i'm 27! today. and i spent my birthday at a work conference, the ESRI Wisconsin User Group (EWUG). but it was good, and on wednesday i and two of my coworkers gave a 45 minute presentation in front of 100+ people. i was a bit nervous, but it went really well, and at least ten people came up to me over the next two days to let me know that i did an excellent job, so that felt wonderful. it has been quite a few years since i've given a lengthy presentation in front of more than a dozen or so people. it was nice to learn that i still have strong presentation skills. i also learned a few other things including:

• a) i have some awesome coworkers (some evidence: they brought a ganache chocolate cake all the way from madison and surprised me and e. [her bday is saturday] at midnight, it even had the coolest swirly candles i've ever seen!). i feel so fortunate to have such lovely friends at work.


• b) i will never be able to keep up with most other gis-ers/wisconsonites when it comes to going out. after getting up at 5am to come to the conference e. & i were ready for bed at 1:30am after a relaxing hot tub/sauna session, while the rest of the party stayed up much much much later going to multiple venues.


• c) i learned how (and most importantly, how not to) drink from a boot! the ewug beer boot was passed around. who would have thought that there are rules on how to drink from a boot? i was a bit confused at first. were they kidding me or what? but after some observation i figured it mostly out. how to flick the boot for good luck/respect before and after drinking, how to properly position the boot (toe out/up), and how to drink S-L-O-W. that last part i didn't do so well and ended up being splashed by the famous boot bubble (although not the one that occurs at the very end). hilarious, embarrassing, and fun.


• d) maybe, maybe, i want to investigate nursing a bit further. it still completely interests me. maybe becoming a certified nurse midwife, or just getting a master of nursing. in the hot tub i met a nurse practitioner who specialized in emergency care. he had just flown in from japan from another conference and was giving a few presentations the next day. one of them, the sociology of trauma, sounded so fascinating to me. i almost skipped the morning gis session to attend his instead (but my selfish body wanted the extra 30 min of sleep instead, plus in the end it was good that i stuck to the ewug sessions, because they were pretty helpful).


• e) maybe, just maybe, i'd like to continue in my gis vein for the long haul. should i get a masters in geography? a gis certificate? hmmm. i think i'm just being open to lots of new ideas recently. and itching to learn and discuss again.


• f) i'm good at winning raffles. at conferences, i'm 3 for 4 now (conference #1: ipod nano, #2: ESRI tea mug, ESRI Geography hat, & ESRI beer glass, #3: ESRI book which i will never use, but hopefully can sell on ebay. ;)


• g) i'm finally picking up the gis lingo. after five years now i can say that in this conference i knew 95% of the terms and abbreviations for once. that's a big feat, considering my first technical conference i had no idea what they were talking about most of the time! we tried extra hard in our presentation to leave abbreviations out and explain things clearly, hopefully that helped the other newcomers.