11/19/2010

So San Diego was a success. My presentation wasn’t nearly as frightening as I thought it would be — almost everyone I talked to had great things to say and awesome ideas as to what to do next with my project. Some of these awesome ideas point to the fact that i might have to do more work before my paper is accepted by a journal, but that’s fine. Denise and I got to see PETA protesting the convention when we went to get our badges/books for the day, which was interesting enough. They were mostly protesting primate research, which both of us agreed was silly. I thought PETA was standing up for animals that can’t fight back? Primates definitely fight back. Not to mention how restricted using them for research is anyway. And expensive. Anyway, the idea of using primates freaked us both out. There was also a guy who claimed the CIA was stalking his life — we saw his van and then saw him next to the PETA members. I still can’t really figure out what he wanted — I think he wanted us to perform experiments on him or something. If only it were that simple, Mr. Crazy.

I went to the lab dinner with the rest of the people I was rooming with, and somehow we ended up on a disco bus which was phenomenal. Hilarity for all. Some of the PIs actually danced which made it even funnier. Although the funniest thing had to be when LR planned to buy us all shots to forget about his dancing forays on the bus. We all declined. Dinner was not as awesome as I was expected — we ate at a Mexican restaurant literally 5 minutes from Mexico — the fact that the food wasn’t amazing was sort of a let down. The margaritas were tasty though.

Monday we rented a car and drove around San Diego. We went to La Jolla — where there were seals! I was not expecting seals. Neither was Denise and we were both overly excited about it. I’ve never seen a seal in the wild before and it was awesome. We also climbed down into a cave, which was neat. We did a lot of sight seeing on Monday and it was pretty awesome. I only felt slightly guilty for not going to the convention center that day. Cabrillo point, Hotel del Coronado, North & South Park… We thoroughly enjoyed the freedom a car gave us.

Flying back was a pain in the ass. My flight got delayed in SD, causing me to miss my connection in Newark. The flight I was switched to was then delayed another hour or two. So, instead of getting home at 9:30, I got home at 2 am. Luckily, I’m dating a fabulous man who came to pick my sorry ass up since it was too late for Kara to come get me.

Of course, once I get back I get a dose of reality almost immediately. I checked my email the next morning and had an email from my mentor reminding me about my grades and whatnot. (Which I knew, but it still freaked me out.) And the whole ‘voting’ situation. They want 3 letters of recommendation and a personal statement. Seriously? A personal statement about what? Why I oh-so-badly want to be a member of the psych department? I don’t oh-so-badly want to be a member of their fucking department! It’s required by my program for me to switch into their fucking department. I’m annoyed about the letters, too, but I think I can get those. And I’m pretty sure by asking those individuals for the letters will cause more ripples in the shit soup that is my academic career. As in, there will be more arguing over where I should be, outrage that I have to do this, etc. Or maybe there won’t be. All I know is that I’m pissed.