Tomorrow being the last day of the conference, this may be my only post for it! This conference is the CSHL Yeast Cell Biology meeting that is held here every two years. Ben Nelson has decided to call it the Yeast Beach conference, which is fairly apt.
Cold Spring Harbor is a town on Long Island in New York. It really is a harbor (I guess it's only in Iowa that things are named Mt. Something even if there is no mountain there) facing the rest of New York (as opposed to the open ocean). The labs have been here for ages and many famous scientists have studied here. Currently in residence is James Watson, who, along with Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin (who never gets any credit for it, but that's another story) discovered the structure of DNA--the double helix. The gift shop has all of his books for sale and one of those bobbing head figures of him that you put in the back of your car which is actually quite disturbing.
The conference started Tues. evening with dinner and an evening session of talks that lasted from 7:30-10:30pm. We were all pretty dead by this time. Nevertheless, we all headed to the on-campus bar, determined to have fun, dammit, even if we all felt like death warmed over. After one cider (still can't stand beer), I had decided that I had had enough fun and really wanted to go to my room which I hadn't made it to yet, not even to put away my luggage. There are dorms and cabins on the original CSHL campus, but they fill up pretty quickly and if you don't already have your doctorate, you're not likely to get a room in one. So, Steph, Eugene, and I were in dorms at another campus. We get back and forth by shuttle--dark green 12 passenger vans with Cold Spring Harbor Labs written on the side in white which matches the hair color of the drivers (very sweet old men who seem to have nothing better to do than to cart young scientists around).
Steph and I are staying at the dorm called Sammis, while Eugene is at Robertson. I guess they're very traditional here--the dorms are single-sex. The dorm buildings are actually old houses that have been converted. I don't know if they really wanted to communicate that this was an all-girls dorm, but Sammis is all pink, inside and out. Everyone has private rooms with a bed, sink, dresser, desk and closet, and there's one bathroom for every two rooms. There's a small living room and a kitchenette. And air-conditioning which is important because it's been rather muggy here. Robertson doesn't have air-conditioning but is a much prettier building. The dorms are pretty much off in the boonies--lots of trees. By lots, I mean a giant forest. Being from Iowa, I'm always amazed by the number of trees that are crammed into such a small area on the East Coast. We are far, far away from normal traffic, but that doesn't mean it's quiet. On the contrary, there seem to be about a billion insects and frogs who insist on making the loudest possible noise.
Trees and bugs are not the only large number of things crammed into a small space. I can honestly say I have never experienced so much science in my life. Talks start at 9am and go til noon. Then there's lunch and after that there's a poster session and then dinner, then more talks until 10:30 or 11 at which point we all traipse over to the bar to talk about--what else?--science. Then, it's on the shuttle back to the dorms and there's more science-talk. It's very neat and disturbing at the same time. Since it's now Sat., we are all mostly burned-out on talks. There are fewer and fewer people in the talks and more and more hanging out in the lobby or on the lawn or at the computers. Tonight there's a banquet, so no evening talks, but tomorrow morning we have talks starting at 9am and ending at noon when we have lunch and then hit the road (or the airport, as the case may be). I'm pretty excited about the banquet because they are supposed to be serving lobster and I haven't had lobster in _ages_.
I gave a talk on my research during last night's evening session. I think it went well. It's hard to tell because you know your friends will tell you it was great even if it totally sucked, but strangers have told me I did a good job, so I guess I can trust them. It's pretty scary to get up there in front of 200-300 people and talk about your research knowing they are going to ask questions as soon as you stop talking! Somehow we all get through it, though. Eugene also gave a talk and it was very well-received. Masa and Stephanie presented posters which got a lot of traffic, so it was a pretty good showing from the Glick lab. People keep asking us if Ben is here and seem surprised when we say no. As far as I can tell, there aren't so many PI's here, so I'm not sure why they are so surprised. Most of the faculty seem to be really young faculty who haven't gotten tenure yet and really old guys who are probably actually retired. The middle-aged faculty are absent. Not really sure what that means, it's just an interesting observation.
When they run out of space in the dorms, they start putting people up in the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception which is actually an active Catholic seminary (which is firmly stated on their room-assignment sheet, along with an admonition to be respectful--we're not really sure what they mean by that because the dorms are far away from the chapel and such, so it's not like people are going to be bothering the future priests on their way to Mass). Eugene went two years ago an he stayed at the Seminary. I thought it might be a neat experience--you know, quiet and relaxing--but the dorms are probably just as quiet and relaxing. The Seminary is similarly far away so the people staying there have to take the shuttle, too.
Tonight, after we all take the last shuttle (at 12:30) back to the dorms, we plan on (trying) to have a bonfire down at the beach. We've heard bonfires are illegal, so if I call you guys for bail, you'll know why. This is assuming we can actually get the wood to start fire since it's rained off and on the past couple of days. However, it didn't rain hard, and the woods are so dense, you can still find dry wood. Oh well, even if we don't get the wood burning, we can just hang out and maybe go swimming.
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