Happy Equinox!

From tomorrow onward, you Lower 48ers will beat us for daylight hours. :)

I am finally on my way home from a long, full week at the 50th Anniversary ISTVS Conference. I must say, I had an absolute blast. It's so great to hang out and talk with other people who are in the exact same research field, and be able to jump into any conversation and join without having to describe all of the background of what you are talking about first.

Another super cool observation I made was that, of about 140 or so attendees, there was a goodly number of women (about 15-20, which is an impressive ratio for engineering), the conference head was a woman, and the incoming President of the ISTVS is a woman! The other women in my age group (grad students, post docs, and recent graduates) were all similar to me, not just professionally, but in the way we viewed our roles in society. Woman engineers of my generation are the beneficiaries of the generation before us, who had to fight very hard for equal rights in the workforce. While my sisters and I would never accept any discrimination either, we have the privilege to take for granted the easier trail our forebears have blazed.

One minor, but delightful consequence is that we don't have to overcompensate to hide any sign of femininity, and we can have long hair and wear dresses and look feminine. Gone are the days when equal treatment with men meant dressing like a man, thank goodness! Moreover, as I've posted before, while we are all feminists in the truest sense, none of us fit the stereotype of man-hating feminists. We are mostly married or otherwise in stable relationships, and will have or not have children as we like, not due to Societal Pressures.

Aaaaanyway, since this was a 50th anniversary conference, it turned into a big shindig with local tours, wine tasting, etc, and I had a ton of fun. I got on really well with the other participants. But all that being said, that way of life is Not Quite My Thing, and I am anxious to get home to my cabin and take long walks in the woods and sit on my porch and sleep in my minimally cushioned mattress with Autumn and Linden on either side of me and know I can call on my neighbors in a pinch. While it's nice to know that wherever I go, people seem to like me, the society of recent acquaintances is never as satisfying and nurturing as the society of longer-term friends and family!

Oh also I need to include in my Virginia Report: Western Virginia is very beautiful, I mean, really stunning, with densely wooded green mountains with trees of every sort. I was sorry to find that I was a bit early for fall and I didn't get to enjoy two falls, as I had hoped, but it was still gorgeous.