So I'm back from my first "real" research conference, an intensive 2 day conference-room meeting with 7 participants. It's a bit intimidating being on the bottom of the heirarchy - only one other student present, and he wasn't quite as directly involved. And the other "senior" prof there is a pretty big name in physics, too.

I have a bit of an ego issue when it comes to physics, where I tend to alternate between thinking that I'm a freakin' genius and that i'm a totally useless idiot. The first day went really well, I felt comfortable with the material, and phase A started to come into effect. I almost got giddy - I was here with some totally brilliant people and I was holding my own. Unfortnately, that made me a little less timid in what I jumped in about. And so the second day, I said a few things spontaneously which thinking over them again later were kind of going in the wrong direction. It freaked me out to start saying stuff, have everyone turn to look, and realize that what I was going to say was totally insipid. Or worse to jump up and write something on the board and realize that's not really what they were talking about. Cue mental kicking and worrying I've made a total fool of myself in front of a bunch of important people, to the point that I had to restrain myself from thumping my head against the airplane tray 5 or 6 times on the flight home.

The car accident Saturday evening probably didn't help my nerves, either.

And now, a little later, I've settled down a bit, and I think on the whole I did pretty good. Nobody shot down the off-key stuff outright, and at least it was tangentially realated. I think I get a little bit of leeway as I'm pretty new to research. And I think on the whole I made a pretty good impression. It was great to find that I genuinely like the people we're working with, and they are very kind and inspiring.

And holeee crap I have a lot of new stuff to work on now!