ICOPA XII - Day 1

Well....after a rough start yesterday, Tanya and I walked over to the convention centre to get my registration package for the conference. We met a superbly nice professor, Dr. Miles Markus and chatted with him along the way. He is studying the effects of malaria and HIV in Johannesburg. We were slotted in the same alphabetical line and he very kindly mentioned that I should contact Mark Sidall if ever I needed any help in my studies. Great! Off to a much better start already! The reception was nice with a local band playing music for entertainment and various booths set up that you could browse. A man with a snake was walking around...so of course I went to pet it. And I chatted up some girls from McGill...seems like there are quite a few of them here at ICOPA XII.

Off to bed early to make sure I am well rested for the first day. We started off with a plenary section on the importance of eliminating global poverty in an attempt to eradicate parasitic diseases as well as the different challenges the Aboriginals of Northern Australia are facing. Off to the first workshop, the first speaker was almost specifically tailored for me. He spoke on the importance of strategizing your career early and gave quite a few important points that I eagerly made note of. I quickly realize that I am one of the few students not finishing their Ph.D. or in their post-doc and feel a little out of my league. This feeling proceeds me for most of the day as I listen to the amazing talks in the Parasite Evolution session. The talks in this session were all very fascinating and I met Dr. Robert Poulin and one of his students that are working on fascinating questions on parasites that have evolved a progenetic life cycle stage...I start to think of how I can apply some of their work to our local Neochasmus ..hmmm...Ph.D. projects begin to float in my mind...

Two of the speakers also worked with 2 of the species that I am currently working with, so I bombarded them right after the talk to see if I could get some samples off them...both agreed with enthusiasm :) Off to a good start!

After a quick lunch I headed over to a Bioinformatics workshop introducing a free database. Not sure if I can use it...will have to check it out more in depth. My afternoon session was less stimulating, and I was a little disappointed that I had chosen the Population Genetics session rather than Environmental Change effects on Parasitism...oh well.

I realize quickly that while I feel confidant introducing myself and chatting people up one on one...I lack that confidence when faced with a large group of people who are already engaged in conversations in little groups...I must work on this. After browsing the posters that evening, my feelings of inferiority quickly evaporate as I realize that my work that I am presenting definitely has merit and I deserve to be there just as much as any other...M.Sc. in progress and all :)

Tomorrow is my poster day and I am looking forward to meeting people on a more intimate setting, and having them come to me, rather than putting myself out there :) I know, I know...I am working on it!