{Weekend in Seattle}

Hello Friends... I feel like I have been absent for a while on this blog - oh wait, that's because I have been.
I promised you a run down of my PSA experience and I almost didn't write it at all. I figured it was too far past gone and that no one would even care any more....Well, thank goodness I talked myself out of that one. I really don't care if no one else reads it, but it was a great experience and I need to write it down for myself and you all are more than welcome to read it :) [PS - I completely forgot my camera and therefore have no awesome pictures of things that I saw, did. Bummer.]

Most of the students who went to the conference [probably between 20-30 students] carpooled up in vans that BYU provided. Not me, sorry. I was not going to go on a road trip in a crowded van with people I didn't know especially when I'm prone to car sickness - yup. So I flew.

Thursday

I arrived in Seattle around noon on Thursday and Sean's Grandparents picked me up from the airport. They took me out to lunch and then dropped me off at my hotel. We went out to eat at this fab restaurant called Red Fin and I had seafood pad thai - amazing. [I love love love good food] It was so great to see them and be able to spend a part of the afternoon with them. We don't get to see them much so I was glad I was able to see them.

I stayed at the Sheraton in down town Seattle [It was so nice!] where the conference was being held. I had to wait for one of the program directors from my school to check me into my room and she was out and about running one of the sessions at the conference so I sat in the lobby and used that time to work on my presentation and other homework that I needed to get down. After a couple hours I figured I better find her before she would run out for the evening and I would never get into my room. After some investigation and some amazing coincidences [aka blessings] I ran into her, registered for the conference, and was able to get checked into my room.

My roommates had not yet arrived [vans...] so I went out on the town on my own. It was pretty cold and windy but not unbearable. I walked up and down streets and decided to eat at a little burrito place. It was delicious. It was so fun to people watch there! What a great variety :)

After dinner I decided to do some shopping [of course.....I mean, there was an H&M right across the street from my hotel!! I love that place!!!!]. I realized it was getting late after a couple of cat calls and whistles and I realized that it probably was not the smartest thing for me to be wandering the city by myself at that hour, so I went back to the hotel.

I got in my pjs an worked on my presentation, worked on other homework, and planned out the remainder of my weekend. At registration I got a huge pamphlet with what sessions would be going on at what times so I could map out what I wanted to do [For most of you, I'm sure that attending a sociological conference listening to people's current research projects would not be on the top of your list for exciting, well, it was for me!!] It was awesome.

The conference was held in about 15 different rooms at any one time and in each room a different session [about 1.5 hrs] was taking place covering a different topic. These topics ranged from Race in the media to how to deter crime to adoption to women's issues and the list goes on and on [literally, for pages....]. In each session between 3-5 researchers would go up and present their research and afterwards they would have a question and answer opportunity. It was great.

Friday
I woke up early [early enough for the 8:30 session!!! points to me...] the next morning to go to the conference. I got all dressed up in my professional looking clothes, grabbed my badge [official, no?] and bag [filled with my notebook, the conference program, and of course, snacks] and headed to the conference [Might I add that I looked very grown up and professional?]. It was great! I jumped between rooms and attended the sessions until about noon. It was fabulous. I learned many new great things [but I will not bore you with those at this current moment].

After that, I stopped back at my hotel room, freshened up and went out on the town to find some lunch. I went down to Pike's Place Market and spent all afternoon there. AWESOME. It was great. I had a delicious lunch and some random place and then got dessert at a Russian Bakery. I tried all of the samples [fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, cheese, jerky, fresh salmon... everything] and had a great time. I just wish that the husband was there cause that just makes everything better.

I got back to my hotel in time to see that some of my roommates were heading out to dinner and invited me along. There were a couple professors and a couple students and it was great. We went out to this fabulous Thai restaurant [I love good food and have recently fallen head over heels for Thai - if you have never had Thai food it is now your assignment to look up a Thai restaurant in your area and go this weekend. Provo people Thai Mango or Bangkok Grill are great choices :) ] and ate family style. Delicious. Salmon Curry, Pumpkin Curry, a couple of different noodle dishes...yum. And then of course top it off with mango and sticky rice for dessert [those of you that are going out for Thai this weekend it is imperative that you get this dessert - crucial.] Yum.

After dinner a couple of us stopped by H&M before heading back to the hotel. Yes, I did stop again. No, I will not tell you if I bought something there for a second day in a row [but any of you that know me I'm sure you can guess...] Then it was bedtime.

Saturday
I slept in a little bit that morning but my roommates were all up early because they had to present at 8:30 that morning. I wanted to go see them, but I did not want to fight for the shower, so I took my sweet time that morning. When I was ready for the day and about to head out to find some food for breakfast my roommates came back and we went out to go get some breakfast. Turns out we went to Pike's Place again and just snacked on the samples. Remember before when I said I tried all the samples, well, I didn't mean literally all the samples, but now I do. We stopped at every booth and tried everything. We stopped at every jam booth and tried every different kind of jam that they had. We stopped at every jerky booth and tried every different kind of jerky. It was awesome.

At that point our group kinda split up and I spent the rest of the day with one other student. She's an older student [Married, 3 teenage kids...] that I've had in a couple of my classes before but never spent time with. She was great. All my plans about going to the conference that afternoon were smashed - but I was quite alright by that. I was entranced with the city and I had a great time. We stopped at some point for lunch at a fabulous little corner cafe and got a delicious salad and sandwich.

That afternoon we stopped by the hotel so I could meet with my professor to go over our presentation for the next morning. It was a brief meeting and afterwards we walked down the street to meet up with other BYU folks to watch the basketball game at a sports grill. That was a sad game.

After the game I went out with the same student I hung out with earlier in the day and did some more running around the town picking up souvenirs for her kids. It was great. After a couple hours we were tired and decided that we should grab some dinner [at 9:30 at night....not healthy, but awesome]. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and split a big ol' pasta plate. Delish. Then bedtime.

Middle of the Night
This night was daylight savings time and I was terrified I was going to miss my presentation at 8:30 [or 7:30] in the morning and I did not sleep at well. My phone is supposed to automatically change but I was so nervous that it wouldn't and that my alarm wouldn't go off at the right time in the morning that I woke up every 30 minutes to an hour to check my phone's time vs the hotel's clock's time. No sleep. My phone did [as it was supposed to] change times and my fretting was worthless. Oh well.

Sunday
So I woke up on time, got dressed in my professional get-up, and pulled one of these in front of my mirror [no, I did not stand on the counter, I was too tall]:



I went to my presentation room and got my powerpoint presentation all set up and was informed by our session director [who is actually a current professor of mine] informed me that I would present first.

It went great. At first I was nervous and shaky but that got over relatively quickly. I felt I was clear and articulate [not always the case] and delievered everything that I needed to. I then turned the time over to my professor to finish up presenting the statistical analysis that he ran. Once I sat down and the next presentation started I had those thoughts that you get right after you bear your testimony in church where you think of all the things that you didn't say. Luckily, during the Q&A afterwards many of the questions were directed at our presentation and I was able to say everything that I wanted to and felt much much better about the entire presentation. It was great.

[there wasn't a whole ton of people at the presentation because it was 8:30 {7:30!!} on a Sunday morning, the last day of the conference, and we were competing with 14 other sessions going on at once. There were probably a total of 15- 20 people there, but they were very engaged]

After my presentation I went up and packed up my things. Grandma & Grandpa McQuay picked me up at my hotel, took me out for lunch again [jambalaya!!] and then to the airport to finally arrive at home.


It was a great experience. It was very educational, a great experience, and helped me feel like my college education and the skills that I gained during the past 3 years were actually worth something. I did research on an important topic and found new, interesting things. It was great. I was so glad that I had the opportunity to go and that I took advantage of that. I wish I got involved in research earlier in my college career because it was such a rewarding experience.

Overall - Fabulous Weekend!!!!