Well, here I go again. You probably don’t even really care much about all my travel itineraries, but I find that it satisfies myself to spend the time writing them up anyways. (If it turns out that you actually like my travel itineraries, let me know in the comments.) However, this week will be the California State PTA Convention again, my fourth one in a row. The difference about this year’s (other than the fact that it’s in Long Beach) is that as a student representative on the State PTA Board of Managers, I now get to be a part of running the thing, which therefore makes me more committed during the Convention and means that I have to show up two days earlier. Want to see what I mean? Here we go…

I will be departing on Tuesday morning, April 29th. (That’s right, I said Tuesday, even though the Convention itself doesn’t start until Thursday! Wow!) I will be on Virgin America flight 849, departing San Francisco at 9:35 AM and arriving in Los Angeles at 11:00 AM. Hopefully they won’t have the same problems they did the last time I used them, back in October. Once in Los Angeles, I’ll be catching Super Shuttle over to the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach, hopefully in time for a Communications Commission meeting starting at 12:00 PM. (And I need to find time somewhere in there to get lunch, too! Ooh boy…) The meeting will end at about 3:00, after which I have to attend a Conveners, Host/Hostess & Floor Attendants Training at 3:30-5:00 PM. I’m a convener for a Communications Commission workshop (see below), so it looks like I have to get trained. Following that will be a Board of Managers Dinner at 5:30-7:00 PM, after which I will be free for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday will be a relatively uneventful day. There will be a breakfast starting at 7:30 AM, followed by the Board of Managers Meeting (9:00-11:30 AM), and then an hour-long lunch along with the Local Convention Committee. After that, we have a Convention Instructions session (12:30-2:00 PM), and then we get to do the wonderful, amazing, mind-blowingly awesome project of Tote Bag Stuffing! That’s right, with thousands of delegates coming to Convention, each one of them gets a tote bag stuffed with goodies, so all of us board members get to work on stuffing them up. Whenever we all finish stuffing all of the totes, we get to go have dinner on our own and the rest of the night free to ourselves.

Then comes Thursday, and thus, the actual start of Convention. Our breakfast convenience meal (expect to see those words “convenience meal” show up a couple of times in this post–it’s essentially a buffet meal with boxes available for those Board of Managers who need to grab food and get to their assignment quickly) starts as early as 6 AM, but this will be the one day when I don’t have to get started super-early. I’ll probably take advantage of this golden gift of a few hours free time to browse the PTA Store and grab some things. The Student Orientation starts at 10:00 AM (three hours earlier than it has been before, hope that works out all right), which is pretty much a three hour long orientation that both myself and the other student rep get to run to welcome the students to Convention and to do some getting to know each other things. We also have one or two speakers dropping by. After that ends at 1 PM, I have to run myself over to the Resolutions Hearing, also starting at 1 PM. Throughout Convention, I’m getting to be an honorary member of the Resolutions Committee, meaning that I’ll get to use my laptop to show all of the resolutions on a big screen, and show off anyone’s intents to amend on the screen. I’ll be there from 1 PM-2:45 PM (I’ll have to figure out some time to grab my convenience lunch that day), after which point I’ll be heading into the First General Meeting to sit in the Students section with the other students. This meeting will include greetings from Pam Brady (State PTA President), Jan Domene (National PTA President), and Jack O’Connell (California State Superintendent), as well as a “Flunk the Budget” mini-rally. (The meeting is scheduled to end by 6 PM.) After that, State PTA will be hosting a “Celebrate PTA!” dinner event at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, starting at 7 PM and lasting until all hours. (No, I’m kidding, it’ll be over by 11 PM, and I’ll probably be ready to crash before then.) Yes, Thursday will likely go down as the longest day of my stay in Long Beach.

Friday will start bright and early again with the convenience breakfast at 6 AM, and then I’m over to the Resolutions Hearing at 7 AM to do my thing. Actually, I’m spending the whole morning with Resolutions, because once the Resolutions Hearing is done at 7 AM-8 AM, the first workshop that I have to be at is a workshop called “Resolutions 2008: Talk to the Makers”–essentially an extended Resolutions Hearing! I’ll probably get to do the same thing at that workshop. After all that, we have our Second General Meeting at 10:30 AM, which will be featuring Dr. David Long, California Secretary of Education, along with the various business of the organization. That meeting will end at 12:30 PM, at which point I’ll have an opportunity to grab my convenience lunch, before I get to go back to where? Why, a 1 PM Resolutions Table Talk! (Don’t get the wrong idea: I actually like resolutions, although I pretty much got assigned to these places by the powers that be. After this convention, I might get tired of them, I might not. We’ll have to wait and see.) After that will be the next Convention Workshop session. This one will be interesting, because this will be the workshop that I’m convening, one called Websites and Electronic Communications For Your PTA. Sound like an appropriate workshop for me to present? Well, we’ve got other people to present it. Still, I get to be the convener, which essentially means that I’m responsible for making sure that the workshop is a success. Yet at the same time, I’m a presenter at a Student Involvement Workshop taking during the exact same time slot, so I’m going to be somehow running back and forth between the two workshops during the 2:00-3:30 PM timeslot. Whatever, I’ll make it work somehow. After that workshop is over, the Third General Meeting will be from 4 PM-6:30 PM. This general meeting will be special in that the California State PTA is inviting local students to come to this meeting for free to hear from Keynote Speaker Craig Scott, who survived the shootings at Columbine High School and now speaks to groups about his experiences. Both myself and the other student representative will be reading an Inspiration during the meeting in front of the thousands of delegates (no pressure, no pressure). After the meeting, we’ll have a quick chance to grab a boxed dinner convenience meal, and then all the Board of Managers are going to be at a Board of Managers Meet & Greet. Well, almost all of the Board of Managers. The two of us student reps will be having a mini-student orientation with the students who came to hear Craig Scott to welcome them, tell them a bit about what we do on the State PTA, answer questions, etc. Afterwards, we’ll get our dinner and then go over to the second half of the Meet & Greet so that we can be met and greeted appropriately. All that ends at about 8 PM, at which point we get the rest of the night off.

Now, Saturday is going to be somewhat strange because I’m going to be breaking away from Convention activities for the morning. You see, right now is around the time for taking SAT Subject Tests (shorter subject-specific tests made by the same folks who do the SAT), because right now is around the end of the courses, including AP preparation, etc. As such, it’s recommended that SAT Subject Tests be taken around May or June. Well, the two dates available for taking SAT Subject Tests, therefore, are May 3 or June 7. Well, May 3 is the Saturday that I’m in Long Beach, but June 7, I’m going to be in China, which is flat-out not going to work. And so I’m going to be taking the SAT Subject Tests on Saturday, May 3rd. In Long Beach.

I’ll be grabbing a breakfast convenience meal promptly at 6 AM, again, and then catching a Long Beach bus at 6:30 AM, leaving from the Convention Center to Woodrow Wilson High School, arriving there at about 6:51 AM. (I’m supposed to report there by 7:15 AM for some strange reason.) Once I’m there, I’ll be taking the SAT Subject Tests in U.S. History and Mathematics Level 2 (the same as my AP tests the following week–U.S. History and Calculus BC), and once I’m done (likely around 10 or 10:30ish), I’ll catch the bus back to the Convention Center. I should get there in time for the middle-to-end of the Fourth General Meeting, after which will be the convenience lunch and the Resolutions Table Talk (just like yesterday). Then, for the last workshop of convention (again, 2:00-3:30 PM), I’ll be one of the co-presenters at another student involvement workshop. Luckily, however, I’m not a convener for this one, so all I pretty much will have to do is follow orders. Then we’ll have our Fifth General Meeting (4:00-6:30 PM again), and after that I’ll be at our 17th District dinner. (At last, a chance to not do anything for State PTA and actually get to sit with the people from my own area!!!) Our dinner that evening will be at the Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurant on Pine Street in Long Beach, and after that, the evening is mine again.

Sunday will be the final day of this six-day trek in Long Beach, but I should get to have a little more time in the morning. Again, I’ll be grabbing the convenience breakfast, but this time the Resolutions Hearing doesn’t start until 7:30 AM. Our Sixth (and last) General Meeting starts at 9 AM and goes through to 12 PM. Among other things to close out Convention, the California Teacher of the Year will be presenting. In addition, Erin Gruwell will be the Keynote Speaker, and this meeting will be Celebrating Teachers. Similar to Friday’s General Meeting, they will be inviting local teachers to come for free to hear Erin Gruwell speak. Once that meeting ends, Convention is over, and it will be time to pack up and go home. I’ll be grabbing Super Shuttle again to LAX, and taking Virgin America flight 852, departing LAX at 3:35 PM and arriving at SFO at 4:55 PM.

In the midst of this trip, I’ll definitely have my plate full. Any time that I don’t spend juggling PTA stuff will be spent studying for AP exams. I’ve got an AP Calculus BC exam on Wednesday, May 7th and an AP U.S. History exam on Friday, May 9th, and I’ve got study books and materials that I will be taking in my best effort to fulfill a multi-day study plan that I have prepared over the four days of school that I’m missing. I will definitely be a busy bee while at Convention, no doubt about it.

Anyway, that’s my chaotic exciting itinerary for Convention this week! After that’s all over and AP exams are done, I’ll hopefully be able to get back to blogging full time again!

Tags: California State PTA, Convention, events, itinerary, Long Beach, meetings, PTA, SAT, Subject Tests, trip, workshops