Last weekend I presented a poster at the Society of Wetland Scientists Mid Atlantic chapter meeting at Penn State. I had some serious poster struggles. Firstly, because of some badly timed editing sessions with my adviser because our schedules didn't match up, we left printing the poster to right before I was planning on driving to Penn State. Secondly, the yellow ink of the printer wasn't working, so we stopped the job and replaced the ink cartridge. Thirdly, the ink still didn't work, so we decided to just print the poster with its blue hue. Then the yellow worked for a tiny strip and stopped again, resulting a green stripe down my blue poster. In the words of my research adviser I had a very retro poster! Although at first I was not happy with the poster, but I eventually came around to the idea of presenting it as is. Everyone has printing mistakes, and its not an error which can be avoided most times. I just had to have confidence in my work and not worry about a silly poster design error, which I had no control over anyways. After this poster fiasco, I started the drive to Penn State after 7:30pm. It was a 3.5hour drive, which became a bit longer as I stopped to grab dinner on the way. I didn't get to Penn State until after 11pm, and was ready collapse on my friend, Hope's floor, who was so sweet to have a sleeping bag, mat, and pillow all set up for me!
The meeting itself was different than I expected. The focus was on wetland restoration and management, not so much on direct research, rather what I would call applied research. It was interesting to hear about the other side of ecology; however, it confirmed my suspicion that I'm more interested in the direct research side. I want to be on the front-line of wetland research, doing new and fascinating work. P.S. Conferences are held in fancy hotels - look at that decorated lobby with an indoor gazebo! 
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