The joys of moving

In our field, we move a lot. It's considered getting a well-rounded experience when you move to different regions, work at different institutions. Yes, there's some people who stay in the same region - some even at the same institution - but many of us, especially as new professionals, move around.

I never minded much. I like traveling - so moving to a new region is kind of exciting. :) But it has its downsides, on a personal level it makes it hard to stay in touch with friends or build really close friendships, there's also a lot of random crap you have to take care of every time (like getting a new driver's license, etc.)... but even on a professional level, it can have its drawbacks.

I'm preparing an RHA delegation for our upcoming state conference. But my RHA is relatively new; my NCC is new; they didn't go to a conference last year. And I've never been to a state conference here - I've never even been in a region that has state conferences. So while I have a lot of RHA experience, I don't really know what to expect here. Is there a roll call? A banner competition? How much do schools get into this conference? How much do they dress up for the banquet? Who knows!?! I've tried to get my NCC to connect with the NCC from our partner school - but I'm not sure she's followed through on that yet. I've e-mailed the conference staff with a few questions but I know they have a lot of other things going on right now, so I don't want to bug them.

I mean, we'll figure it out - but it's just so much harder when you don't know the region. In grad school, I helped a really small RHA grow and took them to their first conferences. But that was in my home region - that's where I knew what to expect and what to do to prepare them - ha, we even managed to win the banner competition at our very first conference.

Yeah, moving can definitely make things harder. And let's not even get me started on the joys of packing and unpacking....