On travel, work and other things.
Mar. 1st, 2010 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pen_gruntIt's difficult to come home after being on the road. It's more of a transition for me than most anything in my life. It's no sweat to come home from work and leave it at the door--that has never been an issue for me--but after a week of talking and talking; puffing myself up to have actual conversations with clients and co-workers, to handle issues as they come and appear to be an overly-competent, responsible player...
...Well, I'm not sure if it's an introvert thing or what, but for the first 2-3 hours after I get off the plane, I don't really feel like talking to Derrick. It's not him, it's sort of like I'm in shock. After that period of quiet wears off, sure, I'll babble on about what I did and where I went while out of town. But until then, I am annoyed by conversation. I imagine it must be hard for him--being in *our* world while I'm in another and instantly wanting me back, not fully comprehending the transition that has to be made. He wants to hear from me. I want to be alone.
This trip proved to be particularly fruitful. San Francisco is a vibrant, lush town--perfect for a gal like me who wants to walk and walk and walk. I've been there before. We had three meals incomparable to anything I've had in Minneapolis/St.Paul. Not that I don't love the cuisine of my native town, but there's more competition in San Fran--the stakes are higher, the bar must be raised.
And I saw amazing speakers. One of the benefits of being behind the scenes at corporate events--one gets to see a lot of *very* expensive speakers brought there for the benefit of the audience. Some are great. Some are good. Some are barely tolerable.
I saw:
Arianna Huffington (Of the Huffington Post): I was most unimpressed by her. She's a good speaker, of course, but her content was kinda bland. She spoke about being fearless and what that meant to her as a mother of two girls (this was at a private school conference, so it was more relevant than one would think). She talked about getting a good night's sleep.
You just lost me there. She was, however, the most gracious in person.
Juan Enriquez (Scientist Extraordinaire): Moderately impressed. His delivery style was ultra low-key...like, if you weren't interested in the topics at hand, he would make a great hypnotist. But since I was interested in genetics and cloning and stem cells and what that all meant to education, well, he is a *sharp* guy, and he knew his stuff, so it was very enjoyable.
Irshad Manji (The Trouble with Islam Today): Oh my god. Or hers. Whatever. Her delivery style reminded me a bit of Rachel Maddow (in a good way) and she was whip-smart and incredibly provoking/engaging. Her message was basically that to be passionate about things (and change) sometimes you have to put yourself in a position of risk to enact that change. She screened 20 minutes of her PBS documentary, and I've never seen an audience so riveted by a video. It was a pretty awesome experience. She had a (gutsy) q&a session afterward, and she was one of those speakers where you can actually track the path of her thought in her words.
...Well, I'm not sure if it's an introvert thing or what, but for the first 2-3 hours after I get off the plane, I don't really feel like talking to Derrick. It's not him, it's sort of like I'm in shock. After that period of quiet wears off, sure, I'll babble on about what I did and where I went while out of town. But until then, I am annoyed by conversation. I imagine it must be hard for him--being in *our* world while I'm in another and instantly wanting me back, not fully comprehending the transition that has to be made. He wants to hear from me. I want to be alone.
This trip proved to be particularly fruitful. San Francisco is a vibrant, lush town--perfect for a gal like me who wants to walk and walk and walk. I've been there before. We had three meals incomparable to anything I've had in Minneapolis/St.Paul. Not that I don't love the cuisine of my native town, but there's more competition in San Fran--the stakes are higher, the bar must be raised.
And I saw amazing speakers. One of the benefits of being behind the scenes at corporate events--one gets to see a lot of *very* expensive speakers brought there for the benefit of the audience. Some are great. Some are good. Some are barely tolerable.
I saw:
Arianna Huffington (Of the Huffington Post): I was most unimpressed by her. She's a good speaker, of course, but her content was kinda bland. She spoke about being fearless and what that meant to her as a mother of two girls (this was at a private school conference, so it was more relevant than one would think). She talked about getting a good night's sleep.
You just lost me there. She was, however, the most gracious in person.
Juan Enriquez (Scientist Extraordinaire): Moderately impressed. His delivery style was ultra low-key...like, if you weren't interested in the topics at hand, he would make a great hypnotist. But since I was interested in genetics and cloning and stem cells and what that all meant to education, well, he is a *sharp* guy, and he knew his stuff, so it was very enjoyable.
Irshad Manji (The Trouble with Islam Today): Oh my god. Or hers. Whatever. Her delivery style reminded me a bit of Rachel Maddow (in a good way) and she was whip-smart and incredibly provoking/engaging. Her message was basically that to be passionate about things (and change) sometimes you have to put yourself in a position of risk to enact that change. She screened 20 minutes of her PBS documentary, and I've never seen an audience so riveted by a video. It was a pretty awesome experience. She had a (gutsy) q&a session afterward, and she was one of those speakers where you can actually track the path of her thought in her words.
