I have now been up for over 20 hours. I am exhausted. Why I am writing a blog post instead of sleeping or drinking beer with girls down stairs? Not sure.
I got a piece of advice from a veterinarian at the last conference I went to: when going to a convention, chose one subject and learn all you can about that one subject. Become an expert on that subject. This applies mostly to the bigger conferences that have a million different topics, but even at this smaller AERC convention I've decided instead of going to all the talks, I picked my top 4 or 5 and I'm going to do a really good job listening, asking questions and taking notes in those 5.
The second piece of advice was: take something you learned from the conference and apply it within 7 days. You will better retain it and use it in the future.
So, in those 4 or 5 sessions, I will find 2 or 3 things that I can apply right now, or at my next ride (which is in about 6 weeks).
If you look at the AERC schedule and there is a session that you especially want a report for on this blog, please comment or email and let me know!!!! Otherwise I'll just be going to the sessions that interest me and you are stuck with what I thought was important :)
Tess is with me. I feel bad for her - she's been in confinement almost all day and then she had to be on duty.....a Brittany with very little exercise is a....wild thing. She has mostly been able to control herself except when let off leash in the hotel room where her brains leaked out of her eyeballs and she went bat crazy for a wee moment. It appears that the brains have mostly returned and other than being a bit put out that she isnt sleeping on the bed, seems to be resigned to her fate. I have promised her a nice big walk tomorrow, which considering the amount of all of you can eat sushi that I shoveled down tonight isn't a bad idea for me either. Tonight I was reminded that while two is considerably better than one, theres still a lot of puppy underneath those fuzzy ears!
Bath before convention
So tired!!! Going to bed and pretending that's it's possible for me to actually get out of bed early and walk, do homework, and then do a million other little tasks that need to get done like putting my used tack in the tack swap......
"Sound of light bulb going on!" I had never thought about focusing at a conference that way, but had begun doing it in recognition that it was more effective (especially since I usually have to spend my own money to attend them.) Nice to see it put so concisely. I can begin to do it deliberately now.
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