Conference Successes (eco-friendly and otherwise)

I was at a conference this last week; I can confidently say I accomplished more and enjoyed the experience more than any other conference I've been to.  I've been to a couple other smallish conferences like this before, but this time I went in knowing more people and confident enough in my science to reach out and network more than I have before.  I also did a lot of prep work and managed my energy levels well, which helped a lot. 

I spent the week prior to the conference preparing to meet people, in much more depth than I'd done previously.  I read through the list of conference attendees and presentations, and planned out who I definitely wanted to hunt down.  I also tried to note what I wanted to talk to them about.  It didn't work out exactly right, but it gave me a plan so I didn't freeze up every time I was confronted with a person whose work I admired.  My advisors also helped me organize a few meetings, which took a bit more of the pressure off.

Part of my prep work also involved pre-planning my energy management.  I'm an introvert, and at past conferences I've tried to push myself to be at every talk and go out with people all the time.  This results in me burning out by mid-week, and generally being scientifically and inter-personally useless for the last day or two of the conference. 

This time around, I sat down with the conference schedule and mapped out which talks I would definitely skip, and which I thought I could skip if necessary.  I focused on culling talks on the days when I knew I was meeting people, or early morning talks when I had plans to go out the night before.  There was no point in me going to a talk if I'm going to be too tired and/or distracted to pay attention, if I could get a bit of rest instead.  I also told friends and advisors honestly, before and during the conference, that I would be taking care of myself like this; they generally respected my decisions.  I was still exhausted by week's end, but overall I had a much easier time focusing on the talks I did attend and still having some conversational skills left by the end of the week.

I also tried to mitigate some of the environmental impact.  What I ended up doing was baby steps, if anything, but still something.  I took a few cloth napkins and a good quality plastic fork I already owned, and used those in lieu of paper napkins or plastic utensils at the hotel or end-of-conference picnic.  I did not take my own plate, which I kinda regret, but that would also have been hard to carry, especially when dirty. So room for improvement there.

I was also helped a lot in my environmental endeavours by the conference itself, though they weren't perfect.  The organizers provided lunch for us every day at the conference center, with nothing disposable involved.  They also had real cups and saucers for coffee breaks, although I started carrying my conference mug because they sometimes resorted to paper cups when the real ones ran out.  They did have a few plastic giveaways that I didn't resist (water bottle and sunscreen), but overall I was pleased with how they ran it. 

A Weekend Away

Or, a Homecoming weekend, in many senses of the word. 

One of the other grads in my department has been jokingly teasing me about actually going to Homecoming.  But I really felt like I was coming back home; my college was my home for 4 years.  I could see that at big schools or those with a consistently-winning football team, Homecoming might be less worthwhile for your average introverted nerd.  But at a small school, Homecoming was the time to see my professors.  To get a hug from Miser Mom, N, and J, or to sit in a former advisor's office for an hour and tell her about the graduate program that she helped prepare me for. 

Additionally, my group of friends have made a tradition out of Homecoming; I spent three years watching my older friends come back to visit and now it's my turn.  And I adored spending time with friends this weekend, fellow alums and current students alike.  Suddenly I was back among the people who made my college feel like home.  I've enjoyed getting to know new people in my department and around NYC, but it was nice to just hang with people who've known me for a while.  Some of the conversations were deep and emotional, some were delightfully geeky, and others were just catching up on life. All valuable for friendship alone, but particularly life-giving because of how much I've missed them in the last months.

I just realized that this weekend was the first time I've been out of NYC since moving here two and a half months ago.  That feels very strange, and explains part of my (disoriented) relief at being back in rural(ish) Pennsylvania.  Adjusting to NYC was in part an adjustment to not being on that campus anymore.  The location itself played a role, and the escape from the big city to a more scenic location was definitely a blessing.

Hostel as Conference Lodgings

On my previously mentioned conference trip to Spain, I was traveling on a more stringent lodging budget than I have in the past.  Two things combined to cause this: I couldn't find a roommate to share a hotel room, and I'm between schools and advisers so I was scraping together funding from a variety of sources.  Rather than spend at least $150/night to stay in a hotel, I decided to stay in a hostel for about $250 for the entire week.  I got the idea from a postdoc who used to work at my undergrad who preferred to stay in hostels.  I've stayed in one before, but it was back in high school on a school trip to Italy.  So this was pretty much a brand new experience. 

I searched online for hostels in the conference city.  I read the reviews carefully, and I'm glad I did.  Any hostel with more than one or two reviews complaining of noise got thrown out, as did any with bad cleanliness reviews.  I didn't worry too much about reviewers complaining about the tourism aspects of the hostel (the lack of planned excursions or club trips, for example).  Then I picked the highest-ranked hostel that was closest to the conference center.

My stay turned out well.  I lucked out and my neighbor turned out to be another undergraduate attending the conference.  Although I hadn't paid attention to details like breakfast or air conditioning, I was exceedingly glad that my hostel had both.  Having breakfast included helped keep my food budget under control, and air conditioning made sleeping much more comfortable since it was hot and muggy in the city.  Paying attention to noise reviews meant that I picked the hostel a few blocks away from the party quarter, rather than another otherwise-well-reviewed hostel in between two bars.  The hostel also had good electronic security lockers, which I hadn't given a lot of thought to when I looked at reviews.

The best thing I took with me was good ear plugs.  Even though the hostel overall was quiet, if my roommates (I had 3 all week) came back late they could be noisy.  And soccer victory celebrations in the street are not muted affairs.

I do still wish I had done a few things differently.  For one thing, I wish I had booked early enough to book an women-only room.  I luckily had female roommates for most of the week, but my last night it was just me and three men I didn't know.  Booking earlier would have allowed me a little more peace of mind.  I still can't decide whether I would rather have booked a single room - I would have needed to look much earlier and maybe stay further from the convention center to avoid the party quarter. It would have cost about twice as much as the quad, but that's actually still cheaper than half of a hotel room.

I also wish I had taken shower shoes. Despite being pretty clean overall, the floors could be a bit questionable because I was waking up before the cleaning crew came in but after all the party-goers had come back.

So, in summary, hostels are more than just cheap lodgings for backpacking college students.  When chosen carefully, they can be great ways to stretch your conference budget.  

Surprised by Restaurant Waste Abroad

Others have noted that traveling can produce quite a bit of waste.  But I was surprised by two contrasts between all of the Spanish restaurants I visited and their American counterparts. 

On the beneficial side, the only outright trash produced at my table was paper napkins and a few toothpicks over the course of the week.  Even the cheapest, most touristy restaurants provided metal utensils, real plates and glass cups.  My hostel also provided reusable dishes and utensils at breakfast, even if they were plastic.  I did go to a few restaurants that provided cloth napkins as well.

One of the more unfortunate differences was the anti-tap water sentiment.  I carried my own water bottle that I filled at the tap whenever I could, but admittedly the taste of the city water wasn't fabulous (just for comparison, I haven't found city water in the US that bothers me taste-wise).  The bad taste is the reason given for why all restaurants only serve bottled water.  Nicer places served water from glass bottles, but others gave out plastic bottles.  The city seemed pretty recycling conscious, with bins everywhere in the streets, so I can only hope the bottles were eventually recycled.

I also noticed a difference in the amount of plastic included in my airplane meals.  Two trans-atlantic flights meant a pair of in-flight meals, one on an American-based carrier and one on a European carrier.  There was less plastic, and less trash in general, involved in the lunch I ate on the Air France flight than the dinner on the Delta flight.  However, it's entirely possible that this difference was based on my class - I got bumped to business class for the AF flight home, so I couldn't actually compare economy meals.