Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

I spent the last week in Orlando at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference. I gave a talk which went very well. First, almost everyone I talked to remembered my talk title -- "Do shovel-nosed lobsters shovel with their noses?" -- so I can take some pride in finding a title with a high stickiness factor. My presentation also was very well received, with one person calling it "inspiring," (or perhaps inspirational, I can't exactly remember) and another person saying, "I hope you teach," and saying she thought my passion "went through the room" and infected others. I have to say that after spending almost two months thinking about that presentation, and then boom, having it all over in 15 minutes, you milk those compliments for as long as you possibly can.

Also, my grad student Sandra gave a poster which was also well received. We did quite a bit of useful networking, including with an associate editor of the journal to which we plan to submit the paper, who gave us some very good and helpful advice. It will be a while before we find out if she managed to make her way into the finals of The Crustacean Society's best student poster competition.

I have been back in town now for a little over 12 hours after about a week with only one brief internet session, and am playing the inevitable game of catch-up. More on the conference later!