home again

October 10, 2004

so i left the pharm conference before it was completely over, but i am proud to announce that, for the 14 talks i attended, i was awake the whole time. i wish i could say that it was because i understood everything, but that would be a lie. i’m not sure what enabled me to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of full consciousness throughout 14 (14!) scientific presentations, but i’m guessing it was mostly fear of looking really, really dumb. fear: a powerful motivator. i should know that after last year.

why did i leave before the big banquet and champagne-soaked party, you ask? honestly, i wasn’t having a great time with my fellow scientists-in-training. there were several people there who i really wish i could have hung out with more, but i felt like every time there was a break, they were nowhere to be found. then there were some first years who tried to include me, but it felt weird. they were already friends, and i really hadn’t gotten to know them because my lab is located several miles off campus. furthermore, i kind of already have a group of people from my med school class that i tend to do things with, so i wasn’t very proactive about making friends in class.

the first-years (an all-female representation on this retreat, i might add) seemed very young. it didn’t occur to me until i got home (and josh pointed it out), but they are younger than me, at least experience-wise. they just finished college last year and still appear to be in the “oh-my-god-no-one’s-telling-me-what-to-do!!” stage of life. one girl spent the whole time selecting what she felt were hook-up worthy boys and flirting shamelessly, all the while reporting back in fifteen minute intervals to alert the group of her ‘progress.’

i just wasn’t in the mood.

so i drove home in the middle of the afternoon on saturday. since josh had committed to a poker night (y chromosome required) and it was kind of too late to make plans with anyone else, this left me home alone on a saturday night. i watched mean girls and read middlesex (i recommend! it’s about a hermaphrodite) and enjoyed being completely antisocial.

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mean girls? so not as good as clueless. i’ve heard people make the comparison, but i truly disagree. as if!

– so i’ve noticed that a lot of people (well, a lot relative to my current population of readers) have started visiting this site referred from ephblogs.com, but there doesn’t appear to be a link on the page. i’m confused! if anyone could explain this phenomenon, i would appreciate it!

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