British Columbia
May. 31st, 2013 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xylieMy neighbors growing up, the Phillipses, were really fun and fascinating. In addition to their property in Humboldt, they had a home in San Diego, one in BC, one in South Africa and a place in London. Wendy was a PhD in English and Bob was an actuary for an insurance company, one of the best. They traveled the world, but they liked the Pacific Coast more than anywhere else. They had three sons and yet some how managed to have fabulous Christmas parties.
I wanted to be like them more than I ever let on. In some ways I am, but in many I am never going to be as witty or glittering or as able to hold my liquor at Christmas. But with a conference this July in Vancouver, I feel like I will expand into their world just a bit more.
It's a professional writing conference on content strategies for two days. I fly in on Wednesday, have a bit of time to explore and then two days of strategizing before flying home Friday afternoon. Hopefully this isn't too much time away from the new job, but it is also necessary to the new job to explore different methods for getting the job done.
Sometimes I think back to how stupid I was to pick the senior thesis adviser that I did. I should have gone with Silver who got her PhD with Wendy and not Georgiana. Someone who would have spelled the issues out clearly for me instead of being annoyed that I wasn't quite mature enough to take down the bastards at Cornell in one fell prodigy-like swoop.
But we are the choices we make and I don't regret earning enough money contracting to see this conference on my own dime. Whatever I have lost in scholarship, I certainly gained in self-respect and confidence.
And besides, I can see Vancouver from more than just X-Files and Continuum. That should be fun too.
I wanted to be like them more than I ever let on. In some ways I am, but in many I am never going to be as witty or glittering or as able to hold my liquor at Christmas. But with a conference this July in Vancouver, I feel like I will expand into their world just a bit more.
It's a professional writing conference on content strategies for two days. I fly in on Wednesday, have a bit of time to explore and then two days of strategizing before flying home Friday afternoon. Hopefully this isn't too much time away from the new job, but it is also necessary to the new job to explore different methods for getting the job done.
Sometimes I think back to how stupid I was to pick the senior thesis adviser that I did. I should have gone with Silver who got her PhD with Wendy and not Georgiana. Someone who would have spelled the issues out clearly for me instead of being annoyed that I wasn't quite mature enough to take down the bastards at Cornell in one fell prodigy-like swoop.
But we are the choices we make and I don't regret earning enough money contracting to see this conference on my own dime. Whatever I have lost in scholarship, I certainly gained in self-respect and confidence.
And besides, I can see Vancouver from more than just X-Files and Continuum. That should be fun too.
