Sydney Oland

I'm leaving on Thursday for the conference in Pennsylvania.  Last week I was excited but felt pretty confident overall, this week I'm definitely nervous.  Still excited, but nervous too.  Nauseous excited would be the most apt description.

Being my first conference, and having a history of being a particularly bad public speaker I've been reading my paper out loud for the last few days.  I am just this afternoon starting to feel more like myself when I read it aloud.  Funny how writing something and speaking something can feel so separate.   After all the tweeking my paper has gone through (Thanks Alice!) I'm pretty confident in it, which feels good.  The paper is on gender dynamics in professional and domestic kitchens.  Which seems  to me like a topic that I would not necessarily have done my best work with, so this paper was a nice surprise. 

When I ignore the fact that I have to speak in a room filled with strangers I'm really excited about spending a few days surrounded by food academics.  It's going to be  interesting to see what other people are researching, and talk about where people think the field is headed.

I just hope I don't throw up on the podium during my paper or something mortifying like that.

Wish me luck.

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