Conference Take 2 (Pt. 4)

It was brought to my attention that the original post was WAAYYYY long. So I decided to break it up. You can read a post at a time to catch up on my awesome Las Vegas conference experience!

Sunday- Passages! Aside from little miscommunications, Passages ended up being beautiful. I did worry for no reason. As soon as everyone got there and we got started, it was fantastic. Everyone was at ease. The President of the professional board got up to speak before her presentation. She blind-sided me and started talking about how they enjoyed having me on the board and the work that I've done and the legacy of the past few student presidents. Then she presented a gift certificate signed by all the board members to buy some songs for my Beamz (thebeamz.com)! I said "thank you!" Actually I got sort of emotional about the whole thing because I am so going to miss being on the board and being connected like that with that particular group of people. It really has been the most incredible year of my life to date. So yea, I did get a little teary there, especially later when I explained it to my friend Stacey. All the presentations went well and they covered lunch for us!! Phew. Lillie's closing session was fantastic. The idea was to emphasize community building and using conference to keep our flames and candles lit (and not at both ends!). So we all had a chance to talk about what really inspired us about conference- could be anything. I won't go into detail about what people said, but it was very moving. I started crying. A lot of other people started crying. I did talk about seeing my MT family and friends, especially because I am so far away and seeing a plan come together beautifully. One of the students from chapman did talk about how there is a lack of community and coming to conference is reaffirming for this student, gives them hope about the future. This particular student named those of us who transferred and how she felt inspired by the things we were able to do etc. It was so touching. My heart broke for them, but I am also impressed and admire their determination to finish there. We wrapped things up, I passed the torch to the next president. Lillie gave a few final thoughts and said "safe travels" and no one moved. Everyone was still. A few moments later the circle heaved a collective sigh and then everyone started hugging each other. it was very powerful.

All in all, an incredible time. I felt leaving affirmed and drained. I am grieving my tiny loss of not being involved right now. But now is the time that I need to finish my training, get certified and then see how I can get my hands dirty. One thing at a time. Its a new era. I'm going to take notice of what I WANT to do instead of what I CAN do. I can do a lot but I will go crazy. So I have the luxury of picking and choosing what it is that I want to do. A lot of opportunities opened up over the weekend, I met and connected with a ton of people and I am feeling absolutely affirmed and confident and wanted. They want me to come back and get involved. Sigh.

The rest of the week has been weird. I've been trying to get back into my real life. Conference was like this weird event in space and time and now I'm back to the drastically different reality. Las Vegas vs. Brighton, NY? Yea. Culture shock. I've had the weekend to rest, be lazy, grocery shop and today it will be laundry- at some point. I actually fell asleep on the couch last night and slept all night. I had great supervision on Friday where I told my supervisor about all of this stuff. He seemed excited that I was generalizing- especially with the positive feedback. I've used my weekend wisely- lots of couch time. Mar-boy came over Friday and Saturday for eats and games and movies. He's a really great guy.

Anyhow, I have a massive pile of laundry to do and I still need to unpack. I'm getting on that. Just as soon as I get up off the couch...