It's A Sweet Life: Chi-town

I know I promised updates on my Chicago conference but I have something else on my mind.

I've been thinking a lot about relationships. How strange relationships can be sometimes. Something happened recently that helped me realize that sometimes the relationship we think we have is little more than our own one-sided perception.

It's a strange feeling to think you're good friends with someone and then to realize you're really not. Sometimes all it takes is watching that person interact with someone else to realize you don't even make the top 10.

What can you do? Cross your arms, stomp your feet and demand that they find you witty, smart and charming? As good as I am at forcing my way into things, friendship doesn't work like that. And I'm sure I wouldn't want it to. But it makes me wonder - how was I so far off the mark? Clearly, I got this one all wrong.

And I'm sure it won't be the last time I overvalue a friendship. For some reason, I have a hard time realizing that not everyone likes me as much as much as I expect them to. Yeah, I can't figure that one out either...lol.

So tomorrow starts a new week and I'm bringing with me some new ideas from the conference. It really was some great material. Now I just need about 3 more people on staff to make all this stuff happen... sometimes having the ideas but lacking the resources and time really sucks. But I'm gonna try, gonna try to put some of this stuff in place because I've never given up hope that I could create the best program in the state. That's been my vision from day one and I've never lost sight of that. Everything I do is to try to move towards that goal. Sometimes it's exhausting. And frustrating. And seems so pointless and impossible.

Then I go to a conference. And I feel like I need to make all this happen. I feel like anything less then the best is cheating my students. I feel like I need more strategic planning, more outcome analysis, more understanding, more implementation, more, more, more...which is way I'm way more productive and creative after conference. And my staff kinda hates me because I create more work for everyone.

The hubby came with me to this one. He'd never been to Chicago so thought he would tag along. He really didn't venture out too much though. I was in sessions most the time and he's not really adventurous (or into big cities) so he spent the majority of his time in a hotel room. Not sure it was very exciting for him but we were able to see a few sights during some down time. I like Chicago - but I like big cities so it was fun for me.

As promised, here are a few picture highlights: