Ithaca again....Conference

 Personality Disorders Conference
Ithaca, NY
May 11-12th

Ironically and totally by coincidence I was back in Ithaca this week for a conference. Had I known...I may have stayed at the campground a few more days. Next time I guess. BUT here I was again. Heading back to Ithaca!

The conference started at 9. We left a 7:20...We, being Renee, Annemarie and myself arrived at the conference and signed in by 9:05. We were late, I was told I needed to write down my arrival time for my CASAC hours. I'll admit I was a little annoyed. They hadn't even started yet. Are they planning on giving me 15.55 hours instead of the full 16. Really? We made it anyways and it was NOT a smooth ride. GPS took us some back way through Cornell college which was congested and a big mess. It slowed us down at least 15 minutes.
Parking was also a little tricky and expensive. $3- per hour. WOW!

There were 6 of us in total from my office at the conference; Me, Renee, Becky, Annemarie, Erin & Jill.
The conference was on Personality Disorders. The morning was spent learning about CBT, DBT and schema therapy.
Then we were off for lunch. We decided to walk towards the commons. I stopped some poor women on the street for a recommendation. She recommended Waffle Frolic.





Everything you can imagine and a waffle....WOW!!!!

Erin had Eggs/beacon waffle.                    Becky had vegetarian chili and cheese waffle.






 Jill had some omelet waffle and I had a Raspberry cheesecake waffle.



Renee had strawberry and whipped cream waffle and Annemarie, the only one who broke the waffle theme had toasted cheese and tomato soup.

IT WAS YUMMY!!!! Great choice. Thank you stranger on the street! Now to hit the shops before our lunch break ends. So much for my diet....
After lunch we wandered the Ithaca Commons area. I really have/had little awareness of the city other then the waterfalls and that there is one of the well known college campus's there (Cornell), but had no idea about this lovey area downtown. Everything in Ithaca is reflective of my definition of a modern hippie. Art, flowers, music, free range meats or vegetarian, Birkenstocks, and tye dye, Love and peace.  

It is truly a quaint city with a vibe of friendliness everywhere, I grabbed a few art shots with my cell phone along the commons and before we headed into a shop offering FREE buttons.

I also spied this sign,,,,FREE HUGS!!! This pretty much sums up Ithaca,

Annemarie and I were the only two in our group of 6 who took advantage of making our free buttons.

I even scored myself a dancing bears sticker to adhere to my car...very similar to the one I had nearly  30 years ago on the window of my first ride.

Lunch break ended way to soon.....Then it was back to what we had come her for....a learning experience.
The conference was held in the Tompkins County Public library and this library was simply amazing. I loved all the activities and area things to do that lined the public bulletin board. This is certainly a city where you would not get board.
The afternoon education included defining the DSM identifying characteristics of Personality disorders. I felt I learned a tons. I also purchased a book on Personality Disorders.
It is course work like this that makes me miss my work in the clinical setting. After day 1 I was pumped to flood myself with everything I could learn on the subject.
I had secretly hoped we would get out of class early so I could convince my carpool buddies to find a state park or gorge to hike before we headed home. We actually worked all the way up to the 5pm end time and we were all to pooped to do anything but GET HOME. In hind sight we wished we had made arrangements to stay in the area overnight as the drive although in miles is not to bad, in actual travel time took us nearly two hours with traffic and driving through small towns with stops and go's.
We stopped at this A&W for one last meal and planned to leave 1/2 early the next day as to prevent being late.

The next day, Renee, Annemarie and I left as discussed 1/2 hour earlier then the day before. We still made it just at the 9am start time....WOW!!! Having realized yesterday that we needed to avoid taking fake Suri's suggested route. (I do not have an iphone so my female navigator has been named Fake Suri), I thought for sure we would arrive much earlier,
However we found leaving earlier only seemed to increase the traffic and we drove smack dab into an accident on Route 13, which is the main route into Ithaca. We sat in traffic for nearly 20 minutes which negated our 1/2 early leave time....WOW!!! Once we passed the accident, the it was a mad dash to navigate the city streets at morning rush hour. In addition to all the one way roads we were delayed by a fire truck forcing us to pull over....I thought we would never get there.
We arrived just at 9 in the parking garage I accidentally left the parking validation slip upside down on my dash...I got a ticket later...MAN.

Day 2 morning was dedicated to Borderline Personality disorder. Which, as I learned the criteria, have officially diagnosed myself as having (at least at one point in my life,).
Then it  was lunch break......I asked some of the others at the conference for a suggestion today and it was suggested that we go to The Ithaca Ale house.

 Another yummy choice. Their specialty is burgers and I can say...YUM YUM YUM.
This meal took a little longer then yesterday, so we had no time to enjoy the store or outdoor art...I did catch a few sights as we rushed back to the conference.

 Pictured below is the commons area.

The afternoon felt slow...especially after that big meal. As interesting as I thought the subject matter was...I found myself watching the clock and sending evil death stares at those in my class who kept asking questions....I truly wanted to sneak off to a park or stroll the college campus.....We finally ended at 4:35 just five minutes after the promised early ending of 4:30.
No stops on the way home except for Annemarie to pick up Dougs Fish fry for her parents....and then we were home,
WOW!!!! I am so glad that my employer offers us these educational days...but I often feel more exhausted then if I worked my normal shift. With that being said however...I can't wait for the next one. Nothing currently scheduled but that's ok. Apparently there is a Personality conference cruise through Alaska coming up. I wonder if we can get approval for that educational training?  I am guessing not...but hey..talk about a great time, TTFN