Today is going to be difficult, but it should be interesting. There are not one, not two, but three seminars that I really want to—and will (or meant to*)—attend. They are scattered all across campus, with none in my building. I’ll also meet with one of the speakers–though I’d have liked to meet with all three if only I had unlimited time. The seminars are by:
- Lee Spector, speaking on “The Future of Genetic Programming” for the College of Engineering;
- Eugene Koonin, speaking on “Viruses and Transposons as Drivers of the Evolution of Life” for the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; and
- J. J. Emerson, speaking on “Evolution and Novelty: Exploring Adaptation from the Perspectives of Experimental Evolution and Population Genomics” for the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Program.
So I won’t get much of my own work done today. That’s one of the challenges—and one of the privileges!—of being at a top university like MSU, which attracts visiting speakers in so many areas that interest me. *End-of-day edit: Did I mention that having so many seminars to attend was a challenge? Ah yes, it’s in the title and at the end. Well, as it so happens, I screwed up reading my schedule today and so only made it to two of the three talks.
[This photo shows the Beaumont Tower on the MSU campus. It was taken in May 2006 by Jeffness; it is from Wikipedia and shown here under the indicated Creative Commons license.]
Telliamed Revisited 
Wow, those sound like great seminars! Unfortunately, I had classes most of the day so I couldn’t make any of them. I really wanted to go to the talks by Emerson and Koonin.
As an MSU alumnus (PhD, BMB program 2012), I can attest to the veracity of this post as well as feel the withdrawal symptoms starting to kick in 🙂 🙂