I've been a member of my school's AIChE chapter for quite a while now, and I've finally attended my first (and last) National Student Conference. I was pretty excited about it from the moment I registered.. after all, I was heading to the home of Country Music! One thing that did make me laugh though (at least before the trip) was the name of the resort where the conference was happening - the Gaylord Opryland. A hilariously odd name I must say. So it was a group of 10 traveling from IIT (evenly distributed gender-wise), and after a short flight we were in Nashville. From there, we were chauffeured to our resort.... on a limo! If that wasn't enough to put me over the moon, the resort was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!
It was like a city within the resort. The attention to detail was impeccable. After going 'gaga' over the interiors for a while, our stomachs finally demanded some food, so we had dinner at a sports bar within the resort.
Come Saturday, and we were up and rolling early (well 10am is early for people like me.. heh). The whole afternoon was filled with talks by industry experts on various topics. I attended a few of them, but I wasn't all that enlightened by any of them. They certainly seemed quite basic - perhaps I'd be more intrigued had I been a freshman or sophomore. I did spend a significant part of the afternoon snappin' away frenetically around the resort. Heh.
Anyway, come dusk and we were off to downtown Nashville for the Bash at the Wildhorse Saloon. As we walked in we were greeted by a group of girls whom I immediately recognized as Malaysians! After much deliberation (put Wai Kit and myself together and you expect quite a bit of it - especially when it comes to socializing), we finally went over to the group and greeted them as fellow Malaysians. I spent the rest of the night watching line-dancing, and a dance-off competition. Well despite the diverse crowd of students from various US universities, they generally stuck to their own group.. which made my attempts to socialize all the more difficult.. Ah heck, who am I kidding? I'm just not a natural socialite. Anyway, I did have my camera to keep me company for the night. Lol.
Once the event ended, Wai Kit and I walked out of the Wildhorse Saloon - to this!
I still have no idea what was going on (I still don't think it was a flash mob as Wai Kit had assumed), and after giving up on figuring it out we took a stroll down the street to the City Hall.
A short bus trip and we were back at the Gaylord - expecting to do something fun for the night. Well it was certainly not to be - and after 2 friggin' hours of deliberation (and watching someone hang on the phone), I finally decided to go to bed. Sunday morning began with a Speed-Networking Brunch, where I met quite a few students from across the country. We had a inter-table trivia competition and my group did fairly well - still don't know if we won though since I didn't attend the long-and-boring awards ceremony. Instead Wai Kit & I headed to Opry Mills - for glow-in-the-dark mini golf! Well it was my first time playing mini-golf, let alone in the dark and I enjoyed it. Kinda wish we could play more but we had to rush back for the Graduate School & Sponsors Fair - which really was of no use.
Lunch, a limo ride and a short flight later and we were back in Chicago. It was a short trip (well rather than a conference I'd like to look at it as a weekend getaway.. lol), but it's definitely one that goes down memory lane..
Cuídate!
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