Food Research Update

I'm really happy to report that the fast food / childhood obesity paper was submitted to the journal this afternoon. At our last meeting, one of the professors realized that by the time the article is ready to print (assuming it gets accepted for the special issue of the journal in, I believe, October), I will be affiliated with My Masters University instead of the current one, and she told me to remind them to have that changed for the actual publication. It was kind of exciting to imagine being only a month or two into my masters program and having a genuine publication. (I do already have two others, but they are in a field that is less relevant to my future work, though these professors have noted that pubs in known medical journals tend to look impressive because it can be so hard to get published in them.)

I am finally working on my presentation on organic food consumers that I am giving a week from tomorrow at the Washington, DC conference. It's going to be hard to figure out what very few things I will report. Things are going to be crazy between now and Thursday, when my flight leaves, but with the obesity paper done for now, I will be able to concentrate on getting ready for this conference and the adjacent week we'll be in NC, trying among other things to find me an apartment.

In addition to all the other stresses is that I don't have a thing to wear; seriously, I do not currently have a wardrobe that is well-stocked with appropriate attire for an academic conference for business professors, who tend to dress up daily.

Also, have I mentioned that the conference hotel is...I can't say nickeling and diming us, since it's more like $10 and $50-ing us...on every little thing? Breakfast is ghastly expensive ($9 for 2 eggs? I don't think that's just my Cheap-Assness saying that's a lot of money) and I do not believe they even serve something as basic as free coffee (not that I drink it personally, but it would be nice to have a coffee maker in my room to make tea). There are additional expenses for using the internet access (!!) and the exercise room. But I'm sure it's very luxurious for those who are on an expense account. My own funding is rather limited and doesn't cover any niceties like transportation to the hotel, meals, etc., and I might actually have to cover some of the travel expenses myself. I see a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread to make breakfast sandwiches instead of ponying up for the obscene $14 waffle or whatnot.

I am now entering the expected stage (as the annoying details and requirements loom large, as well as the realization that I actually have to get up there and talk about a research project that even I view as rather trivial) at which I no longer want to go to this conference, but know that later I will have wanted to have gone. If I want to get my paper published in the proceedings journal (and I do; the work is small but not embarrassingly poorly done, and is something I would have loved to have seen myself when putting together my own study, so I can hope it has some slight value for other researchers), I have to go and present it. To paraphrase one of the New Years Resolutions for Bunnies that is posted on my fridge: "It won't last forever and it's my own fault for being such a good writer."

And it'll be exciting to see North Carolina finally. (I think I was there, briefly, once before on a business trip that involved going from the airport, to the hotel after dark, and to the client's campus, and then immediately back on a plane, so that hardly counts. It's akin to seeing the shadow of an unknown bird rather than the actual bird itself.)