Today was quite a day for me! A few months back I switched roles at work, into a spot on the communications team. Today, that job took me to an institute-wide scientific conference, where I was to take pictures of the talks and poster sessions and make a few social media posts. So basically, I listened to a bunch of science I didn’t understand, talked to people I barely knew (as well as some friends, of course), walked around like a member of the press with my camera, and even hosted a lunch-time round table on science communications. It was crazy! And also, surprisingly, super fun!

I was really kind of dreading it, mostly because I dread all unfamiliar things and I’m kind of an introvert and I didn’t know what to expect. But I work with a lot of cool people, and they made it all easy and fun, and I’m pretty pleased with myself because I think it went well. My favorite part was taking photos during the poster session–makes me think my instincts weren’t that far off when I thought I’d be a journalist twenty years ago! Plus, I even got a tiny bit of knitting in during some of the talks.

And I’m really glad it went well because I go back tomorrow for day 2, and now I’m not dreading it!