Jacksonville, the Most Boring Place on Earth: AMWA Edition
Oh, is it time for the AM WA Annual Conference again? Oh, do I no longer have time to write epic posts, even with the help of Gerald? Are lists less time-intensive?
- alternating between reading The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, working on my play, and preparing for my workshop on the long-ass plane ride from San Francisco to Charlotte
- drawing the attention of the woman sitting beside me at the airport, Nat, who noticed "tamoxifen" in my notes and deduced that I was also on my way to the AMWA conference
- taking Nat on as my unofficial newbie since we were both going to miss the Conference Coach Connection because our flight from Charlotte to Jacksonville was delayed
- seeing Liz at the Welcome Reception and meeting Kara, the other new acquaintance I would run into frequently during the conference, and one of my future students
- reading my short superhero play at the Creative Readings to much applause and then personally reading it to Nat and Liz, who had missed it
- winning a Poison Pen Letter kit
- learning where drug names come from at the Thursday breakfast
- sitting next to Kara for the keynote speech, which I actually paid attention to because it was really interesting, about bioethics and all the crazy things we've been doing to animals like giving a monkey a prosthetic arm IT CAN CONTROL WITH ITS MIND
- taking a nap
- still not being able to stay awake during the virology workshop taught by Bek and Tom
- meeting Amy, whom I had been communicating with via LinkedIn about trying to break into medical writing, as if I were some expert
- enjoying silver noodles with scallops at Indochine, probably the only Thai place in Jacksonville
- ordering a terribly disappointing key lime pie from room service
- learning about the cardiovascular system and writing SOPs
- meeting an attractive Indian woman...who was married and had kids, because everyone is married and has kids
- being surprised that avipedia showed up 24 hours early since I had goofed in my e-mail
- chatting with Australians at the awards dinner
- learning more about presentation skills at the Thursday breakfast and coming up with a metaphor to use in my cancer pharmacology workshop
- teaching my best workshop ever, somehow nailing the length, despite having practiced very little
- being called a gifted teacher, a born teacher, an excellent teacher and being told it was the best workshop they had taken
- learning later that one woman had actually taken it two years ago and thought it was fantastic then and she took it again and I was the most dynamic presenter she'd ever seen and now she was my biggest fan
- spending my first Saturday lunch without SR-71 or a new friend, instead going with Mark to the Burrito Gallery, which was both a burrito shop and an art gallery
- deciding that the yellow curry chicken burrito didn't really work and ordering more Cajun fish tacos, which did
- learning about the amazing renal system and magical kidneys
- marveling at how Sacramento, the site of next year's conference, presented itself
- meeting avipedia at the correct time and walking a mile (across the magical blue bridge) for lobster spring rolls (mmm), crab stuffed mushrooms (NOM), and swordfish (meh?) at Chart House
- failing to find a conveniently located dessert place with our smartphones
- walking a mile past Baptist everything and seeing approximately five people out on a Saturday night
- discovering my favorite place in Jacksonville, Pulp, which had a hot poster and cool smoothies (chocolate strawberry, mmm)
- walking a mile back to the Friendship Fountain and commemorating our friendship
- walking a mile back to the hotel and trying to figure out what to do in Jacksonville (protip: there is nothing to do in Jacksonville)
- having our plans to hit the art museum AND the science museum be foiled the next morning when we discovered that the former didn't even open until noon, the latter not till one
- hitting up the most popular place in Jacksonville, the Metro Diner, for brunch and clogging our arteries with breakfast piewalking into the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville and instantly falling in love with Melanie Pullen's High Fashion Crime Scenes
- admiring some photographs and being unmoved by others
- checking out the pretty sweet Jacksonville Public Library, which had whole shelves for zines
- running out of things to do in Jacksonville and just going back to Pulp for frozen yogurt (although avipedia got juice)
- seriously just driving around to waste time because everything was closed and there was nothing to do in Jacksonville
- watching white dude after white dude be allowed to go through the metal detector but being randomly chosen to go through the Miscalibrated Radiation Dispensing Machine
- opting for the pat-down and even getting my HAIR pat down
- having no real desire to return to Jacksonville again...except for Pulp
