Conference

Much of my trip to Boston was centered around the ASHA convention held at the Boston Convention Centre.

This is a sea of mostly women bustling between free food lines, exhibition booths, and lecture sessions. I suspect there were over 10,000 people in attendance and lots of lines: Lines for food, for coffee, and at the end of the day for shuttle buses to hotels and transit. As bad as I felt for the women standing in line, I felt very proud that I was comfortable walking about Boston on my own. I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing, but with enough chatting to strangers I found myself to the T station. I think it took me 5 minutes to walk to the front of the bus line, and another quick paced 10 minutes splashing through puddles to get to the train.

This knowledge proved helpful because my printed poster ended up missing a couple pieces.
This meant that I had to go every night to Kendall Square to the copy shop to drop off, proof, and eventually pick up my poster. It was the size of a large pillow due to a sizing problem, but oh well. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses. The conference can be beyond overwhelming, but each time I know more people and find the frantic pace of decision-making of organizing your time there easier. Networking becomes much easier now that I often know someone within each group I want to break into. I'm still shy and awkward, but I held my own in at least 2 conversations with bigwigs in my field with blushing, stammering, or completely embarrassing myself. More important, I felt that I had enough worth to actually ask them questions – yea me!

Here are some shots of the exhibition and poster hall

and one of the wine and dine parties afterwards