promise

So the big forum thingy is over, and let me tell you it was quite a ride.

Pretty much every minute of every day was planned out for us. We moved from breakfast to meeting to lunch to meeting to orchestrated dinner to sleep. We were assigned a core group and when away from them assigned to other groups to mingle with.

I met the most amazing people from all over the world, and some pretty terrific ones from here in the states. I now have a place to stay in Hong Kong (score!!) and friends to meet for drinks if I hit the UK or France. It really brought me back to high school and college, where I hung out with all the smart kids. It isn't that I don't feel I belong in the class, I just feel like they care a lot more about getting ahead. They work harder and try harder. For me, it is not so much that I want the brass ring as I just enjoy getting good grades.

There was lots of free food, and plenty of free booze. Last night after the dinner event I even dragged a group to my favorite dive, Rudy's, and we stayed out until after 2 am. The hangover was pretty horrific today, but fortunately I was able to keep my lunch down for when Marjorie Scardino sat with my table to go over our innovation. Oh, and then right after when John Makinson had a little catch up session with us Penguin folks. Really, I hope the stench of jagermeister coming out of my pores was not too overwhelming for them.

It probably will take another couple of days for the whole experience to gel for me. Attending something like this really puts you at a point where your head has a tendency to swell. If anything I really don't want to walk away with an over-inflated sense of self importance. So for now I am left not knowing if this was something done to groom me or really to use my knowledge and enthusiasm to squeeze that more much lifeblood out of me.