Today was the last day of the conference and, more importantly, the day that I gave my first presentation of my dissertation research! I woke up really early (due to nerves) and bought some snacks and water at a corner store before I went to the first talks of the morning. I had turned my talk in to the ATBC administration yesterday so that it would be prepared on the computer for today. I was scheduled to give my talk in the morning session of the symposium entitled “Seed dispersal and seed predation in Neotropical palms.” There were many people in this symposium that I was very excited to meet (since I had read all of their papers and they are working or have done work similar to mine). I watched the first four talks (which were excellent) while trying to calm my nerves. At 11:40am I got up on stage and after a brief introduction by the symposium organizers, I gave my talk. The room where this symposium was based was HUGE with a big stage, microphone, and everything. It was pretty intimidating and I was nervous at first, but after the first 2 slides, I hit my stride and was more comfortable. After my 15 minute talk, there was 5 minutes remaining for questions and I was able to field all of them with no problems. Phew! I was so glad that was over and everyone was very complimentary both towards my research and the talk itself--I felt very happy and relieved by this point and watched the last talk after mine before going to lunch.
I returned to the second half of this symposium after lunch and saw some more superb talks--this was by far the best symposium I attended at the conference (and not just because I was in it--ha!). By the end of the day I was pretty exhausted, but I met up with my friend Danielle and a few others for a quick dinner/snack before heading out to the ultimate fiesta of the ATBC 2007 conference. We had to take taxis there, but the venue was great. I chatted with a lot of people and soon the party really took off. There were tango dancers, a belly dancer, a guy twirling flags, a live band, people on stilts, and even a (fake) bull. The party ended at around 2am and we taxied back to the hostel to get some sleep. Tomorrow I take the bus back to Mexico City and fly back to Costa Rica.
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