*Click here for the initial trip to get to Miami.

*And click here for the first day of the conference.

So if I remember right, I'd had a slightly expensive Italian dinner with Jillian, read her conference schedule, and practiced and fine-tuned edited my talk on our spacious balcony.

Right.

Up next was insomnia. Yes, I tried sleeping until 4am. The concierge desk was fabulously useless in directly helping, but did direct me to a nearby Walgreens. In there I found non-narcotic sleeping pills. I went back to the hotel room, took one, and marvelled at the way it licked my mind like a kitten.

I skipped out on 8am breakfast. Jillian would later say the extra hour of sleep was much better. Having later had said breakfast, we'd come to mutually sleep in most days of the conference. She was exhausted from a conference she'd just been to and I, well, needed the sleep most mornings.

That wednesday was the introduction. The introductory address was good. The talks were informative and ranged from meh to fairly good. I was surprised by the 8-minute oral presentations. Some people had graphs that looked like they'd been cobbled together 10 minutes before. Others had powerpoint presentations that almost read like novels. And almost all of them assumed an intimate knowledge about the sub-sub-discipline/field. I followed along decently well. Another striking bit was how international the conference felt. We had a few Americans and Brits and Aussies speak, but I do literally mean only a few each.

The best part was Linda's talk. Her style was engaging, the data amazing, and the overall story quite compelling. It dealt with chronic pain and some new discoveries about how to completely wipe it out. Really. The data backs it up.

Through some talks I touched base and sat with Cold War, Melissa R., and Owen. I'd come to be extremely thankful for Owen's company throughout the conference, which may or may not seem obvious as I go on. I mostly lost track of the other two beyond that point.

The end of the 1st day culminated in a welcome reception. This consisted of an open bar and snacky things, along the palatial second story balcony of the hotel. It was a temperate summer evening with light wisps of clouds lit up by dusk. After 3 glasses of wine I got up the courage to talk to two extremely influential people in my speciality and in the organization: Steve and Robert. (even with several layers of search bot blockers, there is no chance in hell I'm remotely risking things by using last names). Steve was polite enough, listened to my spiel about how I followed his work, whose student I was, etc., but he quickly moved on. He's a life of the party sort.

Robert and I, on the other hand, talked for about a good 40 minutes. It was like chatting with a god. I related my idea about glucose metabolism imbalance possibly being the source of what may cause withdrawal behaviors in mood and anxiety disorders. He is Mr. Withdrawal Behavior, basically. He listened on intently and patiently with a neutral expression. We then had several exchanges, where I realized I'd used the wrong term ('oxidative metabolism') to try to nutshell my idea. I was only half-mast articulate, truth be told, given that I'd last read his work months ago.

I was heartened when he said he'd thought about and been looking to approach withdrawal behavior induction from the same angle. But you couldn't hope to do it in monkeys, he said. I'd really have to look at something like the fruit fly or an animal with a very simple nervous system. Otherwise, given how complex metabolism is, I'd get quickly lost. He also suggested to break my idea down into studiable chunks. All in all it was heartening that one of the senior people in my field actually listened to me and took me seriously. He even seemed mildly impressed that I had a card to give to him, or maybe just in general. I really tried not to fawn over his work.

In addition I saw and talked to my advisor there. He was chummy as usual, smiled wide and clapped me on the back as we got started talking. If it weren't for the fact that he's my boss and I'm scared to death of him fairly often, we might actually be friends--but we both keep to ourselves and it'd just be inappropriate of me to ever expand from professional interests; so it goes. He'd just come in from Madison. Basically we just chatted about Miami, the conference particulars, stuff.

But there were vast gulfs of awkward meandering before and after these conversations. Given that I knew no one, Owen and I ended up talking and joking for a good part of it. What struck me as the most interesting thing, though, was how informal and downright companionable the core senior scientists of the society were. Steve approached my advisor from behind, placed his hands on his pecs, and stroked his chest provocatively in a sortof 'guess who?' way; Robert and my advisor embraced in the French manner (being that Robert is French). All of them were like old good friends to each other. It gave me a new appreciation for how well-established and high-ranking my advisor is.

And right afterward came an extremely opportune, well, opportunity. Steve and Linda were looking to form a dinner hunting party. My advisor was game. So was John, Mike, and a few other extremely heavy hitters, all of them on the editorial board for the society's science journal. The offer was floated for me to tag along, I think by Steve. Owen and I had already made plans to go out for dinner, so I asked him about this latest development. His eyes just lit up at the prospect.

"Are you sure?" he asked. I was like, "Yeah!" I said with a smile. I wasn't about to be the only grad student with a bunch of senior scientists. That would've unnerved the hell out of me.

And so we all descended from the hotel and out into the warm Miami air. Robert quickly left after saying goodbye. I got the feeling he wasn't a group outing sort. We all found an upscale Italian place. The wine was lovely, the conversation was good, and the chance to semi-personally get to know my superiors was a once-in-a-career opportunity. Easily worth 50 bucks. Owen concurred.

I felt quite fulfilled as I dragged myself into my dark hotel room. Jillian had long since gone to bed. Thankfully she was a deep sleeper. Rather considerate too, in that she left a light on so I wouldn't stumble around.

It looked like the conference would shape up nicely.

It turned out I'd have several such good bumps and one major, major valley.

I'll get onto the other days later.

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