Saturday, March 21, 2009

small victory

i had a last minute invitation to attend the metropolis conference held in calgary this weekend and after having some last minute (and gorgeous!) cards made up, i hiked over to the lovely hyatt hotel and participated in discussions on human trafficking in canada and internationally. and i learned a lot.

but more importantly, in a ballroom (that admittedly was not full), i got up and made a comment and asked 2 questions to one of the panelists after the formal presentations were completed. i was rather proud of myself because i often think i have something to say but just keep quiet out of shyness and anxiety, but this time i didn't and although i wasn't as articulate as i would have liked to have been, i did get my point across and made a plug for my own experience in the topic of the panel. i am not sure that my comment was well received because it was directed towards academics who spend their careers trying to uncover new information, but i thought it needed to be said, so i did.

and i did it in stilettos.

if you are wondering, my comment was: when dealing with human trafficking, academics, programmers, and donors alike continually make calls for more numbers, more statistics, and more evidence and yet there are some out there that seem to be disregarded constantly. and it will never be possible to properly quantify an illegal and covert activity where the victims rarely surface or identify themselves as such. and if you get caught up on the fact that we do not have numbers, we will all be paralysed from taking action.

i would like to relate this back to my goals (as i knock 'em down one after another). i think this is a small victory for goal 3 - reduce my level of anxiety.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

1) My friend/colleague Holly was at Metropolis the week(end).

2) I have recently started making a point of asking a question when I attend conferences/panels/talks etc. to improve my question asking skills.

I recently asked a question to a former national leader of another country, and while I definitely could have been more articulate, it was a rather intelligent question and it is a very good feeling to up in front of a room full of people and have a panel experts listen and answer your question.

kristen said...

asking questions in situations like that scares me. i start to sweat and i wonder if i look as flushed and red as i feel...

Anonymous said...

Proud of you!! You keep growing and that's always a good thing.

La Cabeza Grande said...

You seem to have grabbed 28 by the horns! Go, Lu!