Take Off and Arriving

Well two planes and a bus later and I have finally arrived in Indianapolis. Honestly it wasn't that bad. I ended up sleeping a bit on the plane from Boston to Charlotte and I made it in plenty of time to catch my connecting flight from Charlotte to Indianapolis. Not much to report about the flight as my neighbors on the first one were both kind of grouchy but quiet and my neighbors on the second one were asleep.

One of the really cool things about my flight from Charlotte to Indianapolis was the fact that a lot of the people on the plane, men and women, were coming to the same conference as me. They all had posters, laptops with presentations, or even STTI gear (sweatshirts and t-shirts and stuff). I've never been in such close quarters with so many nurses at one time. I was confident that if someone started to die on the plane I could probably stay in my seat and one of the several other nurses on board the flight would jump into action.

Again on the bus from the airport to the hotel I was surrounded by nurses. One who was running for a leadership position, one who was a professor in Georgia, another who directed a hospice agency in North Carolina, and still another who was a brand new graduate in an ER in Atlanta. One of the coolest experiences so far is seeing just how many different nurses, from different fields and experience levels are here. The best part about the whole thing though is there is absolutely no sense of the lateral violence that you often hear about with nurses, its actually quite the contrary. Everyone is so nice and genuinely interested in what you do when you are not upending your life and heading to Indiana to meet some of the nursing leaders from around the globe.

I thought I was going to be really intimidated while I was sitting on the plane, but as soon as I started talking to other nurses on the bus all of that went away. Everyone here brings their own special set of skills and we all have something offer to the collective group.

I guess I should get going though because the opening plenary is about to start and I am sitting here drinking a Starbucks Iced Coffee and blogging instead of taking my seat and being social. I will put together another post later tonight about registration and my first few hours exploring the convention center. I’m also going to try and put together a mini schedule link so everyone knows what sessions I will be attending and when in case there is anyone out there interested in sharing some ideas. Well now I’m really running late so….Bye for now!!