Planning for Evolution 2014

Now that I've spent some serious time going through the Evolution 2014 program and trying to plan my daily schedule, I find I'm completely exhausted and ready for a mental break. I'm not even sure why I bothered putting together a list of fun bars in downtown Raleigh, since I can't imagine any of us being awake long enough to partake of any area establishments.

Top items on my agenda for this meeting include:

1. Phylogenomics Symposium and Software School (Thursday and Friday), because learning new analytical methods is FUN!
2. Chairing a session on Life History Evolution (Saturday morning, 8:15-10, Rm 303), during which my talk will take place (Jumping genes and life history: De novo transposable element insertions respond to selection for accelerated and delayed development times, 9:30 am). I'll have my slides up on Slideshare that morning.
3. I'm mentoring two students as a part of the Undergraduate Diversity program (co-sponsored by NESCent).
4. A few short meetings of various levels of formality, including one discussing implicit bias, another for LGBTQ folks, and some from the NSF.
5. NESCent's Evolution Film Festival!
6. Attending the usual set of poster sessions, keynote addresses, lightning talks, receptions, etc.
7. iEvoBio, to round out my informatics geekery.

I realized today that I've committed myself to seven straight days of evolution thinking and learning. That's A LOT of brain juice. I'm going to be focusing a lot on remembering my list of ways to strategize and manage these huge, marathon-style conferences. I've tried to communicate to my partner the amount of time and energy attending these conferences requires. The conversation went something like this: 

Me: I'll be busy doing conference stuff from Thursday to Wednesday.
Him: OK! Want me to make you breakfast and plan dinners?
Me: Um, I have events scheduled from eight to ten most days. I can grab food for myself, but thank you.
Him: Ten…at night? 

When he said it like that, I started to wonder if it was a little crazy, too. Ah, professional meetings….