Arisia wrap-up

[juldea]

Arisia is now over, and I am home and caught up on LJ. Whew! I have to be at work in 9 hours, though, so this will be a quick post.

Despite being on crutches for the entire con (and on painkillers for most of it), I had a good Arisia. It was different than past ones in ways that I cannot quite put my finger on, though. I did go to far fewer panels this year than I have previously; only three, I think. I helped out with Fast Track (kids' programming) and had a great time, and should do it more next year. Due to helping out with this I actually saw the masquerade in person (helping out the kids' contestants) and was inspired to costume someday, mostly out of a "I could do that better, AND get a lot of attention!" frame of mind.

I ate poorly and paid for it. I slept not enough, and will pay for it. I managed to avoid getting exasperated by the continual questioning over the crutches, which is good because people who haven't asked yet don't deserve to be snapped at. "Ninjas" became the common answer, due to the unexplained nature of the injury. I think I did well at not being too whiny/demanding/complainy/gimpy at people, and please do not hesitate at telling me if I asked too much of you and should've backed off. That said, I was still snarky at people who cut in line at the elevators.

One of the panels I attended was very psychologically-oriented, and it was great. I would like to see more of those. In particular I think a panel on, well, either finding a fen-friendly shrink or learning how to connect with a mundane one would be INCREDIBLY USEFUL. I know I'm not the only one who wants to learn the magic words to tell a psychiatrist to get them to understand the social assumption base (kludging words here at midnight-20) I come from so as to be able to communicate with me better.

Oh! My braid plan worked WONDERFULLY! Thank you blk! I got my hair braided Saturday at 2pm and I just took it out, but I bet it could've even stayed until tomorrow. It was gorgeous and got me complimented all weekend long. I can't wait until next year.

It does have its faults, but what doesn't? It's a nice, fun con near my house, and I'll be going back. Especially since I worked enough volunteer hours to get free comp next year! ;)

Comments

[goldbug.livejournal.com]

fen-friendly?
social assumption base?

[goldbug.livejournal.com]

p.s....don't answer now. go to bed. :)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

See below. :)

[anitra.livejournal.com]

I'm sure juldea will answer in more detail later, but... I'm sure you realize that for geeks, especially geeks in the poly community and LARPing community - there is a much different level of what is "normal" than for other folks. This can be a big problem when trying to explain an abnormal situation to someone who is not familiar with these communities.

[eustacia42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is quite true... to the extent that, the one time I found myself at the Medieval Fair in "normal" 20th-century clothes (i.e. jeans and t-shirt), I was actually waaaay more embarrassed than I was any of the times I was wearing semi-proper medieval/renaissance garb. ha!

[eustacia42.livejournal.com]

...and I'm not even a LARPer!!

[anitra.livejournal.com]

By the way - I am not a part of either community I mentioned above, but I am familiar with them and have many friends in each/both. Maybe it's more obvious to me because of that. My life is pretty mundane - but I know that the assumptions my church friends bring to life's problems are VERY different from those of my geeky friends.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

Re "fen-friendly": 'fen' is the plural of 'fan' (cf. 'men'::'man'), sf fandom slang for, well, sf fandom and related social subsets collectively.

Re "social assumption base": see anitra above.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Fen - An invented alternate plural of fan, used by members of science fiction fandom to distinguish themselves from "fans" such as football fans, by analogy to "men" being the plural of "man", "women"/"woman", etc. (from Wikipedia)

Social assumption base is where I was being really bad with words from being up late, and making up terms that probably already exist better in other places. Basically, it is exactly that, though... the baseline assumptions that certain social groups make about how they are and interact with each other. I feel this is different in fandom, that the social interactions at a convention are radically different from at work or walking down the street. Also not even at a convention, but in your day-to-day life and how you interact with your friends on LJ and all sorts of things. Which are all important for one's psychiatrist to understand.

[anitra.livejournal.com]

The LJ and other computer-related interactions might not be a big hurdle, at least if you find a psychiatrist who has plenty of experience with teenagers/young adults.

The rest of it, though... like how rare it is to be "vanilla, monogamous" in your circle of friends... I'm not sure how you'd make a psych. understand that.

[eustacia42.livejournal.com]

People who cut in line for an elevator in front of a girl with CRUTCHES deserve, at the very least, dirty looks. I'm with ya there.

[blk]

The pics are unorganized, but uploaded and temporarily available here. Feel free to grab the ones of you. :)

[blk]

Oh, and while I have your hair in mind, I think it's totally thick/long enough to do a full head spiral of some sort, if you wanna try that next year. :)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely!

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you! I am happy to show them off. :)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I think I did well at not being too whiny/demanding/complainy/gimpy at people, and please do not hesitate at telling me if I asked too much of you and should've backed off.

Quite the opposite. Having read your tales of woe here, I was quite surprised at how upbeat and cheerful you were whenever I saw you.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

That is good to hear. It was definitely nice to be around friends, and to kind of be on the vacation from life that cons can be. I got frustrated and upset at a few points, but often just sitting or lying down for a few minutes solved that problem.