Today was my turn to give a talk.  Unlike every other event, our session took place not in the Sofitel Melbourne, but in the BMW Edge of the Federation Square.  (Click on the links.  The architecture is fun.)  I showed up on time, met the session chair, got myself two nano-bottles of sparkling water, and waited for the session to start.  As happens when teachers talk about teaching, most talks ran long and I was last in my group of five.  So not only was my whole talk cutting into the coffee break, but I’d finished most of my water and really needed that break for other reasons.  I think my talk was the shortest.  Even so, I got a lot of positive feedback on having shared education initiatives with SPM (AFM and STM) around the world. 

I stayed for the next session and went for lunch with two of the speakers, a guy who’d started a microsystems school in inner-city Cleveland and another from the local Swinburne University, which the session chair announced as Swineburgh.  Another speaker from the US repeatedly pointed out how Switzerland was ranked number one on some global competitiveness ranking.  I fell into the typical Swiss pattern of thinking to myself, well, we’re not that great, really, and the top spots are probably closely contested, and I bet a Swiss institute made that ranking.  Sometimes I need a little more of my American side. 

After lunch I returned to my booth, where I spent most the time talking with our distributor and discussing the instrument.  Very few visitors passed today.  Once we’d taken everything down, I wheeled the microscope to my hotel in a regular suitcase.  Two local girls with a questionnaire about Melbourne stopped me to ask me if I knew where Captain Cook’s cottage was and other such things.  I wanted to tell them not to ask a guy with a suitcase, but I just told them I didn’t know.  Farther down the block a jittery guy asked me for spare change for food.  I knew I had little change, so I handed it to him – here’s a start – and he handed one of the coins back.  “You might need that, it’s a foreign coin.”  Sure enough, those were ten won and not ten cents.  Then, stuck with 20 cents and a guy who obviously might give more, he asked if I didn’t have a fiver for McDonalds.  I had a fiver, so I gave it to him.  “Thanks, dude, I really appreciate it.  My name’s Shane.”  “My name’s Stephan.”  And on I went, feeling a little unsure whether that was generosity or perpetuation of a deplorable situation, took a shower at the hotel, and got back to the Sofitel for the conference dinner. 

We boarded buses to the Carousel restaurant at Albert Park, where I handed my jacket to the doorman and walked out to the balcony overlooking the pond and the city.  Some space heaters kept us warm while we smalltalked about MEMS foundries and Asian exhibitions.  I revealed my ignorance when I asked why a MEMS foundry is called a foundry.  I still don’t quite understand why, but the basic characteristic of a MEMS foundry seems to be that they make MEMS elements that someone else designed.  It was fun to get to know a few more participants – researchers, former researchers, patent attorneys, technology transfer folks, and others.  I ended up sitting next to a patent attorney and promptly spilled his white wine over his pants when I reached over to shake hands with another guy.  He was kind about it, but it couldn’t have been fun. 

For dinner we had two different options that were randomly distributed, a barramundi (fish) and little lamb cutlets.  I got the lamb, and ooh what a lamb it was.  I could have eaten nothing but that tender, tasty meat that didn’t have that goat flavor that mutton sometimes has, although when the crème brulée came along I modified that opinion. 

The band played music as old as the band members and some of the more energetic participants danced.  I wasn’t dragged onto the dance floor, so with my food-induced stupor I had no incentive to join and instead tried to talk.  The guy whose hand I was shaking when I spilled the wine I found out played soccer against Scott Chipperfield as a kid and knows Mile Sterjovski‘s brother as a researcher in Wollongong university. 

Around eleven people started filing out and heading for the buses.  One of the old-timers pulled my tie off, saying that at MANCEF conference dinners ties were not allowed.  Fortunately, it doesn’t look like it was damaged by the tie clip.  On the ride back I wondered where my badge was, where I’d forgotten it, when I realized that I’d affixed it to my jacket when I handed it to the doorman.  I’d left my jacket at the restaurant, so I’ll probably have to buy a sweater or a jacket tomorrow morning before the Urban Issues walk I’ve decided to join (thanks to kuroodo-san!) and then somehow get to the restaurant in the afternoon to pick up the jacket.  Oh well.