Albatross about my neck

Can you tell that Samuel Taylor Coleridge has had an influence on me? For those who do not understand the reference, shame on you, for you are missing out on one of the richest poems ever written.

Back to my albatross...

Hello, my name is Jinny, and I'm an introvert. In fact, I'm convinced if you were to pick up an actual paper copy of a dictionary (do they still make those?) my photo would be the supplemental image just so you could easily identify what an introvert looked like if you were to run into one. I don't bite, spit, or even pick my toenails, but I'm an introvert nonetheless. I am shy around new people, prone to being too content just listening to everyone else, and very motivated by the promise of a few minutes by myself. Does this sound familiar or just weird?

I'm in Portland, Oregon, a place I love and aspire to one day call my home. I'm attending The 7th Annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Imagine the most brilliant IT professionals all crammed into one building with gallons of Starbucks coffee and brightly colored blow up furniture, and you pretty much have OSCON. One could theorize that I should have no problem socializing with my fellow kind. Perhaps that would be the case if I actually felt that I belonged...I can't help feeling like a 14 year old who just so happened to have hacked their way into the FBI database using a script kitty they found of scriptkittiesfordummies.com.

Somewhere between my perceived near death experience on the Steel Bridge, and three conversations with CMS vendors on how CMS products are great in theory, but failed during proof of concept, I somehow managed to extract my albatross from my neck. One of the developers actually remembered one of my slightly scathing reviews of their product (eek, guilt, but they did admit I had excellent points). Was this confidence or my realization that I had more than the text book "How to shmooze using run of the mill small talk" at my fingertips? Perhaps it was both, and soon I found myself engaging into numerous conversations with ease. It would be quite amazing if my albatross decided to avoid my neck for the duration of this month. I have a list of social engagements that my new found extroversion could come in handy.

Completely changing the subject from me to others, I cannot begin to describe how refreshing it is to be among such a plethora of creative energy. Hands down, OSCON is about the exchange of knowledge and networking with the peers that until now, existed as text or code on computer screens or paper. I must dissent, and beam with unadultered enthusiasm and awe that I am surrounded by the parents of great children...children who bolster the weight of great tasks such as organizing and recalling critical data for the world. And of course, the writers... Once I was a writer, and with that memory I still feel the pull towards those beings who are able to delve into an experience and share it in a way that changes someone else's perception of their own experience. Or in the great words of one of the many computer geeks I've spoken with, "OSCON rocks man!"

I have two more days before this immersion is complete.

Jinny out...