The hardest thing is to write up the con you help run. The SFeraKon Saturday this year was not a good day for me. I had some work I had to and I got up reasonably early to do it. I felt a small headache but paid it no mind and then suddenly, about half an hour before I was due to leave for the con, I realized that the small pain pushing through my forhead had somehow ballooned into a full fledged migraine, complete with sever light sensitivity and vomiting.
Luckily, there are drugs and after a 20 min nap I learned a lot about how far I can stretch. A lot further than I ever figured possible. (And was extremely grateful to my past self for taking that makeup class last summer. That really helped!)
The pain either subsided or I got better at ignoring it, although I did go through the day seeing a white cloud at the edge of my vision. Despite everything – a couple of mishaps that could not be helped, such as the GUFF & TAFF auction being cancelled due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that both crews from the national TV came to SFeraKon and get interviews at the same time (and within the same one hour timeframe!) – I managed to have fun.
And even cosplay the organizer’s Dune cosplay which consisted of wearing blue lenses. (I also learned – again – that I suck at math and budget making is best left to someone whom numbers make inordinately happy!)
I was perpetually late too, but SFeraKon and its lovely Bulletin managed to take it in stride, and make fun of me: now that I’ve bagged an ESFS Award, I apparently expect everyone to know my name (I forgot to introduce myself at a panel. that I was also late for.) I must admit, I might have felt hurt had no jokes been aimed at me at all.
Finally this year we managed to get the “5 stories you simply must read” panel going. The idea for it – 5 people bring a favourite story and tell the audience why – was born at SFeraKon some years ago when another panel (no idea which one, I only remember myself and Milena Benini being there) when it turned out the majority of the audience had never heard of, let alone read, Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.
It took us a while to get this panel going since SFera members’ programming ideas get “postponed” in favour of outside programming. Yes, SFeraKon has grown and we have to say no to about 20% of offered programming items due to time constraints. Our own ones get the axe first. But this one survived and will continue to live.
After this, I went to tape the Kate Elliott lecturee, Narrative Structure and Expectation. It was awesome, although work made me leave a couple of times. I have no memory why – trying to see about the auction I guess – I was late for my next panel as well, but only ever so slightly.
The Terry Pratchett After LIFE included Milena Benini, Petra Bulic, Tatjana Jambrisak, Marko Štengl and myself, recounting who and what Sir Terry Pratchett and his writing were to us. It did get a bit teary and the mystery of him never having been to SFeraKon, despite the fact that he was invited and had accepted, was solved.
Missed the SFERA and SFERICE Awards as I had to an emergency run for GoH food, the ordered items having failed to arrive. By the time I got back there was no more room for me in the place where the ceremony was held (Jeeez and when did this happen?! We used to have to make people go in!) Of course, the food that had failed to arrive previously also turned up.
Immediately after the Award ceremony (you can see now why I had that migraine, right?) I was part of another panel, 50 years of the desert planet: Dune and why we love it. Writer and translator Marko Fancovic and comic book aficionado Vladimir Šagadin made the discussion of Dune so different than I had pictured it I ended up being surprised. Yes, that’s not actually visible in the photo but then again, the panel started at 10 pm. What ever happened after it, I have no memory of. 🙂
