No wake-up call needed

My day started at 0500, wide awake. “I must be in the Far East,” I thought. And I was. So I rose in time to see the sun appearing over the mountains in the New Territories and got a really good view of Sha Tin racecourse from the balcony of the apartment where I am staying in Fo Tan. My accommodation is courtesy of Graeme Smith, PhD, FEANS, editor of Journal of Clinical Nursing, who is based out here and lives with his wife Maggie, a mental health nurse. The other thing I saw at 0500 was that yesterday’s entry to this blog had been retweeted.

Sha Tin racecourse

I have been to only one major STTI event in the past, and that was the congress in Toronto in 2006. It was huge, and so is this. We Europeans are used to conferences on a much smaller scale and consider attendance of more than 500 virtually unmanageable.

As I get older and more travelled, I find it increasingly hard to get from the main entrance of a conference centre to where I want to be. The problem—and the privilege—is knowing so many people. I recognise faces better than I remember names but have learned it’s better to ask, “Where did we meet?” than to pretend I remember. So, I miss the start of sessions, and I miss coffee breaks, but connecting with people is the most important aspect of a conference. The sessions are often a framework around which to hang networking and catching up with colleagues.

I’ve struggled with jet lag today, so the seats at the Wiley stand in the exhibitors’ area have been a welcome and strategic haven. I even managed to sell one of my books. However, I’ve attended some sessions, having learned to leave plenty of time to move from one area of this vast Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Centre to another. I wonder, fancifully, if the Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga—just two of the famous acts to have performed here—managed to find their way around. I was surprised, given the large number of parallel sessions, how well attended they were.

I include another celebrity picture with Professor Smith; Yang Fang, PhD, RN, dean of nursing, Hangzhou Normal University, China; and Hester Klopper, PhD, RN, president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. This was taken yesterday but only made it to my inbox today.

Graeme Smith, Yang Fang, Hester Klopper, and Yours Truly.

Who will your intrepid reporter have his photograph taken with tomorrow? Watch this space.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.