While Steve conferences, I dissertate
We've been doing lots of traveling recently! Last week we were in Santa Fe, NM from Thurs-Mon for a conference I had there. Interestingly, it is the conference I met my advisor at 6 years ago when I was applying to grad school during my senior year in college, so being almost done with the PhD now, it feels like I've come full circle. :-) Steve came along and saw the sights while I was at the conference. I played hooky from a few sessions, and we went shopping in the little artist shops there, and we went to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. It was great fun! Although I do think it is beautiful there, I much prefer the green rolling hills of the east coast to Southwestern redness.
Now we're in San Diego (from Fri to Wed), where Steve is at the HUGE Society for Neuroscience conference, which about 30,000 people attend. :-O It is such a big conference that they can only have it in a few cities in the country. He had yesterday until about 3pm free, so we went to the San Diego Zoo, which was great! We didn't even get to everything in 6 hours. Highlights included seeing a huge albino (yellow/white) snake that made me jump (!), sea turtles having sex, primates simulating sex for dominance, two hippos swimming, a mom & baby orangutan playing and swinging, bonobos (another primate) goofing off beating on the glass where we were standing, a large panda climb up a tree and a cheetah and jaguar who thought a small dog and a child were lunch! The most horrifying thing was seeing he cheetah pacing back & forth in his cage, as close as he could get to a toddler in a stroller and clearly eyeing her, and the parent turned the stroller TOWARD the animal so it could get a better look! :-O Using your child for bait and taunting a wild animal, just wonderful! Steve and I were shocked.
Steve will be at the conference most of the day today and Monday though, so I am dissertating away. The beauty is that with my laptop, data analysis files, and PDF versions of relevant articles, I am fully portable! I am going to try to find a cafe by the ocean for lunch & continued dissertating. :-)
posted by Lauren @ 2:16 PM
2 Comments:
That sounds so fun! I wish Jack could come with me to my conference in a couple of weeks! There are some seminars for actuarial types that he might end up doing in the next year or two, so Kent and I might get to tag along with those. =) Have fun doing your work in a new setting!
Your Zoo story is too funny!
I loved San Diego when I was there a few years ago for another monster conference and I could not get over the size of their conference center. If I remember correctly, the best part about the area is eating dinner across the street in the Gas Light district and then walking along the waterfront just north of the center.
I laughed when you mentioned the red hills and missing the green rolling hills of the East. Each time I travel to the west I am amazed at the mountains and how different they look from what we are used to. Have fun out there!
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