Welcome!

Since it's hard to keep in touch with everyone at once, I thought it would be fun to take the Steve-and-Sara route and start a blog. As a budding journalist, it's almost my duty to as well :-).

As many of you have probably heard, I went to the annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston last weekend. The National Association of Science Writers gave me and nine other students across the country a travel stipend, so luckily the trip was basically free!

It was a little daunting to go to such a big conference with all these adults, but I ended up having a great time. The other students in the stipend program were great, and it's always nice to know I'm not the only future science writer, since it seems like I'm the only one at IU. The conference itself was really well organized, and I got to sit in on press conferences, lectures and even a live NPR broadcast. One of the most interesting lectures was about communicating science in a religious America. I think it's hard to make the intersection of science and religion not interesting, but the three speakers I saw were great. One was an astronomer-turned-Jesuit priest, so had a really unique perspective on the issue.

I also got to spend time with the fabulous Aunt Jann, who was also attending the conference. Despite a long wait, we had a great dinner at Legal Seafoods, a popular seafood restaurant in Boston. Good seafood is one thing I REALLY miss when I'm in Indiana. We also went to see a funny presentation on the Ig Nobel Awards (which celebrates silly science research). One of the panelists worked behind the scenes at the Ig Nobel Awards. Turns out he's a good friend of my roommate, Alana. What a small world!

I was disappointed I didn't have time to do much sightseeing, but I still got a little touristy stuff in. Saturday night the New England chapter of the National Association of Science Writers hosted a party at Fenway Park. The place the party was in overlooked home plate, so I finally got my first view of the Green Monster! The park itself looked pretty monstrous. They're doing a lot of construction on it to build new bleachers, so a lot of things were torn up. Sunday I also had some time to walk the Freedom Trail, which was great. It brought me back to the days of 7th grade history class!

I'll make sure to post some photos from my Boston trip soon!