Seven Quick Awesome Conference Takes

That’s right! This edition of Seven Quick Takes is All AO Conference, All the Time!

:: 1 ::

The best sorts of friends give you a journal and supplies for your birthday before you leave for your conference. {Of course, you have to actually have a birthday for this to work.} I can’t tell you how much fun it was to have a new hardcover journal, a new set of Sharpie pens, and even sparkly gold washi tape for the conference. It was exciting every time I got it out! {Taking notes never was so fun…and trust me. There were many notes to be taken.}

 

:: 2 ::

Conferences can be a confusing convergence of worlds. I have experienced this before, but the AO Conference had a couple extra layers. First, I brought A-Age-Eleven with me. That was great, because I don’t get to spend much time with my children individually, and it was great for extra bonding. My sister-in-law, Kristen, whom I haven’t seen in a year and a half, was our roommate. An old friend who moved away and who I do not get to see enough was right down the hall. This was the personal layer of people.

Then, there were all the wonderful women I’ve worked with on the AA Boards {as we call it — meaning the Advisory and Auxiliary boards of AmblesideOnline} over the years. Last year, I was unable to make it to the conference, meaning that even after working with these women for a very long time, I had never met any of them {except Naomi, who is from California like me} in person. It was sort of surreal to finally be in the same room together, and I didn’t get enough time with any of them. I think of this as the AA layer.

Then there was the Internet layer! All you amazing people who have hung out at Afterthoughts for ages, some of you that have written for Afterthoughts {Dawn! Jen!} and others of you that I know from the AO Forum. I met so many of you {but, sadly, I think not all of you} and that was intense! It felt like a thousand years would’t have been enough time, especially with Daughter A. pulling me outside for a walk. 😉

And then there were all the AO moms I’d never heard of before that I met for the first time and shared meals with. AO is truly full of good people — people worth knowing.

It was amazing. It was wonderful.

And also: I’m very tired.

 

:: 3 ::

I got to help run the check-in table. I’ve decided I really like doing this, even though I’m introverted out afterwards. We greeted people and handed out room keys and such for over three hours, and the upside was that I got to touch based with a number of people I likely wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Even with this amount of sitting at a table, we managed to log many thousands and thousands of steps on my FitBit because WOW that campus was large. They need a warning on their map: “Distances on map are longer than they appear.”

 

:: 4 ::

When Karen Glass contrasted synthesis and analysis by contrasting narration with comprehension questions, it was like fireworks were going off in my head. In other words, this was a super-helpful way of thinking about it for me. So, as an example, we did two versions of picture study. In both, we spent time studying the same image {a painting by Mary Cassatt}. But the synthesis group had to narrate — tell back everything they could remember about the painting. The analysis group {my group} had to answer comprehension questions — how many boats were there, how many sleeves were showing on the girls, what color was the hair, etc. It was sort of exaggerated to make a point. The likely long term the result would be that students in the synthesis group would always be looking at the whole first, while the analysis students would probably begin to skip the whole and start jumping to details and counting and such because those are the things they know they’d be asked about. It’s an interesting result, I think.

 

:: 5 ::

Lynn Bruce blew my mind when she talked about something she calls the Cortisol/Oxytocin See Saw. She briefly covered the idea that when there are high cortisol levels — when there is a lot of fear and/or anxiety going on — this shuts down the mind. So then she talked about the benefits of raising oxytocin and ways to do this and all of a sudden I realized she was basically giving the biochemistry behind scholé. So, naturally, I asked her to be on the podcast, and she agreed: coming February 2017, if all goes as planned, we’re going to hash this topic out. It’s too bad I have to wait so long!

 

:: 6 ::

A-Age-Eleven is our resident naturalist, and she didn’t let me down. She had decided on her subjects of study within two hours of our arrival. There were spiders and birds we don’t have in California, of course. There were swallows with babies in their various nests, and all at different stages of development. She saw fireflies for the first time. And so on and so forth. Her camera was full of nature study lessons for her siblings when she returned home. It was so fun — I likely would have missed most of that if I’d traveled alone!

 

:: 7 ::

Post-conference hangovers are a thing. When I returned, my brother-in-law was here for a visit. I think that kept the adrenaline flowing for a bit longer. He left on Monday in the afternoon, and by Tuesday I found myself incapable of moving any major muscle groups or using my brain for anything other than figuring out meals. I used the time wisely and charged my FitBit. I think I’m beginning to recover, but let’s just say it’s a GOOD thing that conferences don’t happen very often.