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Don't forget to positively highlight meetings w/ "good" gender ratio of presenters

Comment
As many know, I spend a decent amount of effort critiquing conferences that have poor speaker diversity (mostly focus on gender ratio).  Well I am also trying to start calling out in a positive way those meetings that do a good job with speaker diversity. And here is one: 2014 Xenopus Genetics meeting in Pacific Grove.  I was pointed to it in an email that was in response to a Tweet I posted (not sure if I have permission to say who this was from - will post if they say it is OK). (UPDATE 9/20 - it was Ian Quigley).
From what I compute - the ratio was 30:22 male: female.  I do not know what the ratio of the "pool" of speakers is but regardless, having 42% female speakers is a more even ratio than I have seen for most life sciences meetings.  So they deserve some props for this.

Female speakers highlighted in yellow.  Male in green.  

Keynote Lecture: Rebecca Heald

Special Lectures from John Gurdon and Marc Kirschner

Invited Speakers

Enrique Amaya, University of Manchester

Ruchi Bajpai, University of Southern California



Bill Bement, University of Wisconsin

Mike Blower, Harvard Medical School

Cliff Brangwynne, Princeton University

Josh Brickman, The Danish Stem Cell Center DanStem

Ken Cho, University of California, Irvine

Hollis Cline, The Scripps Research Institute

Frank Conlon, University of North Carolina

Lance Davidson, University of Pittsburgh

Eddy DeRobertis, University of California, Los Angeles

Amanda Dickinson, Virginia Commonwealth University

Carmen Domingo, San Francisco State University

Karel Dorey, University of Manchester

Jim Ferrell, Stanford University

Jenny Gallop, University of Cambridge

Jay Gatlin, University of Wyoming

Jean Gautier, Columbia University

Xi He, Harvard University

Ralf Hofmann, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Jubin Kashef, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Mustafa Khokha, Yale University

Mary Lou King, University of Miami

Laurent Kodjabachian, Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille (IBDM)

Branko Lantic, Cardiff University

Dan Levy, University of Wyoming

Soeren Lienkamp, University of Freiburg

Karen Liu, King’s College

Laura Ann Lowery, Boston College

Ann Miller, University of Michigan

Brian Mitchell, Northwestern University

Anne-Helene Monsoro-Burq, Institute Curie

Kim Mowry, Brown University

Shuyi Nie, University of Georgia

Christof Niehrs, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)

Nancy Papolopulu, University of Manchester

Sabine Petry, Princeton University

Susannah Rankin, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation

Bruno Reversade, Institute of Medical Biology, A* Singapore

Dan Rokhsar, University of California, Berkeley

Hazel Sive, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Elena Silva Casey, Georgetown University

Francesca Spagnoli, Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)

Elly Tanaka, Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden

Gert Veenstra, Radboud University Nijmegen

Monica Vetter, University of Utah

Sara Woolner, University of Manchester

Phil Zegerman, University of Cambridge

Aaron Zorn, Cincinatti Children’s

A distasteful & disgraceful "Are there limits to evolution?" meeting at the University of Cambridge #YAMMM

Comment
Well, I saw this Tweet the other day
And though there was a bit of a discussion on Twitter I felt I had to follow up with a blog post. When I saw the post I was at a conference (Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomes) where I could get Twitter access but for some reason very little web access. So I could not dig around until now (I am home). 

This meeting is a complete disgrace and an embarassment for the field of evolutionary biology, for the University of Cambridge which is hosting the meeting, and for the Templeton Foundation which is sponsoring it.

Why do I say this? Well, pretty simple actually. The meeting site lists the Invited Keynote speakers for the meeting.  Notice anything?  How about I help you by bringing all the pictures together.


Notice anything now?  How about I help you some more by masking out the men and not the women.


Impressive no?  25 speakers - 23 of them male.  I guess that means there are no qualified female speakers who coudl discuss something about evolution right?  It would be worth reading "Fewer invited talks bu women in evolutionary biology symposia" to get some context.  What an incredible, disgusting, distasteful and disgraceful meeting.  

I recommend to everyone who was considering going to this meeting - skip it.  Also consider writing to the University of Cambirdge and the Templeton Foundation to express your thoughts about the meeting.  This certainly is a fine example of Yet Another Mostly Male Meeting (YAMMM).  Well, maybe I should word that differently - this is a disgusting example of a YAMMM.  

For more on this and related issues



  • Posts on Women in STEM


    • Also see


    Get Away to The Prairie

    Comment
    A few weeks ago Matthew and I got the incredible news that he had been offered a great job as an attorney here in Austin, and those of you following for a while now may appreciate the long and winding road that took us here… it feels SO good to finally reach this elusive "place" we've been waiting to be. PHEW. Maybe now life will take on some semblance of normal.

    Before he officially started the job, we took off on a little getaway to Round Top and The Prairie by Rachel Ashwell, which is a piece of heaven on Earth, if you ask me. It was really generous of Matthew to take me here, seeing as how it's not exactly the most masculine place ever. ;) I just have to share a few photos of this gorgeous spot… if you ever have the opportunity to stay here, DO IT! So dreamy. I can't wait to go again.





     

     


     
     

     follow: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Pinterest | Photography

    Everything You Wanted to Know about the Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomes meeting #LAMG14

    Comment
    The Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomes meeting, which happens every other year, is starting tonight.  I love this meeting.  No bias here since I am now a co-organizer.  But I really love this meeting.  I am posting here some background information about the meeting for those interested.  We will be live tweeting the meeting using the hashtag #LAMG14.  This years program is here.

    Posts of mine about previous meetings
    Blog posts by others
    Programs and notes from past meetings
    Meeting Web Sites
    I have uploaded slides from my previous presentations at the meeting



















      Fun read of the day: On whimsy, jokes, and beauty: can scientific writing be enjoyed?

      Comment
      This is such a fun paper: On whimsy, jokes, and beauty: can scientific writing be enjoyed? by Stephen Heard in Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 7: 64–72, 2014  I found out about it in an email from Heard, who sent it to me because he had earlier commented on a blog post I had written: The best writing in science papers part 1: Vladimir Nabokov in Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae (Lycaenidae, Lepidoptera).

      Anyway - enough about me - what about this paper?  It has so many nuggets of interest I am not sure which to highlight so I will just go through some of it.  Oh - and it is published with a Creative Commons Attribution license (yay).
      Abstract: While scientists are often exhorted to write better, it isn’t entirely obvious what “better” means. It’s uncontroversial that good scientific writing is clear, with the reader’s understanding as effortless as possible. Unsettled, and largely undiscussed, is the question of whether our goal of clarity precludes us from making our writing enjoyable by incorporating touches of whimsy, humanity, humour, and beauty. I offer examples of scientific writing that offers pleasure, drawing from ecology and evolution and from other natural sciences, and I argue that enjoyable writing can help recruit readers to a paper and retain them as they read. I document resistance to this idea in the scientific community, and consider the objections (well grounded and not) that may lie behind this resistance. I close by recommending that we include touches of whimsy and beauty in our own writing, and also that we work to encourage such touches in the writing of others.
      OK - the title would have drawn me in anyway but the abstract definitely had me.
      If scientific writers aren’t sure how to write better, it isn’t for lack of advice. Dozens of guidebooks discuss form, style, and goals in scientific writing (e.g., Montgomery 2003, Davis 2005, Day and Gastel 2006, Katz 2006, Matthews and Matthews 2007, Rogers 2007, Harmon and Gross 2010, Hofmann 2010, Pechenik 2010, Greene 2013, Heard unpubl.).
      OK - I am going to have to look at some of these.

      Heard documents a bit of a spat between Sprat and Boyle from the 1660s regarding scientific writing.  I especially like the Boyle quote:
      To affect needless rhetorical ornaments in setting down an experiment...were little less improper than...to paint the eyeglasses of a telescope...in which even the most delightful colours cannot so much please the eye as they would hinder the sight...And yet I approve not that dull and insipid way of writing, which is practiced by many...for though a philosopher need not be solicitous that his style should delight his reader with his floridness, yet I think he may very well be allowed to take a care that it disgust not his reader by its flatness...Though it were foolish to colour...the glasses of telescopes, yet to gild...the tubes of them may render them most acceptable to the users (Boyle 1661:11-12, spelling and punctuation modern- ized).
      Heard then goes through some different aspects of good scientific writing
      • Sightings (1): Playfulness in the scientific literature
      • Sightings (2): Beauty
      Also - he then doscusses pushback against the "notion that whimsy, jokes, and beauty can have a place in our scientific literature." which I have also seen in many contexts.

      He ends with suggestions and I quote the whole section with some highlights:
      If you write papers that are crystal clear and thus effortless to read, you’ll have achieved the primary goal of scientific writing and your work will be among the best of our literature. But if you want to reach for even more, if you agree with me that we can also offer our readers some pleasure in reading, what can you do? To begin, you can try to write with small touches of whimsy, humanity, humour, and beauty—without, of course, compromising clarity; and even knowing that sometimes, reviewers will make you take them out. I am not suggesting writing in which art shares the stage equally with content (as can be true in the lay literature). Rather, the goal that’s within our reach is clear, functional writing punctuated with occasional nuggets of playfulness or glints of beauty—to extend Boyle’s metaphor, not a telescope of solid gold but one lightly gilded. 
      You can also work to encourage pleasure in what your colleagues write, in two complementary ways. First, when you review manuscripts, you can suppress the reflex telling you to question any touches of whimsy, humour, or beauty that you find; you can even (gently) suggest some be put in. Second, you can announce your admiration of writing that has given you pleasure. Announce your admiration to the writers who crafted the passage, to editors who might be considering its fate, and to students or colleagues who might read it. If we choose to, we can change our culture to deliver, and value, pleasure along with function in our writing.
      This is a must read paper.  And I really wish more people would endorse the idea that scientific writing can include more than just science.  Of course, there are many who already endorse this notion but for those who do not - give it a try.




      Kudos to Tedmed for the gender ratio of speakers for this year's event

      Comment
      Well done Tedmed.

      Here are the speaker pages below.  Notice anything?











      The gender ratio of speakers is actually well balanced.  Well done Tedmed.  Well done.

      The Hundred Event

      Comment
      Welp, I like to arrive fashionably late to most parties (don't want to seem over-eager, you know), but my timing here is bordering on ridiculous, so.... I figured I better talk about the Hundred Event before it's a good HUNDRED days later!

      Photo above by Awake Photography

      Two weeks ago, my friend Brittany (of Birch & Brass Vintage Rentals here in Austin) and I packed our little bags and headed up to the Dallas Warwick Melrose for a weekend at The Hundred Event. She supplied the vintage china, glassware, and manned the floral arrangements all for the Sunday Brunch, and I offered up my humble knowledge of photography for two 101 classes on Saturday, as well as helped photograph the Sunday Brunch and headshots alongside Shalyn.


      The weekend was a whirlwind and I hardly know how to tackle my thoughts on it all. I am introverted and extroverted in equal measure, in that I love being around people while in the moment, but I find it all very draining and need plenty of alone time to recharge afterwards.  The weekend consisted of meeting some of my long-time favorite bloggers and friends (looking at you, Bridget, Megan, and Dayna!), meeting lots of fabulous new-to-me faces,  public speaking and the natural anxiety that begets, and plenty of general socialization and high-strungness that are always a bi-product of these types of conferences. Like last year at Texas Style Council, I found myself outrageously bad-tempered for a good three days after I got home - the low that often comes immediately after the high.

      But one thing I can certainly say I took away from this weekend (besides a super shitty mood) was a reminder of why I'm still so fond of this platform we call Blogging, and how GOOD it has been to me in my life. While I've become all-consumed by my photography business lately, my first love is still writing and social media, and the Hundred Event weekend was a needed reminder of that.



      At this point, rather than re-cap everything in great detail, I think I'll just leave a few photos from the weekend and link you all to some of the truly incredible brands that sponsored the event. Seriously, I'm so impressed by these guys! And to Grace, Lauren, Megan, and Bridget - thanks for putting together such a fun weekend for all of us to enjoy. You did a fabulous job, especially considering that this was your first time putting on a conference, and I know all of us are hoping it will be a yearly thing! :)

      ^^Brunch at the beautiful Aldredge House^^

       
      ^^cakes by Cake Walk^^

       
       
       

      ^^Vintage Rentals by Birch & Brass^^



      photo above by Shalyn

      Brands to browse: Joules // Minnetonka // Love Ophelia (softest and best robes ever!!) // Twine Interiors // Lily Jade // Bungalow Magazine // Peacock Alley // 
      and awesome donations from:



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      الجمعة، 19 سبتمبر 2014

      Don't forget to positively highlight meetings w/ "good" gender ratio of presenters

      As many know, I spend a decent amount of effort critiquing conferences that have poor speaker diversity (mostly focus on gender ratio).  Well I am also trying to start calling out in a positive way those meetings that do a good job with speaker diversity. And here is one: 2014 Xenopus Genetics meeting in Pacific Grove.  I was pointed to it in an email that was in response to a Tweet I posted (not sure if I have permission to say who this was from - will post if they say it is OK). (UPDATE 9/20 - it was Ian Quigley).
      From what I compute - the ratio was 30:22 male: female.  I do not know what the ratio of the "pool" of speakers is but regardless, having 42% female speakers is a more even ratio than I have seen for most life sciences meetings.  So they deserve some props for this.

      Female speakers highlighted in yellow.  Male in green.  

      Keynote Lecture: Rebecca Heald

      Special Lectures from John Gurdon and Marc Kirschner

      Invited Speakers

      Enrique Amaya, University of Manchester

      Ruchi Bajpai, University of Southern California



      Bill Bement, University of Wisconsin

      Mike Blower, Harvard Medical School

      Cliff Brangwynne, Princeton University

      Josh Brickman, The Danish Stem Cell Center DanStem

      Ken Cho, University of California, Irvine

      Hollis Cline, The Scripps Research Institute

      Frank Conlon, University of North Carolina

      Lance Davidson, University of Pittsburgh

      Eddy DeRobertis, University of California, Los Angeles

      Amanda Dickinson, Virginia Commonwealth University

      Carmen Domingo, San Francisco State University

      Karel Dorey, University of Manchester

      Jim Ferrell, Stanford University

      Jenny Gallop, University of Cambridge

      Jay Gatlin, University of Wyoming

      Jean Gautier, Columbia University

      Xi He, Harvard University

      Ralf Hofmann, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

      Jubin Kashef, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

      Mustafa Khokha, Yale University

      Mary Lou King, University of Miami

      Laurent Kodjabachian, Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille (IBDM)

      Branko Lantic, Cardiff University

      Dan Levy, University of Wyoming

      Soeren Lienkamp, University of Freiburg

      Karen Liu, King’s College

      Laura Ann Lowery, Boston College

      Ann Miller, University of Michigan

      Brian Mitchell, Northwestern University

      Anne-Helene Monsoro-Burq, Institute Curie

      Kim Mowry, Brown University

      Shuyi Nie, University of Georgia

      Christof Niehrs, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)

      Nancy Papolopulu, University of Manchester

      Sabine Petry, Princeton University

      Susannah Rankin, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation

      Bruno Reversade, Institute of Medical Biology, A* Singapore

      Dan Rokhsar, University of California, Berkeley

      Hazel Sive, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

      Elena Silva Casey, Georgetown University

      Francesca Spagnoli, Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)

      Elly Tanaka, Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden

      Gert Veenstra, Radboud University Nijmegen

      Monica Vetter, University of Utah

      Sara Woolner, University of Manchester

      Phil Zegerman, University of Cambridge

      Aaron Zorn, Cincinatti Children’s
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      A distasteful & disgraceful "Are there limits to evolution?" meeting at the University of Cambridge #YAMMM

      Well, I saw this Tweet the other day
      And though there was a bit of a discussion on Twitter I felt I had to follow up with a blog post. When I saw the post I was at a conference (Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomes) where I could get Twitter access but for some reason very little web access. So I could not dig around until now (I am home). 

      This meeting is a complete disgrace and an embarassment for the field of evolutionary biology, for the University of Cambridge which is hosting the meeting, and for the Templeton Foundation which is sponsoring it.

      Why do I say this? Well, pretty simple actually. The meeting site lists the Invited Keynote speakers for the meeting.  Notice anything?  How about I help you by bringing all the pictures together.


      Notice anything now?  How about I help you some more by masking out the men and not the women.


      Impressive no?  25 speakers - 23 of them male.  I guess that means there are no qualified female speakers who coudl discuss something about evolution right?  It would be worth reading "Fewer invited talks bu women in evolutionary biology symposia" to get some context.  What an incredible, disgusting, distasteful and disgraceful meeting.  

      I recommend to everyone who was considering going to this meeting - skip it.  Also consider writing to the University of Cambirdge and the Templeton Foundation to express your thoughts about the meeting.  This certainly is a fine example of Yet Another Mostly Male Meeting (YAMMM).  Well, maybe I should word that differently - this is a disgusting example of a YAMMM.  

      For more on this and related issues



    • Posts on Women in STEM


      • Also see


      مرسلة بواسطة في ليست هناك تعليقات:
      التسميات: , , , ,

      الخميس، 18 سبتمبر 2014

      Get Away to The Prairie

      A few weeks ago Matthew and I got the incredible news that he had been offered a great job as an attorney here in Austin, and those of you following for a while now may appreciate the long and winding road that took us here… it feels SO good to finally reach this elusive "place" we've been waiting to be. PHEW. Maybe now life will take on some semblance of normal.

      Before he officially started the job, we took off on a little getaway to Round Top and The Prairie by Rachel Ashwell, which is a piece of heaven on Earth, if you ask me. It was really generous of Matthew to take me here, seeing as how it's not exactly the most masculine place ever. ;) I just have to share a few photos of this gorgeous spot… if you ever have the opportunity to stay here, DO IT! So dreamy. I can't wait to go again.





       

       


       
       

       follow: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bloglovin | Pinterest | Photography

      مرسلة بواسطة في ليست هناك تعليقات:
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      الأحد، 14 سبتمبر 2014

      Everything You Wanted to Know about the Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomes meeting #LAMG14

      The Lake Arrowhead Microbial Genomes meeting, which happens every other year, is starting tonight.  I love this meeting.  No bias here since I am now a co-organizer.  But I really love this meeting.  I am posting here some background information about the meeting for those interested.  We will be live tweeting the meeting using the hashtag #LAMG14.  This years program is here.

      Posts of mine about previous meetings
      Blog posts by others
      Programs and notes from past meetings
      Meeting Web Sites
      I have uploaded slides from my previous presentations at the meeting



















        مرسلة بواسطة في ليست هناك تعليقات:
        التسميات: , , ,

        الجمعة، 12 سبتمبر 2014

        Fun read of the day: On whimsy, jokes, and beauty: can scientific writing be enjoyed?

        This is such a fun paper: On whimsy, jokes, and beauty: can scientific writing be enjoyed? by Stephen Heard in Ideas in Ecology and Evolution 7: 64–72, 2014  I found out about it in an email from Heard, who sent it to me because he had earlier commented on a blog post I had written: The best writing in science papers part 1: Vladimir Nabokov in Notes on Neotropical Plebejinae (Lycaenidae, Lepidoptera).

        Anyway - enough about me - what about this paper?  It has so many nuggets of interest I am not sure which to highlight so I will just go through some of it.  Oh - and it is published with a Creative Commons Attribution license (yay).
        Abstract: While scientists are often exhorted to write better, it isn’t entirely obvious what “better” means. It’s uncontroversial that good scientific writing is clear, with the reader’s understanding as effortless as possible. Unsettled, and largely undiscussed, is the question of whether our goal of clarity precludes us from making our writing enjoyable by incorporating touches of whimsy, humanity, humour, and beauty. I offer examples of scientific writing that offers pleasure, drawing from ecology and evolution and from other natural sciences, and I argue that enjoyable writing can help recruit readers to a paper and retain them as they read. I document resistance to this idea in the scientific community, and consider the objections (well grounded and not) that may lie behind this resistance. I close by recommending that we include touches of whimsy and beauty in our own writing, and also that we work to encourage such touches in the writing of others.
        OK - the title would have drawn me in anyway but the abstract definitely had me.
        If scientific writers aren’t sure how to write better, it isn’t for lack of advice. Dozens of guidebooks discuss form, style, and goals in scientific writing (e.g., Montgomery 2003, Davis 2005, Day and Gastel 2006, Katz 2006, Matthews and Matthews 2007, Rogers 2007, Harmon and Gross 2010, Hofmann 2010, Pechenik 2010, Greene 2013, Heard unpubl.).
        OK - I am going to have to look at some of these.

        Heard documents a bit of a spat between Sprat and Boyle from the 1660s regarding scientific writing.  I especially like the Boyle quote:
        To affect needless rhetorical ornaments in setting down an experiment...were little less improper than...to paint the eyeglasses of a telescope...in which even the most delightful colours cannot so much please the eye as they would hinder the sight...And yet I approve not that dull and insipid way of writing, which is practiced by many...for though a philosopher need not be solicitous that his style should delight his reader with his floridness, yet I think he may very well be allowed to take a care that it disgust not his reader by its flatness...Though it were foolish to colour...the glasses of telescopes, yet to gild...the tubes of them may render them most acceptable to the users (Boyle 1661:11-12, spelling and punctuation modern- ized).
        Heard then goes through some different aspects of good scientific writing
        • Sightings (1): Playfulness in the scientific literature
        • Sightings (2): Beauty
        Also - he then doscusses pushback against the "notion that whimsy, jokes, and beauty can have a place in our scientific literature." which I have also seen in many contexts.

        He ends with suggestions and I quote the whole section with some highlights:
        If you write papers that are crystal clear and thus effortless to read, you’ll have achieved the primary goal of scientific writing and your work will be among the best of our literature. But if you want to reach for even more, if you agree with me that we can also offer our readers some pleasure in reading, what can you do? To begin, you can try to write with small touches of whimsy, humanity, humour, and beauty—without, of course, compromising clarity; and even knowing that sometimes, reviewers will make you take them out. I am not suggesting writing in which art shares the stage equally with content (as can be true in the lay literature). Rather, the goal that’s within our reach is clear, functional writing punctuated with occasional nuggets of playfulness or glints of beauty—to extend Boyle’s metaphor, not a telescope of solid gold but one lightly gilded. 
        You can also work to encourage pleasure in what your colleagues write, in two complementary ways. First, when you review manuscripts, you can suppress the reflex telling you to question any touches of whimsy, humour, or beauty that you find; you can even (gently) suggest some be put in. Second, you can announce your admiration of writing that has given you pleasure. Announce your admiration to the writers who crafted the passage, to editors who might be considering its fate, and to students or colleagues who might read it. If we choose to, we can change our culture to deliver, and value, pleasure along with function in our writing.
        This is a must read paper.  And I really wish more people would endorse the idea that scientific writing can include more than just science.  Of course, there are many who already endorse this notion but for those who do not - give it a try.




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        الخميس، 11 سبتمبر 2014

        Kudos to Tedmed for the gender ratio of speakers for this year's event

        Well done Tedmed.

        Here are the speaker pages below.  Notice anything?











        The gender ratio of speakers is actually well balanced.  Well done Tedmed.  Well done.

        مرسلة بواسطة في ليست هناك تعليقات:
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        الجمعة، 22 أغسطس 2014

        The Hundred Event

        Welp, I like to arrive fashionably late to most parties (don't want to seem over-eager, you know), but my timing here is bordering on ridiculous, so.... I figured I better talk about the Hundred Event before it's a good HUNDRED days later!

        Photo above by Awake Photography

        Two weeks ago, my friend Brittany (of Birch & Brass Vintage Rentals here in Austin) and I packed our little bags and headed up to the Dallas Warwick Melrose for a weekend at The Hundred Event. She supplied the vintage china, glassware, and manned the floral arrangements all for the Sunday Brunch, and I offered up my humble knowledge of photography for two 101 classes on Saturday, as well as helped photograph the Sunday Brunch and headshots alongside Shalyn.


        The weekend was a whirlwind and I hardly know how to tackle my thoughts on it all. I am introverted and extroverted in equal measure, in that I love being around people while in the moment, but I find it all very draining and need plenty of alone time to recharge afterwards.  The weekend consisted of meeting some of my long-time favorite bloggers and friends (looking at you, Bridget, Megan, and Dayna!), meeting lots of fabulous new-to-me faces,  public speaking and the natural anxiety that begets, and plenty of general socialization and high-strungness that are always a bi-product of these types of conferences. Like last year at Texas Style Council, I found myself outrageously bad-tempered for a good three days after I got home - the low that often comes immediately after the high.

        But one thing I can certainly say I took away from this weekend (besides a super shitty mood) was a reminder of why I'm still so fond of this platform we call Blogging, and how GOOD it has been to me in my life. While I've become all-consumed by my photography business lately, my first love is still writing and social media, and the Hundred Event weekend was a needed reminder of that.



        At this point, rather than re-cap everything in great detail, I think I'll just leave a few photos from the weekend and link you all to some of the truly incredible brands that sponsored the event. Seriously, I'm so impressed by these guys! And to Grace, Lauren, Megan, and Bridget - thanks for putting together such a fun weekend for all of us to enjoy. You did a fabulous job, especially considering that this was your first time putting on a conference, and I know all of us are hoping it will be a yearly thing! :)

        ^^Brunch at the beautiful Aldredge House^^

         
        ^^cakes by Cake Walk^^

         
         
         

        ^^Vintage Rentals by Birch & Brass^^



        photo above by Shalyn

        Brands to browse: Joules // Minnetonka // Love Ophelia (softest and best robes ever!!) // Twine Interiors // Lily Jade // Bungalow Magazine // Peacock Alley // 
        and awesome donations from:



        مرسلة بواسطة في ليست هناك تعليقات:
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        الاشتراك في: الرسائل (Atom)