Hi All,

Well we skipped the awards and just went for the wine mixer and dinner tonight. We collected a dinner companion from last night and got to learn more about a nice young lady who is about to get her PhD. Seated next to me was another young woman from Romania who is in school in Michigan. So we got a real look inside of "women who are about to become scientists."

You can imagine as we did, what their feelings about the workplace and how they are viewed from their male counterparts. They both expressed that they have to work harder to prove their points of view than their male counterparts. Though they have seen advancements in their field of endeavor as women have elsewhere, I'm sorry to say, "it's still a man's world."

But tonights dinner fortunately was far better than the last two paid events. We had a nice tomato and cheese salad, lamb chops with sweet squash, mixed green beans and for dessert an apple custard. Of course the wine flowed heavily along with the champagne tonight and many toasts were made at the podium wishing tonights award winners much success and happiness in their achievements.

We learned this year that many of the colleges and other institutions have their students prepare posters and make presentations and the organizations send them to the AGU free of charge, all expenses paid. This gives them the opportunity to participate in the event and learn from their future colleagues. They all expressed appreciation for this benefit.

The AGU in turn has many people viewing the posters and oral presentations. They select the best of the group and present awards to the best of the lot in their next session in the Spring in Washington, DC.

Canie, I would have so much loved to have you sit in with these two young women. I think you would have learned a lot from them about the basics of what they have done and their ideas about their own futures in science.

Another interesting occurrence happened while visiting with various people in the past few days. We learned that for people other than those in seismology, they had no idea about earthquake preparedness. So we became teachers and they the students. They shared interesting earthquake experience stories with us and together it was a good mix of sharing.

Petra