Thursday, I stood outside the Palacio de Congresos in Granada with my luggage in hand & my poster taken down. As I said goodbye to all of my new friends, I couldn’t help but cry. How could a conference have this much of an effect on me?!
Let me explain.
Day 1: Workshops
Here is a short recap from Day 1, which I wrote about in my previous post:
As I was waiting in line for registration, I met Adrienne, who is a graduate student at NYU (but started her PhD at Michigan) and is originally from Hungary. We hit it off immediately, and I saw her several times during breaks throughout the day. We ate lunch together with my coworkers, Camila and Hannah, and she brought her friend, Erik, who she met at MicroTAS in Montreal two years ago. He’s from Sweden!
I attended two workshops and learned a lot. Then, we had a wine and cheese reception, and I met a few more awesome people!
After the conference, I went for a short run and then ate dinner super late.
Day 2: Poster presentation & Student/Postdoc Mixer
Day 2 was a big day for me, since it was the day that I presented my poster. The morning started with a warm welcome from the organizers, Fernando and Lourdes. They said that they have spent the past FOUR YEARS planning this conference, and it’s the first time that it’s ever been in Spain! I can’t even imagine how much work that was for them.
The rest of the morning, I attended presentations. I found them all to be very relevant and thought-provoking! I got so many good ideas for my project.
We had a mid-morning break, which consisted of pastries covered in powdered sugar. I forget who exactly I was standing next to at the time, but we were laughing at the fact that the snacks are about as messy as they could possibly get. Powdered sugar is an interesting choice for people who are dressed in business attire! Although, I guess it makes for a less intimidating networking experience. It’s hard to take people very seriously when they are covered in powdered sugar!
In the early afternoon, I met up with Camila and Hannah for some boxed lunch. The time flew by, and then it was already time for another presentation.
My poster presentation was from 3-5 pm. I stood next to it and talked with the woman next to me, who is from Australia and is working on some breath strip tests. All of a sudden, I became super busy with talking to people! I can’t remember exactly how many people stopped by, but it was definitely way more than I had expected. I met a guy named Dariush from Belgium, and he told me to let him know when I publish a paper on my work because he can’t wait to read it. AHHHHH!!! That was the best confidence boost ever!!!
Another visitor I had was a guy named Ott, who was actually in Ryan’s lab (my PI) back in the day! He’s from Estonia and did an exchange for a semester after meeting Ryan on two different occasions at international conferences.
I also had a few masters students visit my poster and mention that they are interested in joining our lab.
Finally, the friends that I met on Sunday made it to my poster, which I thought was so sweet. They were so excited to hear about my research. That was a common theme throughout the entire conference: everybody made sure to attend everyone else’s talks, even if it was 9 am after a night out!
Speaking of night out… we had a student and postdoc mixer at 7 pm! It was at a club in town. As I was waiting outside in line, the woman next to me asked a question (can’t remember what it was). We started chatting, and I introduced myself.
Whenever people say their names to me, I repeat it back. So, when Holly said “Holly” in her British accent, I, without thinking, responded “Holly” in a British accent (Hollay). I’m sure she didn’t think anything of it, but I was SO embarrassed.
We spent nearly an hour talking, and I learned that Holly had come to the conference on her own with her supervisor. She’s a first year in her program and the only person in her lab. And she does really interesting work with biofilms! Before long, Holly met all of my other friends and was added to the WhatsApp group chat.
I debated telling anyone about my embarrassment but eventually spilled my secret to Adrienne, Camila, and Hannah. They laughed so hard, and soon everyone was hearing about it 😆. It became almost like an icebreaker story.
“Hi, nice to meet you! You GOTTA hear this funny story… Clara! Tell them!”
I have to admit, it was a great way to get talking with people.
For the first couple of hours or so, our squad stood around a table and talked amongst ourselves. I am almost certain that this is when I met Alejandro, but I can’t quite remember. He’s a post doc and is friends with Adrienne (they also met at Montreal MicroTAS). He’s from Colombia but doing research in Canada right now. It was nice to finally meet him since I had seen his name in the WhatsApp group chat on Sunday but hadn’t met him yet. He is SO FUNNY. You will hear about him more throughout this post.
Eventually, the organizers of the mixer got on the stage and announced that we would be starting three games. The first was to find others with the same number as us (the fastest group wins). We all broke up, found new people, and introduced ourselves. Adrienne was in my group, but I also met Guillaume, Claire, Francesca, and Amitava. Guillaume is from France but doing his PhD in the Netherlands (and has a sick handlebar mustache); Claire goes to University of Glasgow in Scotland; Francesca is from Chicago and just started her PhD in Georgia; and Amitava is doing his PhD at in India. We all got along right off the bat!
The next game was a few rounds of Kahoot. I hadn’t played that game since high school! Thankfully, none of the questions were about science. We were all nervous that they would ask us about capillary and Reynolds numbers or something 😬. Instead, they were about Spain or pop culture! We all bonded over how terrible we are at trivia. Even with 6 people contributing, we somehow managed to be around 100th place. When we finally moved up to 48th place, we were so proud.
During the last round, the organizers displayed the top 3 winners… and one of them was Hannah!!! I said, “THAT’S MY LAB MATE”. She won some olive oil, and I was so excited for her.
At the end of the game, dinner began. Wait staff walked around with trays of food. First, it was hotdogs. Then, it was burgers. I had been hungry for hours, so I was struggling a bit. I knew they had vegetarian food, but the question was where.
Claire accompanied me in my search for other options. Sure enough, there was a table in the corner with vegetarian options! It included: cold potatoes. There was also a gluten free section. Since the GF section was right next to the vegetarian food, I assumed it was a black bean burger or something. I grabbed one and carried it back to where we were standing with Guillaume.
The more I looked at the burger, the more I realized it was definitely a beef burger. Claire and I started laughing so hard. She understood why I thought the situation was so funny… I haven’t eaten beef in like 7 years, so the last thing I want to do is have it with a gluten free bun 😂
Guillaume, being over 6ft tall, couldn’t hear what we were talking about, but he wanted to know. I was laughing so hard that when I tried to tell him, I physically could not get the words out.
“The last thing I want….. HAHAHAHA… is… a…. HAHAHAHAHAH”
After at least five attempts, I finally got my point across. Once he understood the situation, Guillaume offered to eat the gluten free burger so that it didn’t go to waste. How kind! I enjoyed reading his facial expressions as he ate it. What a good friend!
Next, the whole squad — old (as in one day old) and new friends — got together for a photo in the photo booth. During the photo, I remember thinking: how is this a conference?! I’m having way too much fun.
The fun continued late into the night. At about 11 pm, the dancing started. There weren’t many people left, but the ones who were still there really tore it up. One guy was spinning on the floor, and another just simply had the best moves ever. This is also when I met my friends Alex, who is also from Sweden (in Erik’s program); Will, who goes to University of Glasgow; and Monika, who also goes to the same university as Erik and Alex.
We had the best time dancing and laughing. At one point, a Japanese guy named Chihiro joined in. He was dancing so hard that a bunch of coins flew out of his pocket! Someone pretended to throw some cash, and we all bursted out laughing.
In between dance moves, we also made sure to get each other’s contacts. Our ID badges had a QR code that we could scan to add people to our contact list in the event app (so high tech!). We also exchanged LinkedIns. Networking at its finest 😉
All of a sudden, the Fernando and Lourdes (the MicroTAS organizers) appeared at the club. What were they doing here?! They seemed so happy to see us all dancing and having fun. It truly was a special experience to be dancing my heart out with people from all over the world! And even better, people in my field of research… the authors on the papers I have read. It’s going to be really funny if I ever click on an article from Chihiro, for example, and immediately imagine him spilling his coins all over the dance floor!
At the end of the club night (not the end end of the night hehe), everyone still standing formed a giant circle. We were all arm in arm, dancing the night away. Pairs would run across the circle, and everyone would cheer. It felt like a middle school dance! And if you’re wondering where Fernando and Lourdes were… well, they were in the circle, too!
It didn’t take more than three seconds after the music stopped for someone to say, “next location?!”. We (me, Adrienne, Erik, Will, Alejandro, and Alex, among others) followed the organizers to a bar nearby. There, talked and danced a bit more. I discovered that both Erik and Adrienne like techno music! In fact, Adrienne said that when she used to live in Ann Arbor, she and her friends would go to Detroit for warehouse raves. Hopefully, she will come back to Michigan to visit and we can go together!!!
I also getting to know Alex better. He likes fantasy books and even has a dragon tattoo on his forearm. He is also into hiking and ended up doing a solo hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains this weekend!
At about 3 or 4 am, we decided to leave the function. We stood outside for a bit, spilling our darkest secrets and intrusive thoughts (as one does in the early hours of the morning, cigarette in hand). By this point, it felt like I had known everybody for much longer than just a few hours. I couldn’t wait to see them again the next day!
And I didn’t have to wait long because the day started not even four hours later 😀
Day 3: Conference & Flamenco
The plenary speaker started at 8:20 am on Tuesday morning. If you think I missed it due to staying up all night, you are dead wrong! In fact, I was 10 minutes early. My eyes were burning, but I was there. The day proceeded as usual, with talks, box lunch, and poster presentations. At lunch, Alex found me and asked if we could go to my poster so that I could explain my research to him. How kind is that?! It feels so great when people are genuinely interested in what you’re doing… so much that they will go out of their way during a jam-packed day to listen to what you have to say?!?!
Aside from getting to explain my research to Alex, my favorite part of the day was the poster session because that’s when I got to talk with people the most. I knew Alex, Holly, Claire, and Francesca were presenting so I made sure to stop by their posters. Amitava introduced me to his lab mate, Jenil, as well. I enjoyed learning about his project, too! I also talked with a couple of professors, one of which was from United Arab Emirates.
After the poster session, Alejandro asked if I wanted to go get coffee. I looked at the schedule, and none of the talks related to my research… so I went with him for a short break. We probably only missed one or two talks, but it meant that we got coffee and ICE CREAM!!!!
I enjoyed getting to know him better in a one-on-one setting. We talked about our research experiences, where we’re from, traveling, etc. At one point, he mentioned the city in Colombia where he’s from. I hadn’t heard of it, so I pulled up Google Maps.
Being as tired as I was, I stared at the map for at least 30 seconds. There were no thoughts in my brain. What Alejandro saw from across the table was me staring at the map of Africa.
“That’s Africa, Clara” he said, trying to contain his laughter.
I was laughing so hard. “I know Colombia is in South America…. I’m just tired!!!! And, the fact that we’re in Europe right now instead of North America threw me off!”
It didn’t matter. This was a moment, like “Hollayyy”, that I would not live down.
When we returned to the conference, we attended the last few sessions and then met up with the rest of the group. I had plans to go to a flamenco show with Camila and Hannah at 9:30 pm, but that was it. I knew that if I took a nap, I would feel even worse when I woke up, so I threw out an idea.
“What if you guys come to flamenco with us?! And we can hang out beforehand?!”
Within minutes, Erik, Alex, and Alejandro were booking their tickets. Guillaume joined us for the hangout but declined the flamenco since his talk was the next day. Adrienne also had to work on her presentation, so she went home for the night.
The time went by so quickly. We went out for tapas at a small bar downtown and then walked 30 minutes up to the cave where the flamenco show was at.
The cave was cozy, with about 30 people squeezed into a circle around the dancers. There was a man singing and playing guitar, and three flamenco dancers (two women and a man). They took turns performing, and the whole time, I was thinking “HOW do they move like that?!”
They wear clog-like heels and tap their feet so fast that you can hardly even see them moving. And, at the same time, they twirl and snap their fingers and slap their sides. Meanwhile, the other dancers cheer them on by shouting “Olé!” It’s incredibly impressive. They also maintain a very serious facial expression, which I think is part of the dance. It was so fun to watch!
After the show, we all walked back downtown for dinner. It was 11:30 pm on a Tuesday, but luckily we were able to find a spot that was still open and serving food. The waiter told us we would have to order super fast, but we didn’t mind. We got some tapas and debriefed the flamenco show. We laughed about the fact that “Olé” sounds a like like “Hollayyy”. Like I said, never living that one down.
Rather than going out for a second night in a row, we decided to call it after dinner. Somehow, it was nearly 1 am already! I went back to my apartment and got a solid 6 hours of sleep.
Day 4: Conference & Banquet
Wednesday was the last full day of the conference, and one that I was very much looking forward to. Adrienne’s talk was in the morning, and Guillaume’s was in the evening. I was very excited to see them present!
Adrienne’s talk was the best of the entire conference, in my opinion. She spoke so clearly and confidently; every word was intentional, and it was easy to follow along. She explained how she developed a cartridge for multiplexed detection of biomarkers for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. At the end of her presentation, she got a bunch of questions, many of whom were famous scientists. She answered each question so well! I was so so so proud of her.
To celebrate, Adrienne, Alejandro and I went for ice cream… again. Of course, Alejandro had to tell her about the Colombia/Africa story. We laughed and laughed and laughed. At one point, I said, “guys, I lost my spoon”.
(I had been eating my ice cream cone with a spoon)
Alejandro immediate started looking under the table. I tipped my cone so they could see that it had gotten stuck inside of the cone. I had eaten nearly all the ice cream out and now I couldn’t reach my spoon!
Adrienne started laughing so hard that she could hardly breathe. They both exclaimed, “what the hell?!” Apparently, it’s not common practice to eat an ice cream cone with a spoon.
In addition to laughing about my blonde moments, I also got to hear some lore about previous microTAS conferences, ie which professors danced the hardest at the banquet. It was the day of our banquet, and I couldn’t wait. The sneak peaks of the venue were beautiful, and we were told that there would be a flamenco performance!
On the way to the banquet, Alejandro told me about something crazy his lab did one time. A professor from Michigan and Alejandro’s PI got together and planned a three day paper. Three days — not only to write the paper, but to collect all the data as well. Everyone in their lab stayed at work until 2 am each day. People were assigned experimental tasks, and they all worked together to plan out the figures. They finished the paper in three days, submitted it, and it was published. There is even a UMich article about this. I was so intrigued by Alejandro’s story because it has taken months for us to write a paper, and it’s still not published yet!
We arrived at the banquet, and I was completely awestruck. The venue was more beautiful than I had imagined! The first couple of hours were spent outside chatting and enjoying tapas. I talked with Chihiro, Dariush, Alex, Claire, Monika, and Francesca for a while. Chihiro said that he will be moving to Boston soon, which made me so happy because I love Boston! I shared some recommendations with him, and he shared his favorite things to do in Japan. The microTAS in two years is in Kyoto, Japan… hopefully I will be able to go!
Before long, it was time for dinner. Adrienne, Camila, Hannah and I made our way inside to find a table. We were one of the first groups there, so we were able to snag one by the front stage. We texted the chat and told everybody to RUN. Most of them came quickly (sadly, not Guillaume), so we were mostly all able to sit together.
I sat between Holly and Will, and had a good balance of talking one-on-one with both of them. Will and I talked a lot about Scotland since he’s from there and I spent a semester there. I also confessed to him that, since there were no cafes open early enough to eat breakfast before the conference, I had been roaming around during the breaks and eating a ton of the desserts. He said that he had been doing the same!!! We both went from table to table, grabbing a dessert from each one, so that it wasn’t obvious that we were eating 5 mini croissants 😂 The three of us also shared our best travel stories, which was very entertaining. I would give you more details, but I don’t want to expose anyone hahaha.
In preparation for the many courses of food we would be receiving, one of the waiters came up to me, saw that I had a vegetarian sticker on my badge, made an X with my silverware and firmly said “always.” The same happened to Alex, and we thought it was so funny.
When our table received our first course, we decided to go around the circle and say what we’re grateful for. Everyone said some version of “I’m grateful that we all met each other”. It was so heartwarming!
When the next dish came around, we all took turns naming a place where we would like to live someday. We had intentions of continuing the trend for dessert, but we were surprised with a flamenco performance instead. As the performance went on, I could feel Will growing restless. He just wanted to eat his damn dessert! He kept making faces and it was cracking me up. When the dancing was over, he said, “can we finally eat dessert now?!”
With that, a mariachi band came out and played for over an hour. It was so funny! We eventually decided to just scarf down our dessert and get on with the night 😆
The band got everybody up and moving. While we were dancing, the staff took down all the tables and turned the room into a dance floor. The band turned it over to a DJ, and we danced all night long! There was also a person dancing in a giant koala suit, who is apparently called Chip the Koala. I’m not even kidding you, the party went on until 1 am. Once again, when the lights turned on, someone shouted, “NEXT LOCATION?!” We bussed back to the conference center and then walked about 20 minutes to a club downtown. On the way, Guillaume told me about how he likes to climb a tree when he needs a break from research. And he’s only fallen once!
I’m not even sure what time we arrived at the club, but we stayed and danced until at least 4 am. My favorite moment was when the Lady Gaga song “Alejandro” came on and we put all of our attention on Alejandro who was going crazy on the dance floor. It was a wild night. My body was actually starting to hurt! Luckily, the plenary presentation had been canceled for the next day, so the conference started at 9:30 instead of 8:30. When we left the club, Adrienne and I were having a heart-to-heart. I invited her to come to my place so we could keep talking, and that’s exactly what we did! We stayed up til 7 am talking about boys, research, and travel hehehe. It was so fun! I already know she is going to be a lifelong friend.
After a quick 2 hour nap, we went back to the conference center for our final day of MicroTAS 🫡
Day 5: Sad Goodbyes
I made it to the building just in time to watch Loes present about her geothermal chemistry device. It was super cool to learn about, and she did a great job presenting! There was no lunch on Thursday since it was only a half day, but I did take advantage of the break to say goodbye to Claire and William. I really hope that I can see them the next time I go to Scotland!!! After another round of presentations, I met up with Erik, Adrienne, Alejandro, and Guillaume to watch the closing ceremony. There was a video compilation of the week, and as it played, we were all on the edge of our seats hoping that they wouldn’t show any footage of us dancing 😂. Thankfully, they skipped that part.
Next, they gave details about next year’s MicroTAS, which is in Pasadena, California. I really hope that we all go so that we can have a reunion!
To close it all off, they had an awards ceremony for best poster, presentation, and paper. We all knew Adrienne would get best presentation, but she kept denying it. All of a sudden, her name appears (spelled incorrectly lol) on the screen — she won 4th place for best presentation!!!!! We were all screaming. And then, it happened AGAIN! Alejandro won best paper!!!! I was speechless. My new friends absolutely crushed this conference!!!
We all met up after the ceremony to say our goodbyes. Every last minute was cherished to the fullest, and we made sure to get a nice group photo. Note: we were having too much fun to take many photos throughout the rest of the week!
At last, it was time. Many of them were doing an Alhambra tour, and I had a bus to catch. We all hugged each other and shed a few tears. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe it was really just the amazing time that I had, but it felt like my heart was getting ripped out of my chest. I never would have imagined that I would feel that way after a scientific conference! MicroTaS is truly a special community, and I’m so incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to become a part of it.
That’s all for now! Check back to see where my bus was taking me…
Clara