Thank you October..

In Which I Go To Berlin...

August was a hellish month. I was a massive ball of raging stress. Work was mental and my Thesis was due at the end of it.  I got through the month by promising myself that October would make up for it. All my hard work would be rewarded in October.. And now we are in November I can honestly say - October did good. 

First up was Adacamp in Berlin. Two brand new things in one weekend: I'd never been to Berlin before, or indeed to an open tech/culture unconference. My Other Half (Himself Indoors) is German and has frequented Berlin on a number of occasions so he came over with me to give a brief whistlestop tour of all the high points. The Brandenburg Gate  - Which I wanted to  see because of Ein, Zwei, Drei (one of my favourite Billy Wilder Films), The monument to the Russian dead from World War 2 & The Holocaust Memorial - I was overwhelmed by the experience of being lost in that maze. I could see Himself Indoors at several points but couldn't catch up to him and he couldn't hear me when I called out to him. Very effecting.

After that he deposited me back at my hostel (the rather wonderful Grand Hostel, Berlin). i had a snooze before heading to the Wikimedia offices for a pre-conference social and to meet up with my partner in crime @RestlessCurator.. Some chat was had but the event ended at 9pm as the conference started at the ungodly hour of 8 AM.. 


Things that I loved about the conference, and there were many, include the opening ceremony. The organisers, @Skud & @Noirinp, were hepful and welcoming. We got to know one and other by breaking into smaller groups and talking about ourselves. I'm not going to lie, I was very nervous about this before the event. Most of the women there were highly accomplished and had been involved with open technology and open culture for years. I was more than a little intimidated. But then I met people. And they were lovely. The best bit was rediscovering my love of online Fandom. i have been involved with organising Octocon & the Golden Blasters and Gaming and so on for the last few years, but before that.. back in the heady days of the interwebs I was a fan fiction writer. I had a geocities site and everything. And at Adacamp I met my people. The people I had lost when I disappeared of the web for about 6 months. It was wonderful. 


The discussion around feminism was excellent and I got to share my love for the words of Nikki Minaj (A woman who is seriously undervalued in modern feminism). It was brilliant to sit back a listen to other people speak honestly and openly about their problems with feminism and their issues with being openly feminist in the modern world. It was good to be to have a genuine discussion about these things without people talking over each other. 


It was a great weekend, and I'm sorry it's taken me this long to write about it.