It's 5 AM here in Vancouver, WA

Intrepid readers, I was awoken while sleeping by my coughing, got into the shower to try and loosen some of the shit in my lungs. I tried to go back to bed and just creaked open the laptop and kept coughing. Not really a problem, if I was staying at the Hilton on my own. Instead of keeping my sometimes-supervisor Heather up through the remaining wee hours, I put on my bra and Five Fingers, finger-combed my moist tresses and here I sit in the Hilton lobby. (Digression: They re-sized women's FiveFingers, where the W40 are a little large for me the NEW W40 fit me perfectly at the heel. They also come in blue and leaf-green with grey.) Yesterday was my first day at my first international AEE conference, and the first session I went to was on the postmodern student, to me the solution to the student that wants to smoke on expedition or bring iPods, I would bring that back to the student. How do you think that will change your experience? That of your peers? And you blend it, saying things like, when I have my iPod on, I tend to have a harder time paying attention to others; how does wearing your iPod affect you? Also, my supervisor Dave recently told me that it is valuable to seek to understand, then be understood, to create a healthy repor and relationships. Coming to this conference shows me where my organization is really quite strong (I was well-trained as a facilitator), and where we are lacking (inter-organization communicaton, well-defined positions, poor utilization of resources at times, diversity of staff and recruiting of alumni). This has very little to do with me, being a peon at the front-lines. I work with students in schools and on-property, and I really make change. However you can train people to be in my position. People need to grow and have experience to hold the positions which are currently open, so there's not a lot I can do to help. As far as conferences go, I think this conference is pretty fantastic, and I am thrilled that The Ivy sent 8 individuals to learn and grow from it.