BPS Tuesday Reflections

I had lunch today with a PI whose lab I applied to several years ago when I was looking for postdoctoral positions. I eventually settled on Steve's lab, but he's one of the nicest guys I've met, and we serendipitously got together at the meeting and had an hour or so to chat. It really gave me a lot of perspective on where my career has come from, and where it's going, the latter question being on my mind a lot lately. I think, if I'm coming away from this conference with anything, it's a commitment to do what I want, and what I think is interesting, rather than what other people think I should think is interesting, and damn the consequences. The fun science isn't usually the easy science, and the science that conventional wisdom holds to be "important" or "interesting" isn't always fun. If Gordon's Law of Maximal Uselessness holds true, and science fails 90% of the time, you're better off having fun than trying too hard to impress people, because your attempts to impress people will probably be futile anyway, and this way, at least you had fun!

I wandered around some posters, listened to some talks about chromatin, and am going to head off for dinner, then back again for the superresolution talks. I have some business at Stanford in the middle of the day that can't be moved around tomorrow afternoon, so I might just stay at home tomorrow, rather than come up for two hours and go back. So, keep your pants and your powder dry, science aficionados, and don't miss your flight!