A High Profile Day

Wow. (That seems to be a popular beginning to my blogs!) Today was . . . where do I begin?!!? (That is also typical, huh?!) Anyway, I had a ginormous day today - let me give you the play by play. So it began with a 6:30 wake-up call. I wanted to give myself 8ish hrs. of sleep for the huge day. Then I went to b-fast at 7 and stayed there until 8 w/ my conference presenters: "Dr. friends!" Which was great - b/c one of my friends gave me his card and we had the best time getting to know each other. He is great - such a nice guy - plant pathologist - and is the one from CT. He passes Wesleyan Un. he said like 4-5 times a week. He was telling me about Middletown and all the great things to do. I am really exited for the beautiful river that the campus overlooks - I never saw that while we were there - the CT.



Anyway, apparently the best Thai restaurant in all of CT (hah- catch that? ALL of CT!!). And anyway, the most exciting part! I am supposed to email him when I get out there and he was telling me how there is this great place to hike that he goes to and then a good b-fast place as well! So I am thrilled about that, these wonderful PhD men going to this conference have been the most fun to have around! I mean, what a better way to kick off the day than to have great conversations with really accomplished, intelligent, and interesting people!



It is so hilarious also. There are all these special things planned for them b/c of this conference but they always want and try to invite us . . . for example they had this whole cultural dance/performance show and they were reminiscing about how we should have been there b/c there were like 75 empty seats in the auditorium! It is so nice and funny! It's like, well, we aren't quite that high profile around here! (This comment is a lead-in, I admit it!)



Except for today! I guess it would be qualified as very high profile indeed. So the day began - well I already told you about breakfast - then I came back to rm., backed things up - and a few sidenotes to add in here:

1) my hair cooperated/was fairly tame today, and. . .

2) I wore my nice Western wear dressiest outfit, and . . .

3) (This is jumping the gun on schedule of events, but no spillage on white shirt during lunch!) :)



Ok, anyway, work this morning was ok. Although I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time. So I gave presentation to friends last night after supper - which was so so so super helpful and they gave me great suggestions. The concensus was: "You were great - powerpoint was bad!" So, I made a lot of changes to p-point, well not the structure, but I just made it more of a presentation for p-point so cut down on words and such. It was really easy b/c I could simply copy/paste most from paper - same logical sequence. However, for example, in presenting my objectives, I needed to just not give full sentence, and expand upon it. So that was very nice of them to be so helpful . . . and frank!



So my supervisor was on a trip to the village and fell down some stairs there - I felt so bad for her! But she is ok, so I found that out this morning - but she was at wk. of course! And good thing too b/c she leaves for Ethiopia on Monday morning so she had to be here for a lot today - my seminar being one of the things!



So I was supposed to do dry run in the morning to my mentor but then plans changed. I ended up:
1) eating at a banquet-style executive dining hall with Director General
2) then dry-running for mentors in the afternoon
3) making last minute changes
4) and presenting!

The lunch was delicious and I met wonderful people from Un. of Florida who were so cool. (They were husband and wife and the husband was putting on a seminar thing here.)

The presentation went fabulous, the Q and A segment was good also and people were so nice! My mentor said some fail, some pass, and some pass w/ flying colors - I was last one :) (Well she said some fail, I thought it was a joke, but then realized it wasn't meant to be funny - it was true, so I stiffled my laugh!)

Then I was bewildered my presentation was over and I had given gifts to mentors (Iowa farmers' market jam + specialty organic peppermint tea + dbq postcard) . . .

Next I talked with Christen, then other intern friends at dinner, then hung out with UK friends and learned all about UK education system and college admission process. Sol went to Cambridge so that was interesting to learn about . . .

I headed back to my room and didn't end up going to bed until 2 in the morn!!! And then the last Sat. was ahead!

(BTW: I had a technical glitch and had to halfway rewrite this entire day of events so be appreciative!)