Last week, I traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee for my first American Association of Physical Anthropology conference. Correction, first Kristen and I went to the Knoxville Zoo, then I went to the conference.

I have never seen such a marvelous aggregation of like-minded primates in my life! And I’m not talking about the lemurs or chimpanzees. Perhaps I am still green-hearted and rose-lensed but I was thrilled to simply be surrounded by so many other anthropologists: here one couple is discussing aye-aye masticatory muscles, around the corner a man holds his palm flat under an imaginary skull and describes the CT scanning process to his student, and beyond them a pair of girls walk up to read posters on ancient Latin American trephination. These are the conversations I don’t get to have in my daily life. These are the interests that make me feel like an odd bird in a college of pre-med students and chemical engineers. This was the first time I felt that I too was an anthropologist. I belonged.

Thursday, I presented my summer plan to study aye-ayes in Madagascar. Standing beside my poster I bit the inside of my cheek and anxiously waited for some gray-beard scholar to come over and stump me with hellish questions on evolutionary genetics. But he never came. Rather a crowd of curious grad students, post docs and professors slowly formed. I shook hands with my nervous, sweaty palms, and slowly began to relax to friendly smiles and good natured questions. I even got some great suggestions and encouragement from renowned scientists in my field. Ahhh, the transitive property of endorsement: if these people are important and they like my research plans, my research must also have a chance of becoming important.

Apart from this, the best parts of the conference were the little things. Morning runs along the swirling Tennessee river. Discussions on the state of lemur conservation over fried onion rings. Cranberry vanilla wheat scones to dip in coffee during breaks between presentations. Whiskey bread pudding ordered by room service after our last day of talks. (I swear I wasn’t just there for the food!)

The most profound and lingering taste was that of inclusiveness. To my surprise, I didn’t feel like a little baby-undergraduate student last week. I thought I would be like the little kids sister of science:  tagging along, nervous and pitied in my inexperience. Rather, I felt included, respected and excited. Excited for my next conference, encouraged for my summer research and motivated to one day be the professor on stage presenting the new discoveries on subfossil lemurs, instead of just a bright eyed girl clapping in the audience.