jhameia | quick rundown of ICFA

TUESDAY!

Mary got me to the airport for my 9pm flight. I had the queerest filght attendant who peppered his safety procedures speech with the SNARKIEST lines EVER, great ones like:
"Up front is Quentin, and he loves me. The guy in the middle is ???, he loves me just a bit more. I'm Mike and I'm fabulous."
"Make sure you secure your own mask first before helping children, like those people up front who won't stop talking."
"If we decide to turn this flight into a carnival cruise, our aircraft IS equipped with floatation devices."
"Thank you to everyone who actually paid attention! Free drinks."

WEDNESDAY:

We touched down an HOUR EARLY. And EVERYBODY CHEERED. Except ME. Because it was 3am and I had no hotel room. They were booked full that night too. So I slept in the lobby, which had very comfortable couches!! But.... it was very bright, and also, goddamn, country music is impossible to sleep with.

At some reasonable time I sat down to see if I could make sense of my dissertation, and Bradford, one of the Old Guard who's generally been super nice to me, came up and asked if I had breakfast yet. He let me dump my stuff in his room, and we went to Denny's. We then checked out the ARC table where I proceeded to snag a bunch of things. Then I, uh, dumped my stuff onto Bradford's while I went to the airport to get

jolantru.

I COMPLETELY FORGOT CUSTOMS WAS A THING /o\ She didn't get out for a whole HOUR??? HOUR AND A HALF??? IDK ANYMORE. But she got in safe and sound! I got us a shuttle and hustled us back to the hotel, and I proceeded to herd her around to get her junk and whatnot.

SO MANY PEOPLE. It's all a blur now. I know I went to a reading of John Chu's, which also had Fran Wilde (who remembered me!) and James Kelly (who is a great reader).

I managed to commandeer Ted Chiang into having dinner with me, too, which was pretty awesome. Ended up with Ted, Fran, Bradford, and Joyce, PLUS Alyssa Wong and Isabel Yap! And Seth Dickinson! Joyce took a picture which hilariously managed to exclude all the white people at the table.

Emily Jiang also came in that evening, just for the night, and had to leave the next day for an Illinois conference. (She would be back Saturday, haha). She also came in late that night too; Joyce and I had turned in.

THURSDAY:

Had breakfast with Emily, Joyce, and John Chu, somehow. Unrelated Asians breakfast! I had my reading with Nisi and Sam Miller, which went pretty well, I think. I.... don't remember what I did for lunch. But I know at some point I disappeared to my room to WORK. I was also dressed very nice (mint-green dress, with matching lipstick), so I had to change because it was putting me off the mood to WORK! I had to shed it all and dress in a relatively ratty outfit.

Emily was leaving and had to pack! Tempest came in! I told Tempest she had to come upstairs because Emily was leaving! So Tempest did! It was awesome! We hung out muchly! I love Tempest!

Afterward, I just stayed in and continued writing because! Almost done! And then I was done! Chapter 2! Yaaaaayyyyyyyyy!!!! Just in time to send it to my adviser as I promised her I would! Muahahah!

So I went downstairs and, found Mary Anne Mohanraj (replacing Emily as the third roomie), and caroused the rest of the night, which entails, it seems, finding all the Asians possible.

FRIDAY:

Joyce had a reading in the morning, and I don't remember what we did for breakfast. I think I went to the cafe with Mary Anne and Joyce had had plans with someone else. Joyce's reading was good, although technical difficulties abounded. NEVER TRUST ELECTRONIC DEVICES!!! ALWAYS PRINT!!

We took advantage of the free lunch and scholar speech, and got more free books, as once does at these things. Most of the afternoon was spent with Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner, who wanted to get to know Joyce better, and I just hung out with them simply because I could.

I feel at this point I went swimming. I must have because I remember running into Nisi in the hallway in my swimsuit and she was like "we're leaving for dinner IN TEN MINUTES" so I skedaddled upstairs, woke Joyce up, showered, and went back down.

Dinner was a POC thing with Nisi, Tempest, Joyce, Lisa, Usman, Lynette, and some other people I forget now at TGI Friday's. We were on the patio, so we could watch some other ICFA people pass, and wave and yell at them (such as at Grace Dillon, who I don't think is EVER unhappy to see someone). Cecilia Tan came to join us! Tempest and I shared baked potatoes! Lisa and I shared a cheesecake! We talked about problematic people!

I socialized that night. Joyce turned in early, because she had a morning panel (at 8.30, HAUGH) but I know I pulled a Very Long Night out. I don't remember what this entails. I do recall it involved a writer of mine from my steampunk Shakespeare anthology!!

SATURDAY:

I was gonna wake up early and get to breakfast with Joyce but she was so anxious she was up and breakfasted and packed and worrying so I slept in while she went downstairs to her panel.

Then I got her to the airport, saw her all the way to security. Drifted around talking to people.

Dinner with Jennifer Stevenson and Madeleine Robbins, which was at a good Indian restaurant (and I once again did not pay for dinner). Emily came back! And was the third roomie again XD

Another Very Long Night. It was also slightly rainy, and I most starkly remember Amal singing "Right Hand Man" from Hamilton (while I provided chorus vocals). I also remember joining Lisa, Emily and Andrea Lam in one of those couch areas with a tarp and tried to pull curtains together so it would stop raining on me. I was kind of tired by that time so I looked kind of silly doing it. At some point I was also sent to fetch Ted so Lisa and Emily could ask him a question about visiting Clarion (his face while trying to process that I walked all the way to the other side of the pool area just for this was hilarious, because there was a lot of "..... whut? What? WHAT" and "sounds fake but ok" because it sounds very innocuous but is probably not? IDK hahahaha).

At some point this all ended with me, Mari Ness, Emily, Cecilia, Holly Black (who was very nice; I sort of figured it was her but no one introduced us so Emily was like ".... you don't know Holly Black??? She was our GOH??" and I'm like "uhm" because I didn't actually pay attention to any of the GOHs??? I'm a terrible conference attendee) and Shaun Duke hanging in the lobby and very, very, very slowly going to bed.

SUNDAY:

Check out day! Lazing around day! Hanging around in the lobby talking to random folks day! I also attended a wedding. I didn't have the faintest idea who these people were, only that they met at ICFA and are ICFA people and long-time fandom people, but I heard there was free cake, plus I love weddings! And it was a wonderful wedding! I cried. Especially when they included the children into the ceremony. It was delightsome. I ate way too much cake.

I had lunch with Mari and Bradford and then went around saying goodbye to people. Since my flight was at 5.20, I caught the 3.30 shuttle. But before that, I went to hang by the pool, stick my feet in, with Andrea. The two of us went to the airport together with a third ICFA person, Sarah Mack (Clarion grad, Sam's cohort, I believe). We were going to similar gates, so Sarah and I hung out waiting for Andrea to get through security and then headed out together, and sat together, continuing our ICFA until it was time to go to our own gates.

I couldn't grab anybody to take me home, so I had to take a shuttle.

Monday:

I went to work on campus with Mary! I started reading Stormdancer, which is pretty fucking horrible, but a really great example of what I'm talking about in my dissertation. Mary and I went to a nursery to get some plants and fertilizer, which was fun!

Tuesday:

Morning work with Mary. Then in the evening, we went to Little Sheep Hot Pot with Lindsay and Soon Young! We took the All-You-Can-Eat option which, all told, was probably not the best idea, because holy smegballs. Overeating is easy at hotpot. Then we went to 99 Ranch, and then to H-Mart (Korean mart in Diamond Bar).

Wednesday:

I stayed home to keep plugging through Stormdancer, and managed to get to the halfway point, at which point Lindsay and Soon Young came by and we went to Ontario Mills Mall together to shop. I got some really cute shorts and a really nice skirt, and some much-needed underwear.

I finished reading Stormdancer too, after getting home. It is decently constructed, I suppose, but still, terrible worldbuilding. It doesn't even have the subtlety of the racism in Bacigalupi's Windup Girl.

Which brings us to Today!

Goodness knows what I did today. Uhm. I cleaned house. Napped. Went to campus and wrote a report, made a gradesheet, fixed some citation issues, signed a contract. Dr. R also tells me that the weekend of my SEAS conference is exam free (the mid-term will be on the 18th instead of the 22nd) which means I can totally take Mariam's offer to ride up to Berkeley with her and Henk!

Tomorrow I leave for AnomalyCon. Maurisa has agreed to get me to the train station. ALSO she's driving back from the Bay Area on Sunday night so she said she'd swing by LAX and get me then. Then on Monday, school stars. WHAT IS MY LIIIIIIIIFE.