Worth It

Conferences are about serendipity. It can be a dud, or it can be great, but usually the ways in which it ends up great are ways that you can't predict ahead of time.

I wasn't super psyched about this conference I just attended but it ended up okay in the end. One thing about conferences is that it usually involves giving one or more talks, and I hate giving talks. I do it all the time, because you have to as an academic, but I don't like it. I still get nervous, no matter how many talks I give. Conferences in which my talk happens on the first day are inevitably more fun than conferences in which my talk happens on the last day.

Anyway, some things that ended up being good about this conference was that I finally got a chance to talk to our program officer and learn more about what the deal is with our grant. I also floated a new idea for another grant I'm working on with some colleagues. She was into it, but really only into half of it, I could tell, so I think this is going to pose some challenges to us moving forward.

One interesting and upsetting thing is that we're struggling to get sufficient funding through these programs for math projects as opposed to science, technology, and engineering projects. Math isn't getting as much money and meanwhile our two math POs are leaving. I asked my PO what happens when she and the other one leave, and she remarked that probably somebody would end up in their roles who is a science person but has some connections to math. "This is very concerning for the future of math funding," she told me. Ugh. In a better funding year our grant would have been funded this time around.

Anyway, talking to the PO made the trip worth it. Another thing that made the trip worth it was my symposium today. I was very nervous about it because the theme of the symposium was for a research area that I'm just starting to get involved in. So I feel like something of a newbie in this area. Meanwhile, 4 of the 5 other presenter groups are super, super experienced in this area of research. Also, I was *extra* nervous because the content area that I was presenting on is the content area that this very well-known researcher, Dr. C, basically created about 20 years ago. I mean, the content area already existed, of course, but her work on the conceptual structures involved in building it still remains the standard to this day. So I'm going to get up and talk about my work in this area, HER area, and she was on the panel too! It's like talking about the Bible in front of God. Which I said, at the beginning of my talk. (Fortunately she laughed).

To add to the nervousness, this researcher has a particular reputation, and it's not a reputation of being all roses. So I was worried that she'd tear me apart.

So anyway I gave my talk with famous Dr. C sitting near me, and she was really nice. She kept making all of these comments to herself as I was talking, and they were encouraging comments so that bolstered my confidence. Then, after the talk, this other famous guy (who also has quite a reputation) asked a public question that was really a disguised attack. It was on all of us but he used me as an example, so it was specific to me. Also, his point was actually one I agree with completely, so I thought his point was valid. We just hadn't addressed that particular point in our talks because that wasn't the focus of those particular talks. Anyway, Dr. C responded and in her response she complimented a particular analysis I had done as addressing this guy's concerns. I also responded, and he pushed back on my remarks very strongly. It was difficult, but I didn't take it personally. (He's just like that.) Afterwards Dr. C told me that my talk had made her trip worth it, and she suggested a small working group where several of us get together to work on these common problems we're all tackling! That was super exciting. If a working group with Dr. C came out of this, it would totally make the whole trip worth it. It was also a relief that she responded well to my work given how worried I'd been about her response in particular. It's nice when people end up being...nice. Instead of jerky. I'm choosing to focus on the niceness of Dr. C rather than the aggressiveness of the other famous guy.

Then in the airport shuttle on the way to the airport, this random person I've never met turned to me as she was getting off and said, "I really liked your talk. I learned a lot, and I'm in SCIENCE!" The whole shuttle laughed, and somebody said "Never the twain shall meet!" (The joke being that math and science never talk to each other.)

The final thing that made the trip worth it -- dinner and wine with my friends last night. Lots of hilarity ensued.