Conferences & Expos As Told By The Cats

Everyone seems to be writing fun “this is what to expect” posts about conferences, and seeing as how I go to so many, I feel like I have a unique view on it. But throw that out the window, what do my CATS think about it?

Picking out items to pack is the hardest part. What style do you want to show off? Can you really wear your 24/7 yoga pants attire when we all know you’re not going to yoga any time soon? The best part of any conference is showing off who you really are – go on, wear that weird hat, rock sweat pants. We don’t care!

Chances are, we’ll all make some questionable attire choices.

You pack all of your favorite accessories – of course you have to have a purse that matches each of your outfits, right?

You’ll spend hours prepping your nails and trying to look your best, even though we all really don’t care. You are beautiful, even without a tan or losing those last 5 lbs. We don’t care, I promise.

You desperately want to make new friends, but have no idea how to start the conversation – unsure if the other even speaks your language. Excuse me miss, do you speak sarcasm?

Even though we may be “big on the internet,” we’re all still afraid of being the kid who has to eat their lunch alone in the bathroom. Sometimes being an introvert is hard.

But don’t worry, you’ll end up spending most of your day on your iPhone and iPad following the conference twitter hashtag anyways! Internet friends can be real friends too – harness the power of the interwebz to forge friendships!

When you model your outfits that you’re taking with you in the mirror, you say “MEOW TIGER, YOU LOOKING GOOD.” You are ready to get your groove on – time to force being social and using alcohol as a social lubricant!

You bring that one dress that is way too small for you, but you keep thinking that you can wear it…just for one night. Ultimately, you squeeze into it, but can’t get up from the bed to walk out the door, and can’t bend down to put on your heels. That’s what a roommate is for, right?

You turn up the jams, probably more than you should without earplugs. You don’t need to hear the lectures the next day, right?

You’ll eat so many appetizers at all of the event, you’ll suddenly realize that you’ll full, even though you didn’t really have dinner. And then you regret all of the poor food decisions you made.

While you know you should be drinking more water, that third glass of wine sounds really really good.

And then you pay for that wine. You pay for it dearly. You realize you’re not a kitten anymore.

And then you end up with photos from the events looking like this.

The next morning, you take longer than usual in the shower wondering how much you tweeted and hope that all the conference photos turn out amazing (see above).

Sometimes there’s just that one event, lecture, or speaker that makes you just fall asleep while trying to stay awake taking notes. Maybe you should have more coffee?

But through all of this, you’ve learned so much. You’ve made new friends. You’ve conquered your fears. You realize that you are unique writer – a unique blogger. You are your own unicorn.