What does “Rock Chalk” mean, anyway?

This past weekend marked my second scientific meeting since moving up to Iowa for my postdoctoral position.  The first one was last fall, when we hosted the Central States Society of Toxicology meeting here at the University of Iowa.  It didn’t really involve much more than a day’s-worth of work on my part, and was generally a decent time.  This weekend, however, was the first one when we actually went somewhere else.  And that place was Kansas.

We’ll go ahead and get this out of the way now.

I hate Kansas.

Moving right along…

It was the 2011 MIKI Meeting, a conference comprised of four midwestern Medicinal Chemistry programs from the University of Minnesota, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Kansas, and University of Iowa (…hence, “MIKI”).  The meeting rotates between the four universities each year, and next year is Iowa’s turn again.  So it was very useful to see the meeting in action so we could start having some discussions over what needs to be done in preparation for next year’s meeting.

The general structure of the conference was similar-ish to others I’d attended in years past.  We left here by bus on Friday around noon to get down to Lawrence, KS in time for dinner and a mixer at a downtown location called Liberty Hall, where we had some buffet-style food, free beer (woooo!) and a “Trivia Night” competition between the different tables.  It was a good opportunity to interact with some folks from the other programs, which was kinda nice.  Saturday comprised the bulk of the meeting, involving 15 minute mini-talks from graduate students, a 1 hr keynote lecture, and then a 2 hour poster session, which I participated in.  That night, we went to another downtown locale called Van Go Mobile Arts for dinner, and then some of us went out again afterwards.  Sunday morning, we had some more 15 minute talks and then left on the bus by noon, getting back to Iowa City around 6:00ish.

In total, the weekend was pretty good.  This was a 200-person meeting, which is the optimal size, in my opinion.  In many ways, I liken it to a classic church youth trip (a la Youth Congress) where you are stuck in a van or on a bus for hours on end, then you get to where you’re going for the weekend and get placed into situations where you’re somewhat likely to interact with other people from other cities, as well as talk with people from your own group that you may not have interacted with in the past.  The meeting I normally go to, Society for Neuroscience, has more like 30,000 people attending, making it extremely difficult for you to interact with anyone but your own group.  In that respect, a 200 person meeting is much, much better for “networking,” and for learning more about your field and other people’s.

So despite the fact that we had to go to Kansas, the weekend was still pretty fun.  I got to meet some cool people from other places and interact with folks from here that I didn’t know all that well.  And Brooke and Meg survived for a few days without me, though it appears that Meg missed her Daddy to some extent (she did not like it when I left her at daycare today…).  Brooke said that they went to church yesterday and it seemed like Meg was looking for me, expecting me to be there.  Of course, she’ll be without her Daddy again next weekend when Brooke and Meg head down to the Lake for the annual “Girl’s Weekend” with Brooke’s family.

I’m sure Grandma will keep Meg entertained, though…  😉