Today I watch the last talk, on the last day in symposium QQ. This coference was great from start to finish. I learned a lot and had fun doing so.

I admit to leaving a bit early today, as I was exhausted! It's been a long but fun week. Hope everyone enjoyed themselves. This was my first time at a MRS conference, and I certainly hope to be back again next year.

Today, I got to see some colleagues speak briefly at an invited talk. Things seem to be winding down a bit. I’ll still be around tomorrow however. It seems there are some exciting talks happening on Friday as well!!!

i went to a seminar by Chad Mirkin this afternoon. I always enjoy his seminars, since his work is a great example of how interesting science can be used and applied as a tool to open up new areas and increase efficiency of science. Dip Pen  Nano-Lithography is such a simple concept too. I personally think that the best solutions are often the simplest. Those are the solutions that are also the hardest to come up with... it's quite a challenge to devise a simple, elegant answer to a very difficult and long standing problem.

So today is the last full day of the conference, and my last day here. I guess one of the drawbacks is that because I work and live in Cambridge, I don't get the Friday travel day off -- back to lab tomorrow for me!  This week has seemed much longer than I thought it would be. Not sure if it's because it's the week right after thanksgiving break and I got used to being lazy or because I just saw so many presentations and new things that my brain is on overload, but it's been a good time. :-)

Went the poster session last night. I saw some really great poster. I should explore the art of awesome poster making. Most the of the fun for me starts at noon today.

The poster session tonight was fun -- thank you to everyone who came by and talked to me. I'm exhausted though. Standing in one place for nearly 3 hours is tough!

During the break today I walked around the exhibit hall. I checked out some books which were really interesting -- but I didn't even want to look at the prices... thank goodness for libraries. Basically, the number of vendors and choices was somewhat overwhelming to me. I didn't know but a fraction of the tools and applications available. Kind of scary....

You can really lose track of time when you are in symposium that is extremely interesting. I wish class was this way. I was back in symposium D and found a ton a research gold nuggets. Tonight I hit the poster session.

This afternoon i attended Session QQ8: microgels and functional nanostructures. This is probably one of the most relevant sessions to my own research, yet still it seemed like such a wide range of talks.  I sometimes wish I could travel between sessions faster so I could see a wider variety of sessions, and more specific presentations that I want to see. Often I find that I sit through several talks that I'm not particularly interested in so that I can see the few that I really want to hear. But I guess the exposure to new things is always useful, whether or not I find it interesting at first.

Tonight I have a poster so I'm putting in a shameless plug for myself. Visit me at KK11.63!