DAY 1: My first NAR convention experience . . . not necessarily a great one. I left Thursday (still on antibiotics and coughing insanely) after making rounds at the office and printing a last-minute map from Mapquest. I hit the turnpike and made a wrong turn and ended up circling Orlando. I have no idea how I found my way to the Hawthorn Suites hotel, which was currently undergoing renovation with the fresh smell of paint everywhere — including my room.
The next day I was going to walk to the Orange County Convention Center. A conferee stopped me and told me to take the trolley.
The conference was huge. Just finding the registration booths entitled me to a one-mile hike from the entrance. I scoped out the first class, Excel 2007, and because I did not do my homework and pre-register for the class, I was placed on standby. I managed to get in the class, and I was astonished that the instructor did not exactly know what she was doing and at one point was taking instructions from a class member!
I left the class wondering why I ever attended this type of event alone. I wandered around and saw no one I knew.
Later that day, after grousing and complaining to JoAnn over the phone that I should have done my homework before deciding to come here, I walked around the Expo which seemed a little sparse for a convention this size. About 5:30pm, I left the convention center — almost boarded three wrong trolleys, only to finally board a trolley that deposited me in the middle of nowhere. The more I walked, the more confused I became. Completely disoriented, I walked back to a hotel I had passed earlier and asked the staff to call me a cab.
I just wanted to go home.
The cab found the suites, and I had just enough time to get cleaned up for dinner. Dirty and disenchanted, with tears streaming down my cheek from exhaustion and exasperation, I pushed the elevator button.
The door opened, and a little girl, about eleven or twelve years old, exited the elevator. She was wearing a bright pink bathing suit and an ear-to-ear grin. She had NOT ONE HAIR on her alabaster head.
Obviously, she allowed nothing to steal her joy — not even cancer. She was going swimming.
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“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.” — Helen Keller
“Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to your circumstances.” –John Maxwell
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