Tag Archives: remembering

Just over a year on.

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I’m a little bit cut up to be in Perth, WA (Australia) this year, rather than Seattle, WA (United States). Last year, I had the time of my life at Geek Girl Con ‘12, traveling by myself for the first time away from my home state. This weekend was Geek Girl Con ’13 for those of you that don’t pay attention.

I couldn’t afford to go this year, I went to a friends wedding in Oregon earlier in the year. I don’t regret deciding to go to the wedding in, but I’ve been watching the twitter feed for @geekgirlcon and its associated hashtag, feeling incredibly jealous and admiring the amazing cosplay and atmosphere that the convention seems to produce. Some Australian friends that live overseas and could get to the convention are helping by making me jealous with tweets like these:

Apparently I don’t just get to be jealous of the amazing array of guests (even more people I admire!) and the amazing program, I also get to miss out on people nerding out about my favourite musician.

 

Fair Warning: The rest of this post is just going to be horrible sentimental drivel, remembering what a great time last year was.

In 2013, I got to meet so many new friends, including the infamous Kyrax2 (the Batgirl of SDCC), Jason Sacks, Day and their families*. These people spoiled me rotten, after realising I knew noone when I took up Kyrax’s open invite for karaoke – not just for GGC but for my entire trip (Jason is particularly to blame for me discovering Fantographics, as well as convincing me I wanted to see New York and more importantly NYCC).

I also got to meet many amazing and creative people: Gail Simone, Jen Van Meter, Bryan Q Miller, Jane Espenson, Renae DeLiz (the brains behind the Womanthology project) and Jill Pantozzi (she writes at The Mary Sue). Again, I everyone was that I met was so lovely and kind, especially Miller who gave me the third Batgirl trade which I had been struggling to get. I still haven’t gotten the first one, sadly.

Star-struckness aside, I genuinely enjoyed everything about the con itself. I went to quite a few panels and workshops, and in all of them, I was impressed by the positivity and constructive attitude of those involved. It wasn’t a bunch of women nerds just bitching out the patriarchy, it was genuinely a huge collection of people giving each other advice and discussing projects and passions in a way that was fantastic.

I’ve been to many conventions (I even helped run one this year in Perth, where I inconveniently came down with a sinus infection) and I have to say, it is easily the most fun and the most freeing convention I have been to, for the creativity, positive vibe, safe environment, fantastic people, projects and options. This is a brilliant achievement that shouldn’t be underrated.

I haven’t blogged that much since Geek Girl Con. I was overwhelmed with three months’ travel and struggled to settle back into normal life when I got home. It took a while to remember why I started this blog and its podcast in the first place. The drive to understand and articulate my thoughts on my reading is only just starting to come back. This weekend, thinking on all this, it really hit me: I’m not near events like these, reviewing and critiquing what I read online. Getting the commentary is the closest I come to that kind of experience otherwise.

Basically I’m holding out for 2014. I guess I know what I’m saving up for.

 

 

* Plus many others but I don’t know who is cool with being linked to what.