time to go through security and board my flight to Auckland. Saying goodbye is always tough but this time was a bit different. Usually Timmy is the one who is jet-setting and I'm the one staying at home - it's just the way things have worked out with his various trips to Antarctica, conferences and workshops. And while I've attended conferences and workshops I've been able to take him with me or they've been held in Wellington. So this was me getting on the plane. To be perfectly honest I was nervous about travelling alone, to a place I'd never been and finding my way once I was there. But I took a deep breath and boarded the plane.

The flight to Auckland was ludicrously short, just 38 minutes, where they found enough time to serve us wine with fancy crackers and cheese. Now I've flown with Air New Zealand quite a few times now but this royal treatment was a first. So I sat back and was soaking it all in when, suddenly, realization struck. I realized that when I had switched carry on bags just before leaving the house I hadn't checked all the inside pockets where I had carefully, painstakingly, packed some very important medication (birth control) that I shouldn't be without because, as you know, you need to take it everyday. I was so angry that I'd made such a stupid mistake!! So, at cruising altitude, I worked through the situation and realized that, although not ideal, I would be able to go without and resume my course of pills when I returned home. Still chiding myself we arrived in Auckland without incident where I took a brisk walk from the Domestic to the International terminal. There I popped into the ladies room before proceeding up stairs to go through Immigration. It was when I reached the other side, a literal point of no return, when I realized that my phone was missing! Thinking through my steps I figured out that I had accidentally left it in the bathroom downstairs so I spoke the NZ equivalent of TSA and they were nice enough to go and look for it. Long story short they found it, then quizzed me about it to make sure that it was mine and finally handed it over. From there I sat down and called Timmy to tell him that I forgot my pills and we talked through various scenarios of what we could do. In the end we decided that he wouldn't attempt to put a pack in the mail because sending prescription meds through the mail is prohibited and because it was Friday he wouldn't be able to send it until the following Monday; it would be unlikely that it would reach me in time. After we said goodbye I emailed the Student Health Service at Victoria to confirm that my plan for resuming my meds when I returned would be workable (indeed it was).

With this craziness behind me I was wondering if the entire trip would be like this?! From there I boarded my flight to San Francisco and am happy to report that we flew through space and time without incident. I do have to say that since becoming vegetarian this was the first time I would be flying and eating vegetarian fare on the plane. Yeah. About that. I don't know who was tasked with coming up with these "special meals" but they are the weirdest stuff you've ever seen. Most  of the time I wasn't sure what was on my tray. AND they jipped me on the ice cream that came with the regular meal!!!! If you know how much I love ice cream you will understand my rage. :)

We landed on time in San Francisco, I collected my bag and jogged with my cart to drop it off with United and then went through security to board my last flight to Dulles. Upon emerging from the security check point I immediately bought a Coke. They don't have real Coke in NZ and it's my favorite so I got some as soon as was possible. My flight was about to board so I didn't grab anything to eat; this was a big mistake because they don't feed you on US Domestic flights these days. We arrived at Dulles at 10pm Eastern time and after collecting my bag I found the Super Shuttle and arranged my ride to the hotel. Now Dulles is over 30 miles from where I needed to be and I figured the shuttle would take awhile. It did. I was last person to be dropped off and by then it was after midnight. Exhausted and hungry I dragged my bag into the lobby and proceeded to check in. That was when the guy told me that the credit card that the room was reserved with had declined when he ran the whole bill through. From that moment my heart began to race, I thought, "What am I going to do? I don't have another credit card! It's the middle of night!". Then he said, "Oh, ok, it declined it but then it went through". I wanted to hit someone at that point - too many things had gone wrong and I was too tired and hungry and knew that I needed to get up early the next morning to start the conference. He handed over my room keys and I went up the elevator to my room. I started unpacking when the final straw broke the proverbial camel's back. After pulling clothes and toiletries out of my pack I reached in to remove the poster tube. It was then that I saw that the middle connection point had disconnected from the other half of the tube and the poster, as you can imagine, had been twisted and smashed with extreme prejudice!! At that point, the waterworks started, and I had a good cry. Yeah. It happened.

Then I called Timmy and I told him about the poster. In his very calm demeanor he talked me down and helped me realize that nothing had gone seriously wrong; that everything could be fixed or solved in one way or another. And that I was much stronger than I thought (or felt at that moment). He said, "Ok, I have to be a little bit of a hard ass". It was adorable!!!

After we said goodbye I started addressing each problem in turn. First, I would find some food as I hadn't really eaten all day. This was tricky as it was the middle of the night but I was able to order in some pizza and that went a long way towards me feeling better. I then finished unpacking and took a shower. Then it was about 2am and I decided to not worry about being at the conference super early. I collapsed into bed and didn't move a muscle until the alarm sounded seven hours later.

Neuroscience 2014.......

Starting the third and final year of my PhD I wanted to make sure that I attended a big conference to present my research. And after much trepidation, hoping, finger crossing and multiple applications for external funding I'm just a few hours away from departing Wellington to attend Neuroscience 2014 in Washington DC. Yes! YES! This conference represents a HUGE culmination of events. This past year I've faced several setbacks in my research, wallowed in some serious despair and then, within the last few months have been slowly emerging from that dark and difficult place. Presenting a good chunk of my PhD research at the largest neuroscience conference in the world - 30,000+ scientists will attend - is a huge accomplishment for me. Arriving at this point in time I'm realizing how much work has gone into what is written on the poster I will present at the meeting. During this process of reflection I've also realized that I'm completely nuts because in addition to the crushing workload associated with my thesis I've taken on additional work as a volunteer on campus, at the local SPCA and at Wellington Zoo. Despite this insanity my work in animal welfare at the SPCA and the zoo has led to some serious leads on potential work beyond my PhD. This is beyond incredible because the PhD consumes every part of you and I've felt so wrapped up in what seems like never ending work. You never think that it will actually end one day. But recently I've started to see glimpses of life beyond my PhD. I can't explain how strange and amazing this is for me. So it is with great pride, excitement and a dash of anxiety I depart Wellington tomorrow and arrive in Washington DC just five hours later. Five hours. Well, it's only five hours when you factor in the time zone differences. And yes, I'll lose that day when I return to Wellington. :) So I will post along the way about the conference and DC. This will be my first visit and I'm very excited to see our nation's capitol. More to come.