Got back from Washington, DC last night... the trip on whole was very fun. The conference itself was decent, although not quite as good as past ones (from the perspective of my personal research interests.) It was held in the new convention center, a very cool building with an un-convention-al (hah, get it?) layout (New Orleans and San Diego convention centers, in my opinion, are essentially one extremely long room with dividers), and lots of cool modern art all over the place. It did take me a while to navigate the funky layout of the buildings. It's okay, I needed the exercise. The whole time I ate like eating was going out of style. I wholly took advantage of things that I can't get here in Nashville, such as Malaysian food and dim sum.

I didn't do too much touristy stuff, other than taking loads of pictures and seeing the International Spy Museum (sensational, and educational. Unfortunately, not free.) I primarily enjoyed just meandering about the city streets, sitting in parks, reading and people-watching and enjoying the awesome weather. It was also nice to catch up with my DC peeps, out and about at different eating and drinking establishments (too many to name), as well as at Blake's birthday party (very nifty that I was in town for that.)

I use lots of parentheses, don't I? Just an observation.

After coming back, one of the 55 new messages in my email inbox (and one of the 12 not-computer-generated emails) was from the AAAS fellowship rep., and as I suspected from reading the Scientific American website, their offices are in Manhattan, on Madison Ave. near 48th. So, I will be doing pre- and post-internship sessions in DC for a few days in June and August, but will be spending all the time in between in New York! Or New Jersey. See, they don't provide housing, and I don't really have savings, so I'm thinking $2000 per month isn't going to cut it for getting an apartment within walking distance. So there's my parents' place as a cost-free option, but this may affect my sanity. Also, in my mind, living 10 miles outside of the city might as well be living in another country. (I do realize I am leaving myself open to jokes about why New Jersey should/could be another country.) Well, we'll see. It's just that I'm so spoiled by my Nashville "commute", which consists of walking a little under half a mile each way to the lab.

Lab-wise things are back in full swing, and I'm pretty pumped to get more data out before my hiatus from lab work. Also, I have a thesis committee meeting in two weeks! Yeex! Stress ahoy. Just thinking about it makes me tired.... Mmm. Sleep.

(more later... and one last parenthetical statement for good measure)