Needham, MA

Oh boy was I busy this weekend!!! It all started off from a phone call from Andrea, the SWE New England Region Treasurer, at 10:30 Friday morning. The vendor where we got the conference bags from made a mistake and shipped the products to her house, instead of Olin School of Engineering in Needham, MA. And not all the bags fit in the car! Jenn to the rescue! I drove up to meet Andrea at her work around 11:30, pick up a few boxes, and drove down to Jen's house to wait for her to come home and carpool to go up to Olin. While I was waiting, I was busy writing all the Thank You cards for the speakers and eat sushi -

YUM. Although I didn't get a lot of cards done, I had a wonderful lunch.

After I picked up Jen, we drove up to Olin, checked into our hotel, and I went to the school to help set up things, and drop off the boxes, leaving Jen in the hotel doing what she needs to do for the next day. If my prof was there from RPI, he would be very proud of our little assembly line with Just In Time feed!

After finishing the prep for the conference, Jen and I went to Somerville and met up with Mer, Adam, and Adam's roommate AJ for dinner.

Aren't we cute!? :)

We went to this sandwich place - the place was completely packed, just people who wants a great sandwich, which is what we all got! I also tried out a local dark beer which was just excellent. We bid the gang goodbye with some ice cream and headed out back to Needham.

Saturday morning came all too fast. Jen and I got up at 6 to make sure we got time to get some things done prior to the conference start - such as those darn Thank You cards.

Oh, I should mention at this point that Jen and I had another roommate, April. April traveled to our region from Illinois to help out with Collegiate Leadership Coaching Committee (CLCC) since the lady who usually comes is currently out of country for work. And April is a KNITTER!!!! :) (everyone wave hi to April!) She is very sweet and nice. Too bad we didn't have a lot of time to hang out with each other.

So April helped me with some of the Thank You cards (I told you she was nice!) and I got them finished on time! (I still can't believe it!) We had our CLCC meeting in our room (two other girls had showed up at this point) and we all went to the conference right after.

The conference itself was a lot of fun. The morning and dinner keynote speakers were both excellent and untraditional, which made it even better. I got to go to a few sessions, but not all. Why? You asked. Because I was speaking in two sessions! ME! SPEAKING! Yeah I know, I can't believe it either. One of them is "Work/Life Balance Panel" (What balance?) and one of them is the CLCC module.

I certainly am no Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee, however, this is almost like a dream come true. Once upon a time, I was the one sitting down, listening to all the speakers of their wisdoms and advice, thinking to myself, wouldn't it be so cool if I can be the one sharing those wisdoms and advice? My day had come, and it was VERY COOL. And to prove it to you that I really was speaking, Trish had taken a picture of me in the panel:

See! I wasn't lying. And yes, I was wearing Rusted Root underneath my jacket. :)

The conference ended around 9pm (including dinner) and I headed back to the hotel exhausted. I knitted a little, and chatted with April until we both fell asleep.

Sunday was the business meeting till 1pm, and I drove home with Jen, which concluded the 2008 Region Conference. I got home exhausted still, and passed out as soon as I was able.

I did knit a little, but not enough to show any progress. But I do have to say Kiri is pretty easy. Hopefully soon, I can show some progress. So how was your weekend?