N.A.C.A.

For work, I had to take some students down to Nashville's Opryland Resort & Convention Center to attend the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA) National Conference. Unfortunately, it happened to fall on February 14th - 17th. Yep, I had to work on Saturday - Valentines Day - and Sunday. Thankfully, my boss gave me some comp time off earlier that week, but still...no fun working on the weekends.

The conference was not a painful one to attend - it actually was pretty fun. I had some professional development sessions mixed in, which most of them were very helpful on giving me pointers on how to improve my job, but most of the time was spent going to showcases where comedians, musicians, actors and dancers would perform with hopes of us booking them at our schools. I got to see some amazing comedians and a band or two that were actually pretty good. Most of the talent is more affordable for college budgets so we only saw a few bands that already had a name for themselves - our favorite being the Zak Brown Band. I really enjoyed many of the comedians, especially the ones that had clean routines and were still hilarious. The funniest ones were actually women, mainly from the NBC Diversity Tour (Michelle Buteau, Tracey Ashley, Erin Jackson, Kristin Key, etc).

Overall, it was very productive for me to attend, but about a day too long. It was a tiring schedule, like most conferences. Hopefully, I can implement some of the things I learned from this experience into my position and programming board back at APSU. Wish me luck!