"I'm a rubber, not a fighter"

Episode 2...In which I receive my swag bag and a lot of free food

After a very restless night --- exhaust coming through the window near my bunk kept making me cough and the bed itself was so squeaky that every time I coughed it squeaked and when it squeaked I woke me up (if I wasn't already awake). In the morning I removed all my valuables and reluctantly left my luggage in the pretty much unsecure room. I put my shoes in the small locker because I brought nice shoes and they deserved to be kept under lock and key.

I made my way over to the hotel where I eventually found the registration table by following the swarm of women and sound of shrill lady laughter. It was a little overwhelming first thing in the morning, especially given my lack of sleep. I grabbed my bag o' swag and made my way through the crowd and towards the Grand Ballroom for breakfast of pastries, fresh fruit, juice and tea. Yum! Erin and Zoe met me at the table and we hunkered down with our goodies and prepped for the day ahead.

One of my favourite parts of Blogher was the "speed dating." I actually think they'd be wise to have this open both days of the conference. Although some of the women I spoke to didn't necessarily share my interests, it was still great talking to people from around the U.S.A. and hearing their take on blogging. It also loosened me up and prepared me for the workshops. One of my goals was to try to ask one relevant question at each workshop that I attended and I mostly succeeded.

Day One Sessions:

FAQs for Beginning Bloggers
I'm not new to blogging, but I thought this session would be interesting if only to learn some tricks and tips that possibly never crossed my mind. After a brief discussion on blogging in general we broke into groups based on the blogging platform we were currently using. The Blogger group was led by Michele Mitchell of Scribbit and she did a great job of answering questions and getting a discussion going. Plus, her hair looked beautiful! I definitely picked up some useful tips from this session. My question was about the reliability of the Blogger archive and whether there was a quick way to back up everything I've written on my blog---Answer: Blogger archive is relatively reliable, but there is no quick and easy way to create a back-up from the archive.

Why bloggers (even non-programmers) benefit from participating in Open Source
I just finished a two-day course on Open Access for school and I've been interested in Open Source and how the two work together. Unfortunately, this session was a little too technical for me and I ended up a little bored. So I headed next door to...

Race and Gender: What are the lessons of 2008
Erin and I went to this session and walked into a very heated discussion about race in America. It was intense and incredibly interesting, especially to lil' ol' Canadian me. Discussions of race happen in such a different context in multicultural Canada than they do in America, so it was interesting to sit in as an "outsider." There was a lot of talk about the recent cover of The New Yorker that featured Barack and Michelle Obama doing the infamous fist-pound. What I found particularly interesting was the panel's discussion on satire and misinterpretation. I was also made aware of the unfortunately named "White Privilege Conference." The thing that resonated with me was the problem with discussing race, particularly if you are white. I found the suggestion to frame discussions about race in a similar way to how we discuss gender useful. I wrote down the blog What About Our Daughters as something to check out in the future as an extension of this workshop.

Writing Workshop
The writing workshop was led by Amy Gahran of Contentious.com. At this point I was fairly spaced out and riding a sugar high, but I still enjoyed this session. I did not enjoy how friggin' hot it was in the conference room though. The main lessons I learned were to have a focus for my writing and to picture my audience (hi Mom!) in my head as I write. I'm pretty sure that I asked a question, but I can't remember what it was.

I skipped the Community Keynote in favour of dashing to the SFMoMA to pick up advance tickets for the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I also wanted to meet up with Lydia and Sarah to change for the Blogher cocktail party at Ruby Skye. I kind of regret not going to the keynote because all reports suggest that it was quite hilarious. On the other hand, by the time Tuesday rolled around I was really glad I got thos advanced tickets to the museum.

When I met up with Lydia and Sarah it was unanimously agreed that the hostel sucked and we need out, stat! The three of use roamed the Union Square area and visited many hotel lobbies before finding a room at the adorably regal King George Hotel on Mason (conveniently located next door to the dreaded hostel). Unfortunately, they didn't have space for us until the next night so that meant one more night in squeaky bed central. Fortunately, I took a decongestant (okay, two) and had ear plugs and slept alright.

Next time...Blogher Day 2 in which I share a "moment" with Dooce (at least I thought so).