Where does the money come from?

I am at a neuropsych conference and still sick as a dog, but after spending $1200 on combined room and air fare (the conference itself was cheap... learned a hard lesson about checking accommodations and travel BEFORE committing to register) was disgusted last night to find my beautiful, $179 room was so full of smoke I could barely breathe. It's nonsmoking, so I assumed the one next door was not. I had a throat so sore I couldn't swallow and my chest hurt when I coughed, which was/is constantly. Being nauseated is JUST what I needed on top of all the rest.

This morning I dragged my miserable self down to the front desk to complain and learned that they don't HAVE any smoking rooms, so it was someone out on the patio and there's not a thing to be done about it except hope they don't stay again tonight. I'm feeling a little better about the room rate after talking to a woman who missed the convention rates and is staying at a hotel down the road to save money. A relative concept since she's paying $230 for her not so nice room! She said the convention centere was almost $300/night. Wow... where to people get the money I wonder? This is even a relatively cheap conference as these things go. There are so many that I know I should attend to be as cutting edge as I can and to network for my internship process, but I'd need another year's tuition to do it all! It's so painful to have to pick and choose which ones to attend and which to let go by. My school wants me to go to every APA convention, but even in San Francisco, which is driving distance for me, it put a hole in my budget, so I can't see how I can possibly make Boston this year.

Mostly this conference has been good, but not as good as I'd hoped. I was particularly disappointed in the VA presentation on Traumatic Brain Injury in soldiers returning from Iraq. One of my classmates made a kick ass presentation on this topic last term and I was shocked to find that the one I paid to see here wasn't half as good as hers! This is a neuropsych conference and they didn't even touch on what happens in the brain due to blast injuries. What the hell? I was also disappointed that there were presentations on treatments for both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's but not one word about the status of stem cell research.

Still and all I have learned a bunch and look forward to tomorrow's sessions. I'd be more excited if I didn't feel like curling up and dying though. =(

Sick

Feh. Finally I have a couple of days to myself (and to share with AR) and I have to go and get sick. What a drag! Nasty sore throat of the variety that comes from the tonsils, not just a raw surface, and I feel as if I've been beaten with bats.

Happily this comes just in time for a big neuropsych conference. I fly out to tonight and arrive in the wee hours tomorrow morning. I think I'll have about 4 hours of sleep between arrival and the conference. Sigh...

My folks got home ok and are now thinking about what to do for assisted living. My dad got so thoroughly reamed by every friend and relative we visited he finally agreed that this was a good plan, but now that he's home he's backsliding. It's not helping that his financial adviser, a curmudgeonly old coot, has told him that all these places want is to get you to turn over all your assets to them because they are owned by insurance companies. Thus he warned my dad away from the idea. AKK! This is true of a few of them, but there are gazillions of others where you simply pay as you go like any sane set of services. Naturally my dad was quick to jump on any excuse that maintained the status quo, so we're still struggling.

I have three days before school starts, once I get back from the conference. It's hard to believe that the better part of a month has flown by this fast! Working on taxes today and trying to add a little to the APPIC list of possible internship sites every day. It's hard to make people understand that graduate school is not just classes, like undergrad, it's a full time job all year around. Come to think of it, I'm having a hard time with the concept myself...

On an up note, Entree and his sister turned eight on the first! I didn't think he'd live to see this birthday, so I'm delighted. He seems ok; a little lethargic, but hot feet every day, so we're just keeping on keeping on. =)