I've been reading about everyone's conference experiences, and all I can say is: "I wanna play, too!" And let me tell you, I NEVER thought I'd be saying that.
When I was in grad school, I used to listen to people talk about conferences and I thought, "Well that sound like the biggest yawn in the world; I am so not going to go to conferences." I admit that part of this was my immense issues with traveling (I'll spare you the details - suffice it to say that I am crazy and public transportation is out of the question for me most of the time), but the other part was that I couldn't imagine spending that amount of time with oodles of people I didn't think I had much in common with (other than a profession).
But, crap, the biblioblogosphere, and a couple of small conferences, have changed my mind.
And of course, now that I want to attend some of these conferences, I can't - library budget is frozen, and there's no money for ANYTHING until the next fiscal year. Sigh.
Luckily, all the great bloggers out there are filling me (us) in on workshops, posting their presentations on the web, discussing and debating the subjects being talked about, etc. And, I'm glad for that, as I get to "take part" right from this uncomfortable chair in my office, and I get to learn and discuss.... It's fabulous, great, and thank you all very much!
But - I want to meet so many of you! I want to eat food with you and have drinks with you, and hash over the presentations with you. I want to compare notes with you in person. I want to laugh and have a good time. Grumble....
ALA is out of the question for me this year, and I'm just completely bummed. I can't even really afford the gas it would take to drive down there, and since I don't have anyone who will pick up the registration fee, I don't know that I can justify the expense of the trip for the exhibit hall alone.
Oh, well.
So, in the meantime, if you are going to be at a conference in MA (I am annoyed that I didn't pay attention to the coming MLA conference sooner - I would have made the drive over just to hang out with folks) or RI or even CT, let me know. Even if I can't go to the conference, maybe I could stop by to say "hey."
That would be fun.
1 comment:
I know what you mean. The best part of every conference I've gone to so far has been the inbetween times, outside of sessions and presentations, interacting with cool people and making new friends. Is there a way to get around the "no public transportation" thing? (My wife is afraid of flying, but she doped herself up for our trip to the UK and was relatively okay.)
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