Conference in Austin and a Dr.?

Last week Wednesday I headed down to Austin to attend the Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium (conference). I went on a field trip all day Thursday then the conference for Friday and Saturday. The group of us met Sally for dinner at Trudy's Thursday night (good food!) and then I went out to dinner with her, Paul, and Kathleen on Friday. It was nice to catch up with her since we don't talk much (despite being directly related).

This was an international conference with lecturers from Spain, Australia, the UK, Japan, Germany, Venezuela, and South Africa. The conference consisted of a LOT of sitting and listening to PhDs stroke their egos. Some of the talks were ok, but most were rather boring (i.e. not something I was terribly interested in). I presented a poster on Friday afternoon as part of Graduate student poster competition. I didn't have a ton of confidence in my poster so I wasn't expecting anything. It turns out I was wrong! The judges couldn't decide on who had the better poster so they awarded another student and myself first place! It comes with a reward too: $200.

I guess winning a poster competition at Binghamton is rather prestigious as I was told by many of the people there that it is resume material. Some even suggested that I should apply to PhD programs. I never thought I would try for a PhD but now that I'm getting this encouragement I'm rethinking. I like doing research and don't really know what I want to do once I graduate in a year so it's possible that this is where I belong. Anyway, Atalie says she's in if I want to do it. If I did want to get a PhD I would probably try to get into U Wisc.-Madison, so I'd at least be sort of closer to home.

"Dr. Patrick Womble" sounds so weird!

Party! Party! Pause- for work.

Oh my goodness! September 9th was our last blog??? Shame on us!

Well, we've got some pictures for you! Patrick and I went to a wedding reception for two of our friends a couple of weeks ago. It was an elegant backyard party, where we all dressed up. Patrick and I looked really sharp! :) It was a lot of fun too- they had delicious Mexican food catered, a little campfire going, interesting music, cheesecake, and a margarita fountain!

Just after dinner, so my lipstick is all worn away, but we still look quite sleek.

The happy couple after the cutting of the cake!

Oh yeah....we look good! :)

Three's company! With our wonderful friend, Kat!

Patrick's birthday was the same weekend, and although he had a nice little dinner party when we were in Michigan, we thought it would be appropriate to have some friends over for German chocolate cake and ice cream, followed by bowling!

On the left is our friend Luke, and Dave is on the right.

Last weekend Patrick had to do some work at school, so I helped him. I'm there grinding soil samples that he later processed in the XRF machine to detect lead and zinc. I feel so smart and helpful! :)

Other than that, it's just been work and exercise and TV- the normal. At least for me. Patrick was gone a few days this week near St. Louis though, doing some research on a river with one of his professors and a few other students. And his traveling isn't done yet. This coming up week he's going to go to a conference in Texas and present a poster, and another week or so later, he's going back to work on the river. He's a busy fellow!