I see your blue eyes
every time I close mine.
You make it hard to see.
- Colbie Caillat, I Never Told You
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"Welcome to your home for the next week!"
-- "Gosh, that's true, isn't it?!"
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Throughout my entire trip to Utah for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, time was lost on me. I literally tried to write and blog every single day that I was there, but could never find the occasion to properly do so. Each day was packed with events, from the moment my eyes opened in the morning until my slumber in the late night.
In the next month, on top of coursework and extracurriculars: four more conferences, a manuscript, and arrangements for a fellowship. I've been succumbing to the stress of deadlines, but that's okay. You've got this, kid. You've got this. Science, science, science. That's what I have to do. Science, science, science.
I've etched out so many half-completed stories, but timewise, my ability to narrate and story-tell has been severely hindered.
But regardless, there are things to know about Utah.
In Utah...
* there is a bar where I am known as "Christa the Scientist."
* I met an amazing girl whose boyfriend told her that she needed to "go make friends," much like how my ex-boyfriend did the same in the Old Life...
* ...so I taught her how to play billiards, even though I completely suck at billiards.
* there was a first-time meeting between Californians, two states away from California.
* a major benefactor of type 1 diabetes research firmly held my arm as she told me, "Christa, solve this disease."
* by sheer coincidence, I met my future housemate this summer...
* ...and my future employer...
* ...and was confirmed to stem cell research on olfactory regeneration at one of the largest biomedical research facilities in the entire world.
* I indeliberately inspired a network between one of the conference's plenary speakers and my university, sparking ideas for collaborative research efforts.
* I shared a drink with the police chief of Salt Lake City, who now boasts about me as the first scientist he's ever met.
* I was captured by a local legend in photography.
* there is a woman that epitomizes spunky, and sought to pass it down to me.
* I met a member of Sigma Xi, a scientific honors society that has yielded more than two hundred Nobel Laureates. She completely tore my poster to shreds, criticizing me left and right, rendering me in helplessly nervous stutters throughout my poster talk...
* ...until afterwards, when we shook hands as she told me that I did great for my first conference, and to seriously consider submitting my research to the next annual undergraduate conference of Sigma Xi.
I didn't realize just how much happened during the span of the conference until I got back to California and had to answer the simple request, "So tell me everything about Utah!"
Someday, when I have the time, perhaps the narrative can exist in full.
Until then, Utah.