I have just bought a ticket to YAPC::Asia which is taking place in Tokyo from the 27th to the 29th of September. I would suggest that if you want to attend that you buy your ticket as soon as possible. Last year, I completely forget to do this and had to write to the organisers and ask for a ticket after the conference had sold out. And since it sells out every year, I imagine that it will sell out this year too.
YAPC::NA is quickly approaching and I am experiencing my usual mixed-up feelings of trepidation and excitement. The thought of speaking always fills me with dread. I know I will be fine once I start but thinking about starting does something odd to my brain and I fear I won’t remember any words. I spoke on Wednesday night at the Windy City Perl Mongers and they would never believe that I could be without words. I easily spoke for over an hour on The Perl Foundation. I only have 20 minutes at YAPC so I will need to be less loquacious. I really enjoyed meeting the Mongers in Chicago. They were incredibly welcoming, appeared to be interested in what I was saying, and asked lots of questions that allowed me to babble at length. There is no doubt that I can be passionate about the work we are doing at The Perl Foundation.
And I’m excited because JT and his team have put so much effort into YAPC::NA that it’s going to be an amazing conference. There is so much happening that I have no idea where I’ll get the energy to fit everything in, but I’m certainly willing to give it a go. I have been in America for over a week so at least I won’t be jet lagged at this conference.
This is my 24th YAPC and over the years I have made many good friends in the Perl community. I love the hallway track and I’m looking forward to the conversations. There are some regular attendees who can’t make it and I know I will miss Jesse Vincent and Yaakov Sloman. But soon I will get to see Shawn, Casey, Matt, Rik, Jacinta, brian, and so many others that I’d be here for some time if I tried to list them all!
Things lately in my personal life have been overwhelming and unfortunately this has caused problems with the volunteering work that I do. I am, however, still planning on attending YAPC::NA and I hope to catch up on my todo list in the next couple of weeks. I will also be going to the Windy City Perl Mongers on Wednesday night to talk about The Perl Foundation.
August 4th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
I was just about to grab a ticket. I haven’t been before.
I will be over for business and managed to stretch the trip to cover the dates as well (and the Grand Prix dates as well! woohoo!).
The website doesn’t mention anything about socials or meetups (although, my Japanese is spotty at best). Is it a lot less of a social occasion over there, unlike YAPC Europe?
August 5th, 2012 at 3:30 am
It is less social than YAPC::EU or YAPC::NA. There isn’t the same emphasis on social meetups, and the hallway track doesn’t exist in quite the same way.
Groups of people will go out for dinner together. We usually do something in the evenings of the two main conference days and you’ll be welcome to join us.
August 6th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
I see, that’s a shame. It sounds like it will be an interesting experience nonetheless.
That’s a very kind offer! Thank you, I would love to.
Hmm, what is the best way to contact you? Email? Google Talk? or should I maybe just look for you on the day?
August 10th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
You can email me. My email is karen at martian.org.
Or you can look for me on the day, I shouldn’t be too hard to find as there won’t be that many non-Japanese women at the venue.