Hi everyone, I am Tuan (Patrick) Hoang, a 2^nd year PhD student in the Biophysics program at the University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.  This is my third time at the conference, and I am so glad the meeting keeps getting better and better for me every year. Transitioning from the first year being at the meeting (Baltimore, 2011) till now, I feel more involved and connected to the society.  Hence, I decided to share my daily activity at the meeting via this blog. I hope this would be a good place for everyone to share their fun experience at the conference as well. I decided to get to Philadelphia today so I can visit a few historic sites (Liberty Bell, Independence Hall…). After checking in at the hotel (Holiday Inn, Historic District), I realized I made the right choice. The hotel is not far from the convention center, which is super convenient.  Moreover, it is surrounded by tons of historic sites. I am so happy to be able to get to most of the sites in the district today without paying any money!! YAY!!!  For students that stay in this hotel, I highly recommend the Old City Pizza down the road on Arch and 3^rd. They have such good food for very reasonable prices!! Talking about the conference, I am already excited for tomorrow with many subgroup symposia coming up.  I am particularly keen on going to the Bioenergetics and Membrane Structure and Assembly subgroup symposia. Talking about attending the presentations at the meeting, I have a few questions for everyone. 1- The first question is how many talks you usually attend during the conference. For me, as much as I love to learn new things, I tend to lose focus after a threshold of 20-25 talks during the conference. Thus, I would love to know what your take is on that! [polldaddy poll=6873509] --------------------------- 2-The second question is mainly for graduate students. As most of you are using this conference as a learning opportunity, what type of presentations (poster/talk) is more effective when you want to learn a new technique/concept. [polldaddy poll=6873474] ----------------------------- Thanks for participating and I am hoping to see more of us at the meeting tomorrow! I will end my blog today with a fun fact. So, during my visit to the Liberty Bell, I learned another useful thing from X-Ray beside being used by most of us biophysicists to determine the crystal structure of biomolecules. It was also used to examine for hidden flaws of the Liberty Bell in 1975 and 2001 before they moved it to its new home now. Hope you enjoy the X-ray picture of the Liberty Bell! :) And do not forget to interact on social media to win a prize every day!!!!