No more traveling!

I'm back! No more traveling for me, at least for a while!

I got back from the conference at Penn State yesterday, or shall I say this morning at 1:30 am. We had planned to leave State College just after a simple lunch, in order to get back in town around 10 pm. Instead, we were invited by some big names in my field of science to go to lunch. How do you turn that down? Say you are an English major in school and William Shakespeare says, "Hey, let's have lunch?" You say when and where and no questions asked.

That's how we found ourselves at lunch, surrounded by genius people. That's how you make connections and that's how you find yourself with an open invitation to visit their labs. It was amazing to see how young they were, and especially how down to earth they could be. One mentioned how he knew nothing about football when he started undergrad and had actually insulted his lab TA by congratulating him on the fact their school had managed to score a touchdown against the #1 team, rather than offer his sympathies for the school losing the national title. It was amazing and that lunch alone made this conference worthwhile.

Now, I'm back in town and totally off track on EVERYTHING:

1. I have a huge oral exam coming up at the end of the month, which requires me to know everything about my research project and future plans. This weekend will probably be devoted to putting a talk together and reading, reading, and more reading of textbooks, articles, and anything that will help me not fail.

2. I have been eating terribly for the last 3 weeks, more so than I usually do, since I eat out at every new city I go to, and I've run out of groceries at home. I need to to go buy healthy groceries and stop eating junk and drinking cokes.

3. I have been spending money left and right for travel, for gifts, and especially for this last conference. I need to catch up on my bills and hope that I haven't completely trashed my credit, not that it was that great anyway.

4. I have to spoil my dogs. Poor things, they have been so excited to see me home each time, only to find out that I am leaving again. Not this time! I'm here for good, at least for a couple of months before I have to leave them again.

5. I have to clean my apartment. As much as I may love my friends for watching my dogs - they are alive afterall - I have to admit that my apartment has never stunk more. Rather than leave them locked up 24/7, I chose to leave them out at nights. Yes, this means they sometimes make messes in the apartment, but I already owe my complex new carpeting. Well, I've got the gear to clean up their messes, which really does reduce the messes that come, but my friends aren't as dedicated - I mean, they are free, so I can't complain. Either way, this weekend definitely serves to clean the carpets, do dishes, laundry, the works.