Getting myself out there early

2003-04-04 - 3:11 p.m.

Grr.... I wrote a whole bunch of stuff, but then I clicked on a link in my e-mail and I made it go away. That totally bites!

Anyway, we just finished up our annual graduate student symposium. The basic jist of it is that companies pay exhorbant amounts of money to send representatives to find out what kind of research our students are doing, and as a result we give them presentations, show them posters, and feed them really yummy food.

Since I'm only in my second year and only have about 2 months worth of research that's worth anything, I decided not to display any of it. I mostly made bad coffee and made sure nobody left hungry. I succeeded at both tasks. I also spent some time networking with the reps. I'm surprisingly good at talking to such people. I never was before - I tend to get a bit nervous. But I got a few business cards, dstributed mine a bit, and one guy told me he'll keep an eye out for my resume in 2 years. I'm apparantly very charming ;-).

The event was really successful, and I had a really great time. Sure, it meant that I got nothing productive done in the lab. But whatever. Jovy, my undergrad, is in there right now doing some of the work that I was supposed to be doing all week. Hopefully, things will be done running by tomorrow afternoon and I can start analyzing some results. Woo hoo! It'll be like I worked all week. :-P.

I had a funny conversation with my friend Don today. Here, I'll paraphrase.

Scene: Standing outside the presentation room as I'm about to eat my second Krispy Kreme donut.

M: It's a constant battle - the desire to be thin vs. the desire to eat really yummy food. It's difficult to reconcile the two.

D: You look fine, enjoy the donut, well, not that I was looking or checking you out or anything.....

M: All good. You have a girl, so I wouldn't even dream of asking you to check me out.

D: Yeah, it's a constant battle - the need to behave for the sake of my girl vs. the fact that I'm a guy... It's difficult to reconcile the two.

It was rather humorous :-P.

Totally unrelated, I had an incredibly pleasant conversation with Luis. I gotta tell you, I like that boy more and more. I severely disliked him when I first met him, as some of you may remember. I really had nothing nice to say about him. But then he grew on me. It started out that I didn't dislike him so much, then I didn't mind him so much, then I sorta enjoyed his company sometimes, but now I actually like him. I think it's a small doses thing. He's a typical alpha male who talks a big game and, while he also walks a big walk, it's nowhere near as big as his talk. But he can be really sweet when he wants to be, and now that he's stopped chasing Heather, he doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth anymore. The conversation revolved around how it's crap that I'm not taking my internship this summer (he's taking one), and how he feels bad about the problems that occurred with my work and all. But he seems to have faith that I'll get a proposal together within the next few months. It's nice that somebody has confidence - I know I sure don't :-P.

Anyway, it's only 3:30 and I feel like it's time to go home already. I'm ready to start partying it up!