I WROTE THIS. TOMORROW I WILL SEE WHAT SCIENCE-FOLK HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT. PLEASE READ IT AND SEND ME CRITIQUES AND IDEAS.
I am home again. Tomorrow I will go to the Third Annual Antiviral Drug Resistance Conference, hosted by the HIV Drug Resistance Program at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (notice the scientist's fondness for naming). Really not quite sure what to expect. It could be embarassing, frustrating, disillusioning, frightening, or terribly upsetting...

but only if I'm lucky.
More likely, it will be inconsequential, and I will be summarily dismissed as an odd-looking vestigial organ--a pony-tailed college student pitching big ideas at a scientific conference. Who will possibly stop to listen to me, or to let me listen to them, for that matter.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll get lucky, and meet researchers that open my eyes to the field in new ways. Maybe people will read my essay. Maybe I'll get into some debate and discussion. Maybe I will leave stronger and wiser. Tomorrow will tell.

Saturday night I hosted a triumphant finally to an unsteady semester as a Neuroscience Teaching Assistant. Some weeks my section went well, but other weeks I left feeling as if I had just killed my own puppy. And I don't even have a puppy.
But last night, oh, was marvellous. It worked, oh did it work. And when it works oh it is marvellous. At our review session for the final exam--I bet at least 100 people attended--Mike Klein and Deepa (fellow TA's) and I showed them the neuroscience of motivated behavior like they had never before experienced it--we lost our PowerPoint viginity,gave a live demonstration of rhythm generation, hosted a pie eating contest, and threw play dough and small squishy foam brains at rather startled premeds. We got laughs. And Applause. At a review session for a final exam. Spectacular.