Conference!

This past weekend I attended my first conference as a graduate student! I was super excited when I heard I got accepted and finally felt like some of my work was validated.

The conference was called No Limits! Beyond Violence: Dare to Speak and was in Omaha Nebraska. For anyone keeping track, I currently live in Michigan (I don't actually know if I mentioned that before) and I'm from Pennsylvania. It just so happened that the conference was scheduled for March 2nd and 3rd, which was right near then end of our "winter recess/spring break".

So here's how my "break" played out:
1. Drive from Michigan to Pennsylvania (approx. 9 hours).
2. Chill out at my dad's house (aka sleep for a few hours)
3. Drive to my mom's new house (30 minutes + getting lost time)
4. Hang out there for a few days (included panicking about my presentation)
5. Take my car back to dad's to get checked out (1 & 1/2 days + major stress of needing major repairs)
6. Drive to Philly (3 hours there and back) for 3 hours of hanging out with friends
7. Build a computer desk for my mom when I'm supposed to be working on presentation (5 hours)
7. Drive back to Michigan (9hours again)
8. Nap
9. Drive to Nebraska overnight (11 hours)
10. Straight from 11 hour drive to conference (8 hours)
11. Check-in at hotel and frantically put together presentation (4 hours)
12. Sleep (5 hours)
13. Present paper (20 minutes)
14. Rest of conference (9 hours)
15. Drive back to Michigan overnight (11 hours)

For anyone that's counting that's 47 hours of driving (over 20 hours of driving for a 20 minute presentation) Insanity? Maybe. Worth it? Definitely

The conference turned out to be great! I presented a paper titled "Internalized Homophobia in Lesbians: Unique Factors in Intimate Partner Violence", which I am also using as the spring board to my thesis. The presentation went really well and afterwards I was approached by a professor from UNO (University of Nebraska at Omaha) who was interested in some of the research I used, so we shared some idea and I got to meet some great people through her. Another woman approached me afterwards and here's were the really exciting stuff happened. She gave me her card and said she was the Executive Director of the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council in Omaha and that she's currently working on writing a grant for funds to do research on the prevalence of IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) in same-sex couples in Omaha. She asked me to e-mail her with my contact information because she thought my presentation was excellent and she would be interested in having me help out with the grant and future research for the council! SO STOKED!

So, all of the driving, insane scrambling and general anxiety about the conference turned out to be totally worth it. I made some great contacts, got offered a chance for research experience and got my work out there. I'd say that's as good a day as you can get in grad school!