22-23 April 2024 Birmingham GPCR endocrine meeting summary

Short summary about GPCR endocrine meeting 2024 in Birmingham.

Day 1. Very interesting talks but getting EMO

The talks on Day 1 were super interesting (and mostly understandable which is good). But at the end of the day I actually got super EMO for various reasons. One is prob that I am getting too tired at the end of the day after focusing for too long. Second is that I saw the amazing and cutting-edge research others do and how smart other people are etc, which reminded me that I need to fking work harder. Third is that I am just amazed to see how good of scientists others are (from their discussions etc., also apply to other PhD students), which makes me wonder if I will ever be able to catch up with them etc. There are also other things like networking but in general I am just not good enough and don’t know enough about GPCRs. There’s also other personal reason which I won’t go into but I need to become better :<

Day 2. Super exhausted but many things went well

I didn’t sleep very well on Day 1 (prob drank too much coffee during coffee breaks etc). But surprisingly Dau 2 went pretty well! E.g. I found a chance to speak to Maria after her talk (who is my MPhil supervisor at Cambridge next year) and it went quite well! I also had the chance to speak to/ catch up with various members of Alejandra’s lab about the projects etc, and that also went quite well! But that was the peak of Day 2; I was half-dead from only sleeping 3 hours, and I left the meeting early because my brain couldn’t take in any new information anymore. I slept for 12 hours straight the next day.

Takeaway - don’t beat yourself up in Science

Science is hard (and quite competitive), you could feel overwhelmed and not-good-enough all the time etc. I think it’s very important that you go easy on yourself and pick yourself up quickly/ don’t beat yourself up etc. I definitely was very harsh at myself but the good thing is I always pick myself up quickly after. “Anything you are not better at, you could get better” - a prob wrong quote from Hope Jehren from a podcast called People Behind the Sciences.