Conferencing

Whenever I attend conferences, the most visceral journal entries spring forth, and they are almost always the same. I express how I feel I am wasting my life and the talents given to me in favor of an institution that means as nothing to me as I to it. While I like my job, and I believe I work hard and do well at it, and I want to be successful at it, there is something about the unbridled enthusiasm seen at conferences that REALLY drives me bonkers. And not in a good way. Of course, I also get some sketching in. In the first, we have a chancellor of MIT telling us how important student and young alumni philanthropy is, and how this is "forever and always" activity, with a faceless retort. As it turns out, my VP just cut our staff in that area by 50% which means we cut out some activity and scale back on the things remaining. Is that the definition of irony? In the second, I caught a glimpse of a colleague everyone was sure is gay, but turns out he has an ex-wife and a current girlfriend. He was dressed rather inappropriately for a business conference... black suit, black shirt, pink tie, and shoes better for the leather bar than campus. Oh—another bit of irony... I had to give a presentation with 2 colleagues. I spoke last after 2 not-very-lively speakers, so my dellivery was energentic, humorous, passionate. Several people have told me how much they enjoyed hearing ME, one even said it the most favorite part of the conference! In short, I exhibited the unbridled enthusiasm that irritates me so.