Sciencing

That's a word - right? Last week was the Benguela Symposium and my wonderful PhD supervisor (who must be wondering if she is ever going to get rid of me), agreed to pay for me to attend. She really is awesome. 

I still feel approximately this old when I am at science
meetings - a little like I have snuck onto the adult
table.

It was, in equal measure, really inspiring and intimidating. The science being produced in southern Africa (and about southern Africa because there were a number of international speakers too) is really impressive and a little intimidating. The conference really made me miss science and feel inspired to do more (or some, I am not really doing science at all right now). I think that we can feel proud of how well southern Africans do science - with much smaller budgets and fewer people than developed countries. 

The only less than awesome aspect of the conference was that I was ridiculously nervous for my presentation - I guess because of the impressive audience and the fact that I haven't presented any of my own work for such a long time (the last time I presented was three years ago). I rushed and blundered through some of the explanations and made the normal mistakes one makes when nervous. I think this suggests that I am out of practice  and need to do presentations more often because I used to really enjoy them and didn't enjoy this one at all. If you see any (funded) opportunities - let me know! 

I know you can't really read it, but if you want
more info - shout.

Luckily, the audience was nice and, while the science was intimidating, the scientists weren't at all! (And the feedback I got was positive which is cool). It was a very friendly symposium and I didn't feel like anyone was off-limits for a chat (or to drag to the pub). It is lovely to find brilliant minds that are still completely approachable and fun.

And, the poster session went well (not least of all because there was wine, actually, wine was a pretty regular feature of the conference) and people were generally enthusiastic about my poster. (Although one person said "another 700 fish and you have a paper there" - so I will be looking for a student to do the lab work). I even have hope (hold thumbs) that the DEA will be banning microbeads in the future - I will be following up on that and letting you know. 

I completely failed to take pictures, sadly. This is from a
picnic at Sea Point with some of the conference people
after the conference was finished. 

By far the best part of the conference was seeing familiar friendly faces again. There were some people I hadn't seen in years, and it was fantastic to catch up with people I used to share an office with, shared awesome field trips in Luderitz, or gave me an excuse to look for sunshine and happiness when my PhD results came back. There are some really special people in science and even if I didn't love science already, they would be enough of a reason to want to stay in touch with the science world! 

Oh and the banquet was awesome too!