NATIONAL CONFERENCE
15 years into my physical therapy career, I decided to give the National Conference a try. This year its in Vegas, which is such a wild, bizarre place. Oxygen bars, ridiculously expensive food, sex, alcohol and gambling being promoted just about everywhere you look.
I heard that when conferences are held in Vegas, there is a 15% increased attendance as compared to other locations and I can understand why. For conferences, Vegas has got it down. From restraurants on every corner, lots of hotels in one location, airport short distance from the Vegas strip...it makes travel here easy.
The National PT conference has 10,000 therapists in attendance and this mornings talk that I went to had probably 3,000 in one room. I"m used to going to small 20-30 person hands on classes, so this is a big change. The place is flooded with students. I look around and feel a bit old. At this mornings session, I sat next to a therapist who has also been practicing for 15 years and it was her first time to CSM as well.
There were 3 lecturers, a HUGE screen for powerpoint up front and a good AV system for the speakers. There were lots of videos imbedded into the powerpoints which was nice...to see the exercises being done as opposed to pictures.
SOCIAL GATHERINGS
Tonight there is a meeting of the Society of Women's Health (SOWH) at the Bourbon Room at the Venetian hotel. I'm not a bourbon fan but I imagine there will be other things to drink as well! I'm way excited about this gathering to get a feel for the SOWH...I'm thinking of perhaps doing a presentation next year at conference so I want to get a feel from the leaders of this group if my potential topics would be of any interest.
At 7pm is the Ithaca College Reception. I'm excited and nervous about the Ithaca College reception. Excited to have a social outing where I'll be with "my people" and to hear about what Ithaca College is up to. But nervous that I won't be hip enough or cool enough...just the same typical nerves that go along with reunions. The same type of feelings that make people not want to go to reunions at all.
I"m hoping to see some people I know there as well as old professors. I didn't attend my 10th college reunion, so this would be the first in-person get together with folks from my college days.
Because of the conference, I joined twitter (or rather, my office manager got an account going for A Balanced Approach). I'm a newbie to the twitter world and was realizing that get togethers at conference were done very much through twitter. Last night I went to a Mexican food restaurant where there was an announced get together, and no one was there. The hostess said, "oh yes...there was about 25 other therapists who came and left, saying there was a get together here". Very odd. I sat and enjoyed a quiet meal by myself-yummy mushroom fajitas.
Alas, my first twitter-organized get together was a bust, but I"m more hopeful for tonight!
And amidst the hustle-bustle of conference, I've scheduled in lots of down time.
The down time feels good. I gave myself 5 hours today in between sessions to write on the blog, read, rest, eat lunch, rest some more, etc. The view from the 43 floor of the hotel overlooks the aiport and downtown and just relaxing and watching the planes take off is fun! When looking at our blog, I realized that my last post was on January 18th which was forever ago. I've been writing down kid quotes left and right on the calender but just hadn't had the time to sit and write.
Zoya
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