Well, I'm sitting here in LAX waiting for my flight back home to Seattle. I finally ventured down to Manhattan Beach, CA for my conference presentation. I was so nervous on Thursday before I left that I swear I didn't get anything productive done, I just wanted to get on the plane and be there already!
The first night I got in I was welcomed by amazingly warm temperatures and LOTS of LA traffic. I got to the hotel and my advisor, Tom, as well as one of the students that I collaborated with on the project, Tom met up for a late dinner. We had dinner at Rock Fish restaurant and I had some of the most amazing macadamia-nut crusted Mahi I've ever had! We walked it off out on the pier and then called it a night.
I got extra feather pillows and thoroughly enjoyed them all after a LONG DAY!
Friday morning I woke up to this view, so I figured it had to be a good day :)
Here is one of the hotel conference rooms---the room that I presented in. Slightly bigger than anything I've ever presented in before --by a landslide! It actually has double that amount of chairs, I just didn't take an adequate picture.
I slapped on my name badge that labeled me as a speaker--I couldn't really believe it-- and headed down to glean some amazing new insights into the future of medicine!
It was KILLING me for two reasons. 1. it was GORGEOUS outside and I was sitting inside a dimly it conference room and 2. I didn't present until 3:45 PM!
I enjoyed the patio off of my room about an hour before my presentation to just clear my head and soak in the Vitamin D. The presentation went really well. I talked too fast, but improved on that element a little from last time. The presentation was really well received too. I had two MD's and one PhD approach me afterwards to let me know how much they enjoyed it. In fact, I was invited by a PhD on the east coast to be a part of a pilot robotic training curriculum. He was selling me on it, but part of me thinks I'll follow up with him on it because it will allow me to log-in for free to a robotic training curriculum and perhaps get more time on the robots as I advance my medical career!
I woke this morning feeling excited about the idea that I could spend a few hours outdoors before I hit the road again. I tracked down a woodchip trail just 0.5 miles from the hotel.
it was a lovely morning for a jog. I came across this small community baseball field and of course, missed Tom a little more than I already did!
The park next to the baseball field had this really awesome tree too:
I thought it was gorgeous and kind of reminded me of something you might see in Avatar or something. I took in a few more morning presentations and then called it quits and headed to the pool.
It was beautiful...for approximately 45 minutes. Then the clouds rolled in, the wind picked up and I was forced back indoors. Its silly how these things get to me but I was so sad that I had missed the 75 degree and full sun day yesterday. But I guess I can't be too upset about it because I got to learn some pretty amazing things and got my first official conference presentation under my belt. I just wish I could have had the best of both worlds.
As I waited for my shuttle to the airport in the round-about I kept thinking to myself that I wish I could stay for a little longer and just push off reality a little more. It was nice to get away from my constant to-do list. But, alas, with a midterm on Monday in my endocrine course, the list is back again and it's there to stay.
Perhaps I can recruit my classmates for a massage...oh wait, this wasn't a massage, this was a chain of thyroid exams going on :) Got to love hands-on learning!
I feel a little invigorated by all the new technologies I learned about and I"m hoping that's enough to sustain me until Spring Break!
Comments
Post a Comment