I survived Camp Cooper

Or, you know, my committee meeting.

Camp Cooper is an area out in the desert near Tucson. I think it’s owned by the Tucson Unified School District. When kids are in the early grades, 1-2 or 1-3 maybe, they get to spend a day there. We did fun outdoorsy stuff–hiking and learning about desert flora and fauna, or Native American life, or generally just have fun. In the later grades, we got to stay overnight. I don’t remember when, but at some point we became responsible for helping with food preparation. Can you imagine lots of little 3rd graders making dinner? I’m sure it was chaos. Organized chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

Lots of parent volunteers were needed, and my dad (and probably mom) usually helped. In response, probably for helping with one of the overnights, my dad was given a mug with “I survived Camp Cooper” all over it on a background of a desert sillhouette. He still has it, chipped and faded and coffee-stained, but he still has it. Whenever I see it, it makes me smile.

After yesterday, when I was smiling over having survived, I figured I deserved a mug, too. Sadly, they don’t make them, but it was a good thought.

All the worrying was apparently for naught, although I did get a small lecture on talking too much when I answer questions from the most talkative member on my committee. Hrm…

But as one of the lovely admins in our department told me yesterday after the meeting, if you don’t worry enough to practically make yourself sick, you don’t care enough.

Sounds about right to me.

And when it came to the 20 minutes? There’s no way they could have known–I got interrupted with questions starting on the 3rd slide. The 1st slide was the title slide, just to give you an idea.

And once again, two of the members asked zillions of questions, one sat there pretty much silently, and Dr. M really only spoke up to back me up or reemphasize what I was saying. Or to say, “You know the answer” when I looked bewildered. Gotta love that woman at times.

They really liked my work, and think it’s close to publication time for it, which is awesome given the semi-unspoken rule of needing two first-author papers to graduate around here. And the second paper idea was duly noted and approved.

So I can breath easy until December when it comes to them, though only until the end of the month for my work, when I present a short talk/poster at a meeting. Fun thing is, I wrote the overview of the talk almost 6 months ago, and not much of that overview is correct any longer.

*cringes*

I suppose this is what comes of submitting the overview BEFORE the work is finished, but oh well. Not much I can do now. And I do get a free trip to the conference this way.

Did I mention it’s in Europe?

WHEEEE!!!!