The directions for the future part is going to take a little more thought. Fittingly, the closing plenary was a panel of four grad students, and ironically I missed most of it because I was intercepted in the hall by another student seeking career advice... one who seemed to be worth the time and effort.
As for the conference, there is so much to sift through, four days of ideas. The hot themes like novel ecosystems and resiliency, well certainly I'm going to want to follow those especially since so many people will be working on them, only two months ago they were a minor part of a conference and now they are everywhere. So the advances in thinking may be rapid. Yet at the same time, many good minds are already engaged on those concepts. All I really need to do is understand and sift the viewpoints and apply as necessary.
At the moment I'm more interested in continuing to balance science and intuition and policy, to seek out paths less traveled. To move forward though, I may take one more step into the past by visiting one or two of my old research and restoration sites while I'm in the Midwest. An opportunity to reflect while not swept up in a busy conference agenda, with time to think, time to let connections happen.
I saw a number of old friends this week, and made a few new ones, and certainly learned a few things. That counts as a success.
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