SfN Neuroblogging 2012: The Recovery Period

SfN 2012 is finally over, and now I can get back to answering your questions and teaching you how to build a neuron. Things will simmer down and neuroscientists will go back to their research and smaller more specialized conferences. Until May that is, when abstracts of SfN 2013 will be due!

SfN 2013 in San Diego, CA

Here are just a few final tips to cope with the post-SfN feeling.

1. Sleep. Consolidate all that knowledge and decompress. 

2. Consolidate your notes.  Do this right away or else you will completely forget where all those little scraps of paper went with scribbled citations and email addresses. Put them all in one notebook or type them up.

3. Email those people. Whoever they are, you probably got someones email address and told them you would be in contact. Maybe to send them the PDF of your poster, or maybe to get theirs.  Maybe because you had an ACSF recipe to send them, or they were going to tell you the super-secret voodoo chant that they do to get their in situ hybridizations to work every time.  Whatever it was, email them right now. Don't lollygag on this. You might forget to email, or they might forget who you are.

4. Do your receipts. If you are lucky enough to have your conference trip paid for, get all the reimbursement stuff together right away. Some universities (mine included) require that you get all this in order and turned in within a week of returning from the conference.

5. Make use of your motivation. You hopefully came back from SfN full of ideas! Use that excitement: set things up to start that new experiment. Order that new reagent. Write out that new idea for a grant proposal. Read those new papers you hadn't heard of before.

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