Yesterday was the Cancer Institutes' Retreat, and my boss asked me to take a poster. Think science fair, but professionally printed on a large format printer with lots of data crammed on. This is cool and scary. It is good to give posters- people come talk to you about your work, you get practice and feed back and get to see other people's research. Scary because real scientists want to know real science things about your work, and will tell you exactly what they think about it and you have to see other people look brilliant while they do. And this is my first poster on my project. And I had to go alone. (I am the only one in my lab who studies Cancer, and only in a roundabout way I could explain if I thought anyone cared)
The poster session started at 430 and went until 630, but people kept coming around until 7- so I got to talk to a lot of people. Not the people I thought I would talk to- there are two labs on campus whose interests overlapp with mine, and I am considering as committee members. Those losers missed out. But I got to talk about my work enough times that I felt pretty smoothe by the end when the new head of the DNA repair groups (he is a big deal) came by to talk to me (he recognized my bosses names I think). I didn't even make a fool of myself. I hope.
My boss isn't here yet for a debriefing, but this was kind of a cool career thing- goes on the CV and stuff. And did I mention it was hosted in sunny Greensburg? I get to go to a real conference in July- I am also the only one in my lab who studies DNA tumor viruses so I am going to Madison alone too- which I am feeling better about after this trial run.
In the meantime, I have to do real experiments if I ever want to graduate.
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