PA Progressive Summit: Meeting New People

Last weekend I attended the PA Progressive Summit. This is the biggest progressive conference in the state of Pennsylvania. I have discussed my experiences at the conference on my activism blog. Relevant to this blog, I set a goal of introducing myself to one new person per session I attended.

It turned out to be somewhat impractical to introduce myself to someone in each session because some sessions I already knew people or time ran out and I needed to move on to something else. However, I did meet quite a few new people. I met some other youth activists or college activists, as well as some who are active in Philadelphia or the suburban areas around it. I even introduced myself to one person for no reason other than I kept seeing her in the Summit's Twitter feeds and I recognized her from her avatar. Even though I did not quite introduce myself to one person per session, I made my goal of making new connections who may prove useful as I look to get into activism.

I will be attending the Women's Way Women and Influence conference next weekend, so hopefully I will make some new contacts there as well.

Networking Challenge, PA Progressive Summit

I am attending the PA Progressive Summit this weekend, and I am giving myself a networking challenge. I've never liked networking because it requires talking to strangers — I have previously discussed my discomfort with introducing myself/talking to strangers. However, I'm realizing that networking is extremely important in most industries, certainly for the career I plan to have in Activism. With that in mind, I'm going to take this Summit as an opportunity to jump in, introduce myself, and make connections. I am going to try to introduce myself to at least one person per session I attend. I shall report back next week.

Mama's Pizza: Cheesesteaks

I have for many years believed I did not like cheese steaks. I don't actually know when or how I came to believe I didn't like them. There is really nothing in them I don't eat, but somehow I decided I did not like them. It could be because my mom tends to say "ugh" at the mere mention of them, or something else. Either way, I decided recently that I should try one again.

Last night, a friend and I went to Mama's Pizza on Belmont Ave for dinner. We shared a regular cheese steak with mushrooms. The cheese steak was huge. As pretty much everyone I know predicted, I only ate about half of my half, or about a quarter of the whole thing. I really liked it though, it was very good. I will definitely consider ordering them in the future.

Chili

Tonight my step-father made Chili for dinner, and my mother insisted I try it. I don't like trying new things on other people's terms, but I tried it anyway. I added shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream to it first. Here's what it looked like (before toppings):

Chili, before toppings

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will say that the Chili was not offensive, it was not terrible, but it wasn't really my thing. I really don't do spicy food, and even though it was "not particularly spicy" it was still too spicy for me. It seemed that while it wasn't too spicy at first, the more I ate, the more it bothered me. Going forward, at least I can say with certainty that I don't like it.