D-Day: My Conference Presentation

So it's finally here, the day I'm presenting. I felt ok and ready considering I had gone over at least the first 10 minutes more than just a few times rehearsing it in my head and out loud.  My presentation was right after lunch and I am surprised that I'm pretty relaxed this morning considering I had other stuff on my mind. I had to pack, check out, and figure out a way to lug my extra clothes around. Oh and there was breakfast. Eloisa warned me last night that the breakfast wasn't any good and so I went to Starbucks and got breakfast there. The line was pretty long too. I guess I wasn't the only one that had the idea. Anyway, I made it to the 8:30 keynote (where Eloisa spoke for about 5 mins BTW). I enjoyed the session and I like it when the speakers are uplifting and high-energy. Maybe I need to incorporate some things for MY speech right?  And then for the rest of the morning I sort of just walked around the vendor expo still rehearsing my speech. I did run into Eloisa and Marina at the cafe and I sat down with them to have lunch. Funny that that simple chance encounter enabled me to work out some work stuff. (a) the incident from a few weeks back regarding Daisy and how I cut off Barbara just to stop the barrage on Daisy. I explained that I was trying to protect my teammate. Simple as that. Eloisa understood. Marina? Not so much LOL. And then Marina and I managed to handle the data stuff that I was holding up. All that in a half hour. I didn't eat much. I couldn't. I was starting to get into pre-game mode... 

So I'm going to cut to the end of the day. My presentation went really REALLY well I thought. Better than I expected. The email from Philip the NACHC coordinator said it all. We rocked it. Knocked it out of the park. People were engaged, asked a lot of questions and I was actually approached by a few people afterwards asking more questions. A couple said it was the best presentation of the conference so far. Small sample size I get it. And it's only the first day. AND any positive feedback is always great. No negative feedback either. All in all I think my audience was over 75 people. Pretty decent I thought. Better than the CCALAC conference anyway. Anyway as soon as my talk was over, I changed into my civvies and headed to the airport to fly home. I got a text from Eloisa too telling me how well I did and that she appreciated my candor at lunch today. All in all I felt really really good about how I did. And then when I got to the airport I realized I was a full 2 hours early. And so finally the adrenaline started coming down and I started to feel tired and all I wanted to do was sit and close my eyes. Reflection will come later.  And finally I started to feel hungry. I wolfed down a fish sandwich from Burger King and some onion rings and in a little while I was finally headed home. The flight was less than an hour. So just enough time to ascend the descend really. I told Lisa this morning that I wasn't going to need a ride since I took my car. It would end up costing me $80 actually but that's ok. Also I had parked a full 2 terminals away yesterday morning. I sure got my steps today. To the tune of 12,000+ already and 133 active minutes. I am already close to the 280 benchmark 2 days into the week! When I landed I started to shift myself into back-home mode. Which means I have to pick up Johnnie and think about the rest of the week. I still have 2 days of presentations to go after all. I made a pit stop at Panda Express Marina del Rey because I still felt a little hungry and i didn't want to stop for tacos. Actually I did at Taco Bell Westchester but the drive thru line was really long. I got to Lisa's by 8:20 and when I walked through the door Johnnie practically jump hugged me! I gotta tell ya... I had a really good presentation today but the moment Johnnie yelled "Dad" with a big hug was an even better feeling! And so we started my watch... I was so tired. And we were all in bed not much later than right after we walked through my door. A very VERY awesome day.