Saturday, May 24, 2008

NCHE conference 5/23 & 5/24

Okay...I'm back, the conference is over...well, actually the graduation is going on right now. I had a birthday party that I went to last night and I didn't get home till almost eleven. It was a sleepover, but I decided I'd better just go home, or there was going to be no way I could stay awake through the conference today. So I wasn't able to blog yesterday, but I'll blog for both days now!

Here's some pictures I took yesterday from the windows of the convention center yesterday, one little tiny corner of downtown Winston-Salem. :)


















And guess what? I met Jessica yesterday! It was really cool to meet someone who I only knew online!
So, we got to the conference yesterday and went down to the book fair first, then we went and had lunch before going to workshops at two. After lunch I went to wash my hands, so I'm washing my hands and thinking: that the girl beside me looks familiar...oh yeah, I think that's Jessica. So I try to see her name tag (because without the name tag to help confirm who it was I don't think I would have said anything), yeah, her nametag says "Jessica".
I think I said something like "Jessica???" at which point she turned around and kind of nodded in a confused way. At that point I believe I mumbled something about "you have a blog, right? I'm Natalie...from the blog" or something equally strange and confusing. Major points to Jessica for not backing away slowly and then running at that point! :p But she didn't, she managed to put the clues together and figure out I wasn't a lunatic, and we sat together at the next two workshops even and talked a bunch.

And then today, I was walking in to a workshop and looking around for anyone I knew, and Jessica saw me and waved me over to where she was sitting...with my friend Lauren! "Oh! Hi Lauren!" I say, "so you two know each other??"
"Yeah, we're cousins! How do you know Jessica?" Uhh....wow...small world!! :p So that was really cool and bizarre! :)

Let's see, the workshops yesterday. I went to one about guy/girl relationships, which was pretty good, although it was mostly stuff I'd heard before. But I walked in there thinking that if I was going to see any of my friends at the convention I might see them there. So I'm wandering down one of the aisles looking for people when I hear someone behind me call, "Natalie!" I turn around to see my grandma sitting there! I'm thinking, "I'm in a workshop about guy/girl relationships...why is my grandmother here??!" But anyway, there she was, and she'd left Grandpa down in the book fair; I saw him come in later in the middle of a big pack of teenagers trying to find seats. I think they were the oldest people in there, I mean, there were parents in there, but it was mostly teens! :p

After walking a lap inside the convention center because I was so stiff from being packed into the teen workshop, I listened to Tyler Hogan talk about "Modernism in Culture". Now, not that it's the guy's fault, but he was really annoying to listen to. Before the workshop he was pacing around like, well, I won't say Mr. Darcy because he wasn't like him, but like Colin or Jonathon Firth anyway. Pacing around looking mad, and then when the workshop monitor was going over the "this session is being recorded, no cellphones or noisy children please" he was standing behind her looking like he was going to strictly enforce those rules if anyone made noise!!! So it was a major disconnect when he started talking in a very soft, prissy voice. Ack! Okay, yes, the guy has a degree in theatre, but did he have to talk like that?! And I thought it was very funny how he started out by saying he was engaged and going to be married in two months, and he loves his fiance "very, very much" *prissy smile* Like if he hadn't made that clear, he would have been mobbed by young ladies wanting to meet him. Ha. And there are pictures of him and his family and his fiance on their webpage.

What he was talking about was pretty good, but he mostly went over various aspects of modernism, but I don't think he did much in the way of saying how we were to relate to modernism in the culture. So it was interesting, but not exactly what I was expecting.

Today I knitted while listening to Karen Stobaugh talk about foundations for learning, and then I went to "Dreams, Desires, and Decisions: A Look at Your Life Purpose" by Woody Robertson, which had some good points, although I think it was more geared towards guys. And about halfway through the talk he mentioned going to the Vision Forum leadership conference, at which point my friend Lauren and I made faces at each other. :) He did have some good stuff to say, but he obviously wanted to be a man-with-a-plan...

Well, that's all for now...I need to leave as I'm babysitting tonight. I'll blog more later!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, that seemed funnier to me than it was probably supposed to be.

I can just picture Grandpa in the middle of a herd of teenagers. And it looks strangely similar to John at Alex's (crowded) graduation...

N said...

And it looks strangely similar to John at Alex's (crowded) graduation...

Yes...I imagine that would be about the same! :D

And it was pretty funny...

Jessica said...

That WAS soooo weird...as if it could get any more weird that we saw each other yesterday, you're friends with my cousin! It is a small world, but I like it that way. :)

N said...

Yeah, that was crazy! And I wouldn't have even known who you were except that I found you through all these other people's blogs... *shakes head in amazement* It only proves what I've often said, that all my friends know each other somehow! :D

Jessica said...

Yeah, my grandpa says sometimes that you're always 6 people away from knowing someone famous, if you know what I mean. Not that I really understand the significance of knowing someone famous in the first place...