Whew, pulled that off

About a year ago, I suggested a one-day "mini-festival" with a local teacher to our International folk dance group. They promptly put me in charge. Yikes! Fortunately the previous festival chair was willing to walk me through the process.

The festival was this past Saturday. Everyone who had committed to do something for the festival showed up and did it. People came from two and three hours' drive (or train ride) away, and lots of them said they had a great time. Whew!

I didn't realize how much I was worrying about the festival until it was over. Reminds me of no longer owning a car. That first month, I kept tripping over worries I could discard, from registration to maintenance tasks to insurance to possible abrupt malfunctions.

In the festival's case, I can stop worrying about no one attending, or about having to cover for some unexpected lack or surprising event, or being otherwise humiliated in front of the Balkan folk dance community. It went fine. I even, coincidentally, had an extra belt to lend one person and extra shoes to lend someone else.

For me, the hard part of creating isn't having ideas. The hard part of creating (events, articles, bowls, meals for others) is walking face-first into the unknown, taking the risk of making it concrete my own way.

I am a technical woman

This video from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology made me cry and cry. I feel so mismatched to the world so much of the time, puzzled, lost, adrift. I hadn't realized that being a technical woman was part of that.

Perhaps it still stings not to have found a home in the technical world. Perhaps I can still find a part-time technical job which will feed this part of me (and financially feed all of me). The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is in Portland this Fall. I'm thinking about attending. I like the diversity in their poster, too.

My only complaint about the video is that almost all the women smile intensely as they speak. Their joy is delightful, and also seems a little placating. "See, we're technical, and we're still nice. Don't feel threatened."