January 2010 updates for Ms. Meredith

Ms. Meredith is a new NITARP teacher in 2011.  She really enjoyed the AAS meeting.  She has these sage words of advice for attending AAS meetings:

• Astronomy timeline applies to the AAS meeting as well as to astronomy research projects -- everything takes 8 times as long as your best estimate plus 20 min. Plan on bumping into people and starting up compelling conversations continually.
• Make a decision prior to the meeting about what you most want to come away with. Highlight the talks that are must-dos so you don't get side tracked by every good conversation. I also found that although I got a very good understanding about how this meeting operates, it was like snacking on ideas and never really getting filled up or complete on any one thing.
• Don't try to go to dinner with more than 5 people. It takes too much time to coordinate.