Before we left home Duhdee asked me if I was going to do a “Rock City Edition” and I said, “Yeah, of course!” I thought I could blog every night!
Clearly I was delusional. Every morning we get up at 7, we go downstairs to grab coffee/tea/pastries and wander around the various booths from 8 until the plenary session starts. After the plenary session we move straight into our break out sessions. There are always multiple sessions we want to attend in each time frame and we just move from one right to another. Then lunch. The past 3 days there was something planned for lunch, even. After lunch, we’re straight back into the breakout sessions until dinner. We’ve had dinner events since the conference started too! So, we’re finally to the later evening and then the REAL fun starts! This is when the parents start gathering in the bar or the other common areas to talk. And talk. And talk. And, possibly, have a drink or two or more.
It is an amazing, amazing experience. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit down to even attempt a blog and I find that I can’t do this conference justice. We’ve gotten tons of information from the presenters. It seems impossible to do anything but say, again, it’s amazing. I know this is not helpful at all for those of you who couldn’t be here. I wish there was a way to dump all of our experiences out here in a coherent, helpful way.
A lot of the presenters have posted handouts and even their slides online but so much was conveyed…you’d really need to see videotapes to get the full effect of these funny, smart people who’ve put so much effort into making our lives and our experience here better. The next conference location will be announced tomorrow night. I hope it will be in a location where those of you who couldn’t make it this time will be able to get to because it’s not just the sessions and the handouts…it’s the energy, the excitement, the hopefulness that everyone here just exudes. There were a couple sessions today that I will talk about in more detail when I can because they got straight to the heart of my deepest fears I have for my son.
One last thing…I’ve met a lot of people that know me through Facebook or who read here…but not everyone. I’m nearsighted, I can’t read all the name tags in the halls (you’d think I’d get glasses, no?) and I sure as heck can’t make out faces from across a room…yell at me (assuming you want to meet, lol), point and laugh at me, throw something at me, whatever. I really, really, really want to meet you. EVERY ONE OF YOU.
OK, dinner…see, never enough time!!! I don’t even have time to proof this. Hopefully something makes sense.
I am so glad you are having such a good time, while you weren’t able to empart (is that a word?) the content of the conference, you certainly did a good job of portraying the spirit and energy, and that is what made me wish I was there – Those evenings with the parent’s the space between the lines. I will look for handouts and slides online, but I too hope perhaps next year the conference will be on the west coast and maybe we can go.